This week’s episode of Rebels was a pretty lighthearted bottle episode mostly about Zeb
and AP-5.
I think some fans will consider it to be another filler episode, and I can see why, but I would
one hundred percent argue against that.
And even if it was, it was a far better episode than the Wynkahthu Job or Iron Squadron.
The episode starts with an homage to the Empire Strikes Back as a star destroyer sends out
probe droids in search of the Rebel base.
The shots, the music, and some of the lines are lifted from the movie, like a rebel mentioning
possible meteor activity, or Agent Kallus saying they can’t go chasing after every
little lead.
Of course he’s just making up an excuse to not find the Rebel base.
This time the Empire’s recon droids are called Infiltrators, not the same probe droids
we’re familiar with.
Meanwhile, Zeb is left in charge of the base while the rest of the crew go on a training
exercise.
Wedge and Hobbie are also going, and they’re definitely in A-Wing pilot gear, which lines
up with Wedge’s statements he made in the book Aftermath about his early Rebel jobs.
Zeb comes across the Infiltrator droid, which had been damaged by the krykna spiders, and
he decides to bring it to the base.
Which is a stupid decision, but I would say the writers handle it well.
Zeb fails to notice that the droid killed two krykna spiders in the process of it being
damaged, and both Chopper and AP-5 tell him it’s not a good idea to bring it back to
the base.
Of course the infiltrator droid activates and turns out to be much more dangerous than
a simple protocol droid.
By the way, its design, which we’ve already seen used a few times in Rebels, is based
after Ralph McQuarrie concept art for C-3PO.
And Zeb is based on McQuarrie concepts for Chewie.
So if you think about it, it’s like Chewie and Threepio are duking it out here.
Zeb disables it, and they’re warned by Kallus that if they don’t allow it to report back
to the Empire, they will come looking for it.
So Zeb sends it back with its self-destruct active so that it blows up in Imperial possession.
Kallus is all impressed by the idea, but what if he were on the ship that blew up??
So the main point of this episode was to explore Zeb a little more.
He gets a chance to prove to himself and others that he’s more than just the muscle of the
team.
AP-5 makes several disparaging remarks about his intelligence early on, and it is technically
Zeb’s fault the base is nearly compromised to begin with, but it’s also his quick thinking
that solves their problem.
I liked the conundrum of needing to keep the droid alive so the Empire wouldn’t come
looking without allowing it to reveal their location.
And Zeb’s solution was a cool one.
What I like about Zeb’s arc is that there were consequences for his actions.
It’s played fairly comically but when Hera returns it’s clear she’s not going to
be pleased that he let the droid in the base.
His questionable decisions were treated like questionable decisions, and Zeb doesn’t
get a pass just because the plot demanded that they be made.
Like I said before, I could see people complaining that it’s filler, but I don’t agree with
that at all.
It moves the plot along plenty.
While Zeb was able to successfully hide the specific location of their base, Thrawn now
knows that they have to be on one of the ninety four systems where he sent those droids.
So he can narrow his search from thousands of systems down to less than one hundred.
That’s enough for me.
And I like that Thrawn is the one making that connection.
It’s not the most impressive deduction made, but hey, it’s a kid’s show.
And it’s a good balance between normal Imperial intelligence on this show and the almost superhuman
levels of deduction he often had in the Thrawn Trilogy books.
I think we are building towards a major attack on the Atollon base, and I also think we’re
going to see Thrawn using some of his classic Legends tactics, and I’m specifically talking
about the Trawn Pincer, which involves using Interdictor cruisers to pull star destroyers
out of hyperspace right on top of their target.
Speaking of Legends, and this has shown up before, I just haven’t discussed it, but
the artwork on Thrawn’s star destroyer is a reference to its name, the Chimaera, which
was the name of his command ship in Legends as well.
That’s about all I have to say about the episode’s plot and my guesses on the future,
but I want to mention how impressed I was with some of the more minor details of this
episode.
Like the infiltrator droid’s countdown still dripping with melting ice.
Or Zeb’s reflection in AP-5.
Or the fact that when Zeb was driving his landspeeder he had one of those devices that
keep the krykna spiders away and we saw the spiders around.
I’m just becoming increasingly impressed by the animation and the added level of detail
on the show.
One last thing I want to mention, and this could just be because I have Dark Forces on
the mind, but when the infiltrator droid was in combat mode, it reminded me a lot of the
Phase I Dark Trooper.
The Sentry droids from earlier this season were said to be modeled after the Phase II
Dark Trooper, I wonder if the infiltrator had some similar inspiration.
Although the infiltrator seemed to be more formidable than the sentry droid, and was
straight up scary when it was cannibalizing other droids at the base.
But that’s it for today!
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