Mitchell Stein: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay in this week’s article. Things got really busy in my personal life, but now that those things are out of the way for the most part, I’m back reviewing last week’s episode, Breaking Ranks.
Following the phenomenal episode Rise of the Old Masters, this weeks instalment follows up quite nicely, though not nearly as exciting and game-changing as Rise of the Old Masters was. This episode finds Ezra going undercover at a Stormtrooper Academy, as he attempts to infiltrate the facility and intercepts a data card for reasons not fully explained, but to quote Ezra in this episode…”do we really need a reason to mess with the Empire?”
It is worth taking note that the data card held information about a large kyber crystal, which many fans will recognize as the crystal that powered the Death Star. Nice catch Star Wars fans!
This week we were introduced to some great new characters, Zare Leonis and Jei Kell. Zare steals the spotlight in this episode, with his driving point being nothing more than to be reunited with his sister, and shines as a wonderful character and the show would really benefit from. Something tells me this isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of Zare.
The Inquisitor is back once again, and that couldn’t be anything short of awesome. Something tells me the Inquisitor will not be happy when it becomes known that Ezra stole a data card from right under their noses, and they’d probably want to retrieve that at all costs. Finally the Empire actually has a great reason to hunt down these rebels, so they ought to make that happen.
In the end, Rebels delivered a really wonderful instalment this week. This show seems to have a similar issue that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D faced during it’s first season, in which it took a solid nine episodes to set up it’s entire universe and story. With all the pieces coming into place, I think we’ll be in for a pretty sweet ride, and this episode is a step in that direction.
Mitchell Stein is a major Star Wars/Disney/Muppet/Marvel fan. He co-operates the website The Mickey Mindset (link: mickeymindset.com) where he celebrates all these and more, daily! Be sure to check it out and like them on Facebook! (facebook.com/TheMickeyMindset)
A couple of things that I think was looked over. This group must be on the “Most Wanted” list for the Empire. They were in full view during the rescue of the Wookies and they must have been recorded in the attempted rescue of the Jedi Master in last episode. So how can Ezra infiltrate the Emperial Grand Army’s recruitment program? One line like, we had to alter Ezras information and his image in the Emperial data banks would have solved this but they don’t what I remember.
This program his into doesnt really seem like an ordinary program, there were just a handfull of recruits and they were kinda looking for those “special” ones which might suggest “crimson guards” type of troopers.
Furthermore, this episode had to many “trusting” moments. Ezra was realy fast to trust his fellow troopers. Even if he is friendly, they are still enlisted in the empire. The fact that we never saw a non “anti-empire” recruits face was kinda disturbing to me. It promotes the fact that the storm troppers are not really humans, but just walking body armors.
My conclusion to this episode is that, they could have made this infiltration idea a whole season. Thats how awesome the overall idea was. Where even Ezra could have become friends with recruits and in the end have to make choices, where he is pitted against the ones who he concidered friends. Would have made a great character arc, where there are gray zones, the empire is safe because there is order where there was chaos, or is there oppression where there was freedome.