REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels "The Occupation"
Once again, Rebels is back with two new episodes this week, though this time, they're labeled as two separate episodes, not two parts of the same episode. Therefore, I'll have to break the episodes down into two separate reviews. This first episode, the Occupation, sees the Ghost crew return to the place where it all began, Lothal.
The Ghost crew are informed that the Empire is building a new prototype of the Tie Defender and volunteer to go back to Lothal undercover to get the information, by themselves. I like the passion and determination from Ezra, as he says he is there to stay. Could this be an early indication of what will happen to Ezra at the end of the series? They sneak aboard the planet with the help of Vizago, a character we haven't seen since early season 2. This isn't going to be the only season 1 callbacks in this episode as series creator Dave Filoni made clear the all story points are coming together and that all loose ends will be tied up by the end. By the way, I love the bickering between Kallus and Rex on who will run the Ghost while everyone is gone.
They eventually make it to Lothal, and, well, it's not the same planet that we remember it from before. The planet is under complete lockdown and martial law, citizens are afraid to leave their homes, and most importanly, the Empire is literally burning the planet away for work on the Tie Defender program. The episode does a good job making everything feel bleak and hopeless. There is also a lot of season 1 callbacks and locations throughout the episode, from going to old Jho's bar, who was killed from aiding the Rebellion, the wanted posters of the crew with their season 1 looks.
The crew split up to find information. Of course Filoni teases us by almost having Kanan and Hera kiss, only for Zeb to ruin the moment. Sabine and Ezra go to old Jho's bar, only to figure out it has been turned into an Imperial hangout instead.
It is there they run into a character that hasn't been seen on mentioned since season 1. Jai Kell, a former Imperial cadet that Ezra helped rescue from the Imperial Academy appears to offer aid as part of Ryder Azadi's Lothal rebellion. It is cool to see the character again after so long, mainly for continuity reasons. Though, it seems very odd that, again, he wasn't even mentioned at all until now. Even Ezra has to take a moment to remember who he is. Eventually, the Empire catches wind of what is going on and chases the group through the sewers.
The sewer sequence is cool, with moments to shine for each character, though I think the Empire acts a little too inept at certain moments. Still, it is a cool action set-piece that leads to the group being rescued by Ryder and taken back to his camp.
Overall, I thought the episode was pretty solid. Nothing really stood out as fantastic but nothing really stood out as bad, or even average. I would say this episode is more of a treat to those who have watched the show from the beginning like me to see all the callbacks and how everything is tying together. I feel the remainder of this first half of the season will be on Lothal to finish up its storyline, which is fine by me as it will give closure to the planet where our story began.
