Star Wars Rebels Reviews: “Kindred/Crawler Commanders”

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(This review contains spoilers!)

          As Rebels approaches what I can only assume is the mid-season finale, things got more interesting for the team this week as they faced off against both the Empire and some reptilian miners, while also learning more about the mysterious white lothwolf.

          The first episode was easily the better of the two, especially for longtime fans. Thrawn has hired an assassin named Rukh to hunt down the rebels once and for all. Simultaneously, the team needs to get Hera off Lothal and back to Yavin IV with the hyperdrive from the TIE Defender.

          Rukh’s character was…okay. His design was easily the best part of him. Being a sort of cross between a chimpanzee and a snake, he was pretty creepy looking. The only problem was that we didn’t see him do anything that made us feel frightened by him. He felt like just another Imperial for the rebels to outsmart and escape by the end of the episode.

          The episode also finally gave us some closure on Kanan and Hera’s relationship. They finally kissed, so that’s nice. I’m still certain Kanan isn’t making it out of the season alive, so the showrunners will have plenty of emotional drama to capitalize on when that happens thanks to this.

          Lastly, we got a little more of info on the Lothwolf this week. It’s been confirmed that the wolf isn’t saying “doom”, but rather “Dume”, as in Kanan’s real name. The wolf also was able to transport them across Lothal through some weird Willy Wonka scary tunnel, meaning there’s definitely some Force ties there.

          The second episode isn’t quite as memorable. It’s just another “let’s save the slaves!” storyline. I did enjoy having Kanan and Zeb be the major characters in the episode instead of Ezra and Sabine again, and Ezra’s fight with the captain of the crawler was awesome. Overall it’s a good episode, but not one with much to talk about.

          It looks like next week is the last episode before we go on break, as Hera will be leading an attack on the Lothal blockade. Before we get to that, this week was fantastic in terms of both fun action and building the lore and characters.

FINAL SCORE (Kindred)

9/10

Amazing

FINAL SCORE (Crawler Commanders)

7/10

Good