Eric Geller's Blog

Lucasfilm "Stealth Strike" might be as close to a perfect episode of Star Wars Rebels as we've seen in a long time. It ties with "Wings of the Master" as the best of season 2. Not only did it blend moments of humor with moments of gravity (pun intended), but it resolved some tension between two main characters, taught another character an important lesson about the past, and put a formerly background character in a central role in a way that hinted at the struggles of the growing Rebellion. "Stealth Strike" balanced a story full of homages with a raft of meaningful dialog and still managed to tell a fascinating story that equally leveraged the strengths and weaknesses of several fan-favorite characters.

Lucasfilm "Blood Sisters" was another uneven Star Wars Rebels episode. Chopper positively shined, Sabine's past started to come into the light, Ezra offered some welcome comic relief, and the walking, clanking, gonking MacGuffin brought some quintessentially Star Wars humor to the story. In short, most of the characters were great. But "Blood Sisters" turned on the involvement of a new character, brought in to highlight an unknown side of Sabine, and that newcomer was poorly written to the point of logical incoherence, casting a pall over the rest of the episode.

Lucasfilm In many ways, "Wings of the Master" mirrored the experimental blade-wing at the center of its story. It was the product of many moving pieces—writing, voice acting, animation, and music—and to really deliver on its promise, all of those pieces had to fit together perfectly. Thankfully, like the blade-wing itself, this episode came out firing on all cylinders. Everything just worked. We learned a little bit more about Hera's backstory, we met a new ally of the Rebellion (and his whiz-bang prototype ship), and we were treated to one of the most breathtaking sequences of animation and music that Star Wars Rebels has ever given us.

Lucasfilm Every television show has its hits and its misses. "Brothers of the Broken Horn" was unquestionably a miss. It was fantastic to see Hondo Ohnaka again, but he was the only good thing about this episode. It began with a farfetched premise and continued in a manner that was alternately boring and unbelievable. As a huge fan of Star Wars Rebels , "Brothers of the Broken Horn" was more than disappointing—it was unsettling. The crew of this show is so good that it was almost inconceivable that they could stumble this much. Since October 2014, they've been developing Ezra Bridger in a fascinating, nuanced, and realistic way. With this episode, they seemed to forget what they were doing with him.