Star Wars Rebels - 'Hera's Heroes'

"Do you even art, Slavin?"

So, just a little filler this week, as Hera goes back to her family home - now completely occupied by Imperial forces - to retrieve a family artefact. No biggie.

Oh, wait. What I mean to say is that Hera comes face-to-face with Grand Admiral Thrawn and it's pretty much everything we could have hoped for.

On a supply run to her homeworld, Hera learns from her father that the province where she grew up during the conflict of the Clone Wars has been occupied, and that her mother's kalikori, an inherited Twi'lek artwork telling the story of a family and added to by every generation, has been stolen. While the rest of the crew run interference, Hera, Ezra and Chopper sneak into the house to retrieve the kalikori, but are caught when Thrawn appears with the local garrison commander, Captain Slavin. She bluffs that she was stealing the kalikori to sell, but as anyone familiar with his form would know, Thrawn is seriously the fuck into art, seeing it as key to understanding the races he has to fight. He knows what the kalikori is and deduces not only Hera's identity, but that the out-of-place speeder pilot is her backup, stunning Ezra before he can act.

And just... Seriously; I'm going to let the show speak for itself for a moment:

Thrawn: War, it's all you've every know, isn't it? You were so young when you survived the Clone War, no wonder you're equipped in spirit to fight as well as you do. War is in your blood. I studied the art of war, worked to perfect it, but you? You were forged by it.
Slavin: Sir, she's just a peasant!
Hera: It doesn't matter where we come from, Admiral. Our will to be free is what's going to beat you.
Slavin: You... you dare?
Thrawn: Slavin, please. You embarrass me in front of our host.
Slavin: Host? What?
Thrawn: May I introduce Hera Syndulla. Rebel pilot, freedom fighter and military leader. Daughter of your nemesis, Cham Syndulla.

The worst possibility for Season 3 was that they were going to fuck up Thrawn, but damn dude. He's psychological, philosophical and sharp as a tack. Cham Syndulla comments on the razor sharp tactics of the Empire's new commander even before Hera sees Thrawn. He goes right through her disguise and demonstrates a keen understanding of who she is as well as who her people are, and keeps his cool at all times except when his underling, Slavin, persists in being a prat. 

Hera spends a lot of time quite low down compared to Thrawn, but I expect to
see that reversed in future episodes.

Oh, and the icing on this wonderful villain cake is that this first meeting, which establishes the relationship between heroes and their new antagonist, is with Hera. After two seasons of Inquisitors and the publicity blithely calling Kanan the leader of the Rebels, this cements the fact that Hera is the captain, and the guiding force behind our rebel band. Unless you're going to argue with the Grand Admiral's characterisation of her as a military leader, and I'm not going to be the one to gainsay Ol' Red Eyes. It sets the season up as a chess match between two non-Jedi master strategists, one of whom is our female lead, and that's awesome.

This, my friends. This is the Star Wars Rebels we feared we would never get when it started getting Jedi all over it.

Thrawn leaves Slavin in charge while he goes to attend to an 'experiment'. Chopper - who also gets a character note as they come across the downed Y-Wing that Hera salvaged him from during the Clone Wars - rescues Hera and Ezra and they escape, blowing up the house on the way out, basically because fuck you, Empire. As they fly off, Thrawn orders his gunners to stand down. His experiment was to see what Hera would do in the situation he created, and he still isn't looking to chip away at the Rebellion a piece at a time. He wants to know his enemy.

If we weren't clear yet, his enemy is Hera, and he seems impressed.

'Hera's Heroes' begins as a pretty stock character episode and explodes into a real stand out of the series, establishing the threat of Thrawn and, through him, locking in Hera's previously underplayed importance in the series and the rebellion.