Star Wars Rebels season 3 episodes 12-15 review - Ghosts of Geonosis/Warhead/Trials of the Darksaber

Rebels is back! Actually, it's been back for a few weeks and has just gone on another hiatus. But let's take a look at what came out

Ghosts of Geonosis

Oh, come on Rebels, you made this too easy…

Star Wars Rebels continues its season with the 2-parter Ghosts of Geonosis, featuring Saw Gererra from the Clone Wars and Rogue one. Seems the Onderan arc from the Clone Wars is an important one since this is the second time it’s come up. Kalani was also part of that battle.

Speaking of battle droids, they’re out in force again, thanks to the repairs of the one surviving Geonosian (that we know of) who is the central focus of the episode. They name him Klik Klak and no I will not be using that name for the remainder of this review.

So, Saw was sent in to investigate what the Empire had been doing on Geonosis. He had a team but they were killed off-screen. OK, I’m going to get this out of the way, Saw was pointless in Rogue One, there I said it.  His plot is basically the first third of the movie and it’s the worst part of the movie. Saw himself was criminally underdeveloped with his actions contributing very little to the actual plot and real character depth with the lead mostly ignored.

So, it’s nice to see him here get a bit more limelight. Although he is far from the insane extremist we see briefly in Rogue one, there are certainly sparks of it here, as Saw is willing to torture, maim and even kill the egg of Kli… The Geonosian to get the information he sought.

It is rather tragic to see the rebels so close to success in this one but ultimately coming up short. It actually happens twice, first when the Geonosian draws the Death Star but they constantly think it’s something else and second when they try and retrieve the gas canisters used to kill the Geonosians but ultimately, they drop as they make their escape and all they have is images.

Speaking the Empire, once again it’s not a good showing from them here. They send inexperienced commander delta-foxtrot-epsilon to deal with the threat and they end up having their ship destroyed in a single shot. Yeah, that’s pretty cr*p, even if they do have Stormtroopers on jetpacks.

OK, there is an elephant in the room right now. Rebels has 2 running plot-lines as far as I know, the siege on Lothal’s imperial factory and Darth Maul’s search for Obi-Wan Kenobe. I realise it’s early in the season to play your full hand but both of these missions are urgent. What is Maul doing between now and what’ll likely be the season finale when he goes after Obi-Wan? No answer for me? Surprise.

Yeah, it’s a problem that neither of these plot-lines even have lip service given to them. Instead, the focus is on the fan service. Bail Organa, Saw Gererra, a reference to a line from Attack of the Clones and no sign of Grand Admiral Thrawn whatsoever.

It’s a good 2-parter, highlighting that whilst Ezra does sometimes act rashly, he’s certainly still compassionate. But it also provides a dud ending for Saw, since we know he’s going to fall eventually.

Rating 8/10

Warhead

AT-5 is in this episode, this is his second major appearance this series, at episode 14!

AT-5 hasn’t really interacted with anyone other than Chopper either, so in this episode we get to see how he interacts with Zeb as the others head out on a training mission as the assault on the Lothal Factory and Maul’s search for Obi-Wan Kenobe seemingly fall by the waist-side. I’m going to formally deduct half a point any time neither of these is addressed because they were supposed to be urgent. I know they’re trying to save Maul for the finale, still 8 episodes away but they need to give us a good reason it’s taking so long.

So, Zeb is left in charge of the base as AT-5 does inventory work and comes across a damaged droid. What he doesn’t know, at least not immediately is that it’s an imperial reconnaissance droid that’s malfunctioned. With the empire poised to investigate their missing droid, who now has the location of the rebel base, it’s up to Zeb to come up with a plan to save their base, especially as it turns out the reconnaissance droid is quite deadly.

This episode was fun to watch, the interaction been Zeb and AT-5 was hilarious, according to Rebels Recon this was originally about Rex and Zeb but given AT-5 has had so little to do this season anyway, combined with the fact I’d feel Rex and Zeb are more like-minded it wouldn’t have worked as well.

Chopper was Chopper, he didn’t annoy me this episode, he’s been pretty decent this season so… This doesn’t really change Zeb’s character, nor does it offer any real introspective moments. AT-5 thought he was just muscle with little brains but I’ve never seen any evidence that supported that and Zeb didn’t take it to heart exactly so that’s negligible.

What was more interesting was the Thrawn angle. He sent out droids to 94 planets to scan for Rebel bases, because the droid destroyed a star destroyer it’s clear that the rebels are indeed on one of them. It was a lose-lose situation for the rebels, they couldn’t wipe its memory so they either had to risk the Empire coming to search for the base to search for the droid or send it back with the information. Also, I don’t know how long Kallus can maintain Fulcrum, he was extremely helpful to the rebels today but Thrawn is clearly onto him

I think one mistake this episode made was revealing too early to the audience that the droid was imperial. I think that scene with Kallus delaying the search could’ve been cut or at least, but then it might’ve been an easy guess anyway.

Rating 7/10

Trials of the Darksaber

It took 4 episodes but they’ve finally referenced the attack on Lothal. Good for you

OK, we have something incredibly rare here, a character-focused episode. There’s a difference between a spotlight episode and a focus episode. A spotlight episode highlights a specific group and how they get on or showcases a specific persons’ talent. The last episode falls under this category, Zeb certainly got the spotlight but honestly it didn’t feel like of a character-focus episode as the plot more or less took centre stage.

Here the plot is relatively basic, Sabine needs to learn to wield the Darksaber to unite her people but this allows a backdrop for a more character-focused episode. These are not common in Rebels, especially for someone other than Ezra. The Empire, whilst mentioned frequently, are not featured in the episode at all. And it’s one of the best episodes this season.

Sabine has had some interesting character episodes in the past her backstory is more or less unexplained until this episode where wielding the Darksaber required her to face her personal demons. It’s not helped that Kanan starts her off slow, demonstrating a potential lack of faith in her. Fenn Rau provides her with some new weapons that I’m sure we’ll see more of in the future, even if the grapple was destroyed and this doesn’t really help matter.

Sabine is unsure about saving her family, or rather whether she could do it. Ezra’s consolations do little and the Bendu is there because they need to remind us he exists apparently. No episode, you don’t need to remind me a massive creature voiced by Tom Baker exists.

Hera convinces Kanan to push and the real meat of the character arc is complete when she finally opens up. She tried to save her family, she created weapons that ultimately enslaved her people and when she stood up, her family wouldn’t stand with her. It’s quite a tragic backstory to give to a character was initially only defined by her love of art and explosions and the next episode has them going to Mandalore to follow up on this arc.

I love this episode, I love it more than any episode of the show so far, more than Thrawn, more than Vader, this is about as near to a perfect an episode as you can get for me.

Rating 9.7/10

Images/clips used in this review are from Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use