Week 5: Season 1, Episodes 13-15

Call to Action - Great seeing Tarkin. Was kinda weird how he was acting like the Jedi didn't exist but okay... It was cool they gave the Coruscant gunship to the Empire nice that they got a canon gunship. I don't remember much else tbh but it was good. Kanan getting captured felt like an actual dynamic shift rather than the same old predictable stuff

Rebel Resolve - I don't remember this at all tbh but I thought it was good as well lol. I think this is the one Hera says Mustafar is "where Jedi go to die"... What does that mean lol?? I think the only Jedi that "died" there was Anakin and there is no way Kanan knew about that.

Fire Across the Galaxy - Great finale. The duel was pretty awesome I liked how they blended together many different Star Wars soundtracks together. Not sure why the FPS would drop whenever the Inquisitor spun his lightsaber that was odd... haha. But it felt like he died too fast and should've stuck around longer. Like if you think about it we barely saw him at all. His last words were pretty dope. Fallen Order basically explained what he meant years later which is he'd rather die of his own free will than Vader killing him for failing (which is what he did to other inquisitors).

I read a funny thing about the Grand Inquisitor actually. They said he turned to the dark side because Jocasta Nu didn't let him read the books he wanted to lmao. But yeah kinda wish he didn't die so soon but oh well. Still feels too soon to bring in Vader though... Like maybe a couple other Inquisitors would've been the first replacement choice. Vader is more endgame stuff. Or at least season 3. Ahsoka maybe should've been season 3 too. They crammed all these big things in one finale without much room to breathe Vader, Ahsoka, Inqy's death. Maybe they wanted to attract as large of an audience as possible for the second season.

Call to Action is pretty good, I remember giving it quite a bit of praise back in the day because it had good dialogue and I felt like the animation was better here. Shadows, skyboxes, etc.

Tarkin is a good villain, and Stanton does a great job at voicing him as always. I like that they brought us Tarkin first instead of going straight to Vader. The Inquisitor felt competent here and that execution scene is pretty brutal for Disney XD.... Also I do like that governor pryce is established early before we see her in the later seasons.

The whole mission didn’t seem worth the risk or cost, but I like that the Rebels actually took a serious hit in this one. The empire felt strong under Tarkin lead. Anyways gonna give this one an 8/10 as well. I don’t know, Rebels is just an enjoyable show for me. I just take every episode for what it is and judge it with nothing else in mind.... Clone Wars was harder to rate, you constantly had to consider how an episode fit into the rest of the arc and was it necessary to advance the plot. And there’s always that back of your head thought when watching meh arcs of “did this story need to be told over something else?”.

Pretty sure the rebels planned on attacking it at one point in the comics but there was really no strategic value to it since Vader isn’t there that often anyways

Ok I like a lot of little moments in Fire Across the Galaxy... “The Artist is back”, “Not again”, “That’s not regulation”, “I kind of like it” the stormtroopers are kind of humorous at times. Overall though this is another solid episode and a good finale. The Inquisitor and Kanan fight was really quite good and it’s cool to see Kanan kind of go dark side without going full Anakin there. Also I thought Ezra gets his scars later? I kind of thought it was around the time Maul appears because it was supposed to be some kind of symbolic connection between the two, although it probably still is. They likely had Maul planned for a long time.

Tarkin seemed weaker here but he was probably over confident in their chances. I do like that he hesitated a retreat, it’s a nice callback to ANH. Visually Mustafar looks very cool but I wish we got to see the actual planet. I guess they were awaiting Vader’s arrival.

It’s nice that we get to fully see Ahsoka now, I actually think her model is quite good. I’m pretty sure Togruta Lekku grow throughout their life span, which would make sense why Ahsoka was like 16 at the end of TCW and still had child like Lekku whereas Shaak was probably in her 40s or 50s.

Vader’s cameo was a great cliffhanger and he’s pretty awesome in his next few appearances in season 2. Going to give this episode a 9/10. I have a few problems with it like the fact that Sabine runs around forever and doesn’t get hit, or all the ties not hitting anything but whatever... there would be plot armor regardless of how many ties there are or how long she runs around for.

Call to Action was definitely a step up. Can't say that I loved it but it was at least quite an intriguing adventure and set up, much like Empire Day. Tarkin is done just as well here, although something about his design really annoys me. I think it's his eyes or something. Idk. Definitely didn't expect them to kill those Gravity Falls cop type guys so I can respect that. They did it in the most ambiguous way possible but it's Disney XD lol. I'm with Ezra that taking a radio tower seemed a bit unnecessarily risky but the again, Kanan has no way of knowing about Tarkin's presence. I kinda wish they had something more importnat to do but the radio tower did make for a good ending of the episode. Higher up there definitely but still not amazing imo. I think it will lead somewhere cool though. 7/10.

Oh shit green discount Hondo is back. Forgot him.

A little let down by Rebel Resolve but it wasn’t that bad. I guess I felt like it was gonna go right into trying to save Kanan or something but it kinda just felt like more early season shenanigans. I know it was building to the next episode, but I rather would’ve had the location be easier to find so we could jump into that and maybe end on a better cliffhanger than that weird Mustafar line. Like does Kanan think Anakin does there or something? Idk. Anyway it was an okay one but it felt strangely low stakes compared to last episode and presumably the finale. I’ll never like how the made the stormtroopers less competent than B1s but ah whatever. 6/10.

Hey good thing I watched that short for art continuity.

8/10 for Fire Across the Galaxy. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high for some reason but I expected more than we got. Still one of the best episodes of the season, but idk, I expected more. The duel I thought, was really good and badass. I guess I expected Ezra to come in and help at the last second but I'm okay that he didn't. I think maybe the Inquisitor was a little over the top in his evilness but overall he was a solid villain. No complaints with anything that involved him. I did have more issues than I expected though.

The opening with Sabine was one of the most eye rolling things ever. I said before that I had gotten over the lame stormtroopers, but this just felt insulting. She's making Spider-Man quips and standing between half a dozen troopers and no one ever hits her. They could have achieved the same thing with her being stealthy and planting her weird art bombs or something as a distraction.

I thought the ending with all the characters was a bit rushed. I don't know why they had to bring in Bail, Ahsoka, and Vader, all in the last three minutes of this episode. I knew they were coming (at least Ahsoka) but I guess I was anticipating a more grand reason for them all to come. Knowing they were coming, paired with the title of the episode, I guess I expected some kinda of major galactic event that basically set off fire across the galaxy. I don't know, it wasn't bad, but aside from the cool Inquisitor shit it just felt like another rescue mission. Also we didn't see Mustafar, that bummed me out. Definitely good but not on the same level as Path of the Jedi.

I'll always remember the duel between Kanan and The Grand Inquisitor as a highlight of the show

I've been waiting for the rewatch to catch up before season 2 but I kinda just want to binge it... It might be a better experience that way

It's not as exciting as the previous installment, but Rebel Resolve still offers some good moments. Kanan's interrogation scene serves as the highlight for me, since we get to witness the Grand Inquisitor serve more of a purpose beyond chasing down Jedi.

I also appreciate them using Vizago again. He's not my favorite character, but he's far from Azmorigan levels of irritating. Ezra's deal with Vizago helps further develop his leadership skills, and it's something which will be important later in the show. So in that sense, this part of the episode is fine.

The rest of the episode is good, but nothing special. Despite that, I like the show took its time to further set up what would occur in the finale. I'll go with a 7/10.