Star Wars Rebels Season 4 Episodes 3-4 review - In the name of the Rebellion

Star Wars Rebels continues to burn off episodes, so much so that I'm rescheduling the next review to next week, covering 5-9, and 7-9 will be covered two weeks after.

In the name of the rebellion

Moral greys are a good area in Star Wars, some of the best moments of Rebels particularly explore such moral greys. Saw Gerrera, veteran of the clone wars and extremist, as pointed out in Rogue One is given a chance to take the spotlight, and it’s a very interesting episode, but, once again, there are issues.

Once again, the 2 parts of this story can be treated mostly as separate entities, I only put them together for ease of summary. In part 1, an imperial communications relay has impacted the Rebels, now on Yavin IV, which means there won’t be any major attacks on this base. It’s suggested they try and hack it rather than destroy it, whilst Saw Gererra is very much in favour of destroying it and thinks they rebellion is weak for not pursuing open warfare, not wanting a disaster like the one at ‘Chopper Base’ of course the mission doesn’t go exactly to plan and Ezra and Sabine end up with Saw.

We see Kallus, he’s in this episode, and so is Rex… That’s all I have to say about them. Zeb has very little to do either. Ezra is, again, the main focal character of this and, to a lesser extent, the next episode. He is the main voice of discontent when it comes to the current status of the rebellion. His people were promised support but given the attack on Chopper base none came and Lothal still needs help. Mon Monthma isn’t willing to send out a fleet, especially given what happened on Chopper Base and this frustrates him to the point where he’s beginning to side with Saw. I do like his conversation with Kanan, even if it is kinda cliché.

This is also the biggest insight into the greys in which Gererra operates. Targeting civilians, killing those who surrender, mistreating prisoners (the only one of these we see in Rogue One, although he wasn’t even really a prisoner) these were only glanced over in Rogue One and whilst I’d prefer that they show it, I get that in a kid’s TV show that might be a bit beyond the pale and I’m just happy we got at least something. His treatment of the Geonosian was really only a sign of things to come. I do add though that the transition to extremist is somewhat confusing since he was not well known to the rebellion the last time we saw him.

OK, so with that done, erm… Is there really much more to say. Hera wanting to avenge the few fighters she lost in a mission more than her losses from Chopper Base was distracting, although it’s interesting to me that whilst she puts on an act in front with Ezra, she somewhat agrees with him and wants to hurt the Empire. I really want them to do more with Kanan and Hera.

So, in part 2, Saw has some intel about something big being carried on a cargo freighter, and wants Ezra and Sabine’s help finding out more. He believes it’s related to an imperial super-weapon, which of course it is. They manage to infiltrate the ship and find a bunch of engineer prisoners who Ezra wants to rescue but Saw gives less than 2 sh*ts about. They come across a Kyber Crystal but ultimately are no closer to find out what it’s going to be used for, so they blow it up, and barely escape alive with the moral debate no closer to being over because Saw is destined to be blown up in Rogue One.

I guess the vast majority of what I said still applies to this episode, so this part may end up being quite short. Saw certainly seems to be a master at gaining intel, why the Rebellion didn’t act on his intel about the communications relay is kinda puzzling. His feelings about the scientists demonstrate where Ezra and Sabine draw the line when it comes to a morality play. Not much more I can say here, we know where it’s all heading and that the empire are eventually going to get a Kyber Crystal, also the Stormtroopers are shockingly incompetent in this episode. That is all.

This episode does centre itself around the moral greys and whilst it takes a side, it provides no easy answers, but it does come at the cost of many members of the Rebel family getting little to no screen time, something that needs to be addressed quickly seeing as we’re already ¼ of the way through the series.

Rating 8/10