REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels "Stealth Strike"
Now that is what I am talking about. The last couple of episodes haven't been bad, but a little underwhelming. This episode, despite some minor nitpicks, was fantastic. It was a great action-packed episode to lead us into the holiday.
The episode starts out with Ezra being part of a small crew, including Jun Sato, to try and locate a missing patrol. Their ship is then literally pulled out of hyperspace by a ship called an Interdictor, which was actually part of the old Star Wars canon, Legends. They are captured and sent to a new admiral who knows who they are and has been listening and tracking them for some time. The admiral gives his report to Agent Kallus who says to not underestimate Ezra.
Before his capture, Sato sent a distress signal and Hera sends Kanan and Rex and a stealth mission to rescue the Rebels. Yes, this leads to my only complaint with the episode, plot cliches. Kanan and Ezra head into the ship disguised as stormtroopers, just like A New Hope, Rex sends faulty codes, just like Return of the Jedi, and Rex and Kanan argue throughout the episode, just like the rest of the season so far.
Look, I still understand why Kanan has problems with Rex, but don't you think if he was going to betray you, he would have done it by now? However, Kanan and Rex do play off each other well regardless. They almost kind of remind me of the bickering and interactions of Han and Luke when they first met. Anyway, Ezra manages to escape and in an honest mistake, shoots Kanan and Rex with his blaster. Don't worry, they were fine. Despite that mistake, Ezra was very effective in this episode as his skills as a Jedi and tactician are defiantely improving.
I like how they made him sure he didn't kill any troopers unless it was a deflection shot. He even locked his three trooper captors in a cell and only destroyed their weapons instead. He also convinces Kanan to split up so he and Chopper can deactive the ship. The only thing I will say is that over the last couple weeks, he seems to be acting a little overconfident. I get it, he's a teenager and he really hasn't had any formal training, but still, humility is a Jedi virtue.
From there, its non-stop action set pieces and it is all great. Ezra and Chopper try to disable the weapon while Kanan and Rex sneak and rescue Sato. The Imperial Admiral finds out about all this and sends the whole ship after them. From there, Kanan, even though this is not Jedi-like, decides to just shoot his way through the Imperials. I don't have problems with this because, well, their lives were on the line.
Rex later in the battle begins to feel fatigue and decides to sacrifice himself so the rest can escape. If you watch the episode, you can argue if it was neccessary, but it was still a nice gesture. The Admiral makes an offer to Rex, spill the beans and he will reinstate him back into the Empire. Rex declines so he decides to kill him.
Kanan senses this through the force and decides to rescue his "friend." No literally, that's what he says. Ezra, Sato, Chopper and the other rebels make it aboard their Rebel ship and are able to detach. Meanwhile, in a series of cool setpieces, Kanan rescues Rex and they make their way on an escape pod.
The Rebel ship does get pulled from hyperspace again. However, Chopper rigged the ship to pull everything into their ship with their gravity weapon. This causes the two Imperial support ships to crash into the Interdictor, destroying it. The admiral of course survives.
Despite very small flaws, this episode was really fantastic. It was a good return to form for the show, though I'm not saying the past couple episodes were bad. The action scenes were great and now Kanan and Rex have formed a solid partnership and hopefully can start building their new "friendship."
