Star Wars Rebels - 'Steps into Shadows', 'The Holocrons of Fate' and 'The Antilles Extraction'

Ezra Bridger; one of the few teenage characters to express his rebellion by
actually getting a haircut.

The rebels are back, as Season 3 of Star Wars Rebels kicks off with the double length extravaganza 'Steps into Shadows'.

The Rebels are in a pretty dark place, and I don't just mean because they're on a planet full of monster spiders. Kanan has been blinded and while Ezra is stepping up to the plate with his can-do attitude, severe new do and mighty force powers, he's doing it with the aid of the Sith holocron, which keeps whispering to him about power and destruction like a sexy-voiced bad idea bear. Things come to a head when Captain Sato gives Ezra a promotion to Lieutenant-Commander and the lead on a mission to retrieve a number of decommissioned Y-Wing bombers from a scrapping yard. Unfortunately for Ezra, a new force stands against him, as the Empire brings in the Seventh Fleet and the newly promoted Grand Admiral Thrawn to lead the hunt for the Rebels and put the fans into paroxysms of glee.

Observe the glowy sphere thing...

Our full Imperial team this year consists of Grand Moff Tarkin, Governor Price (the new Governor of Lothal after Vader blew up the last one,) Thrawn, and old hands Agent Kallus and Admiral Konstantine. At their first meeting, Thrawn quickly deduces the Rebels next target based on the cold open and sets out his plan to destroy them.

Ezra's team heads off to recce the scrapping facility, but when they find the Y-Wings being moved up the queue he decides to make a move without backup. The team - Ezra, Sabine, Zeb, Chopper and Rex - drops in to secure the bombers, but face a hard fight against armoured scrapper droids. Some might say 'screw it; they're just Y-Wings', but Ezra is determined to see it through, trashing the control room with his new lightsabre (which is disappointingly much more conventional than the old one) and sending the facility into a crash dive into the flaming heart of a gas giant.

TOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

Back on Atollon, Kanan is called into the desert by a mysterious voice, and meets HOLY CRAP IT'S TOM BAKER!

Ahem. That is, he meets the Bendu, a massive, sassy force user with the voice of Tom Baker who explains that he doesn't have any truck with that whole dualism thing.

"Jedi and Sith wield the Ashla and Bogan. The light and the dark. I'm the one in the middle. The Bendu."

The Bendu encourages Kanan to 'see' using the Force, not regaining his vision, but rather the ability to truly see things for what they are. Among other effects, this allows him to realise that the spiders will not attack unless he is afraid of them. It also allows him to clear his mind enough to sense that Ezra is in danger and he and Hera shoot off with the Rebel fleet, just in time to rescue Ezra from the station - although not before the destruction of their shuttle, the Phantom - and the rest of the team, who realise they are flying Y-Wings with no hyperdrives. As the Star Destroyers close in, Thrawn calls them off, realising that this is not the extent of the Rebel fleet and wanting to get them all.

"You think only Imperials can stand around a glowy thing?
We can stand around a glowy thing too!"

In 'The Holocrons of Fate', Ezra and Kanan are contacted by Maul, who has kidnapped the rest of the crew and is holding them hostage for the Sith Holocron and Kanan's Jedi holocron. As Kanan gave the Sith holocron to the Bendu to keep it away from Ezra, they have to go into the desert to get it back, and the Bendu insists they do some trust exercises, like Ezra going into a spider lair unarmed while Kanan guides him. Ezra is much less able to trust in his Zen thing to get him past killer spiders, but ultimately trusts Kanan enough to begin to heal their master-apprentice bond and earn the holocron back from the Bendu. The Bendu explains that combining the two holocrons would provide the answer to any question, but warns that whatever one learned from that could never be unlearned.

"Nice ship you have. Shame if anything were to happen to it."

On the Ghost, Maul is all affably evil at the crew and, realising that it is their home as well as their transport, is able to root out Kanan's holocron. He recaptures the crew after they escape his robot helpers. He also mentions a time when he used to rule Mandalore. He tries to flush Kanan out of an airlock on arrival so as to leave Ezra to be his apprentice, but Kanan gets back aboard and rescues the others. Meanwhile, Maul and Ezra open the holocrons. Ezra wants to know how to destroy the Sith and Maul is looking for Hope. They both see Tatooine, before Kanan interrupts, briefly seeing Ezra in the light of the holocrons and forcing Maul to flee empty handed.

'The Antilles Extraction' is a more familiar sort of Rebels story. In order to replenish the Rebellion's stable of pilots after a series of disastrous run-ins with a squadron of TIE Interceptors, Sabine goes undercover at Skystrike Academy to attempt to extract potential defectors who are hacked off with the Empire's shoot-to-kill policy on transport vessels. Ezra is antsy about this, complaining that he doesn't like risky undercover missions, although Kanan points out that he's fine when he gets to take the risks. Sabine infiltrates and locates the would-be defectors - Wedge Antilles and his friends Hobbie and Sir Not-Appearing-in-the-Films - only for Kallus and Pryce to turn up to investigate possible defectors. While they are able to hide until they return to flight training, the opportunity to escape is a trap. Sabine, Wedge and Hobbie are captured, while Sir Not-Appearing-in-the-Films is killed as an example.

It's like that episode where Ezra was undercover as a Stormtrooper cadet, but
in black.

Sabine busts out by pwning Pryce in the world's classiest torture chamber-set designated chick fight. She rescues her remaining friends and they make a run for it, aided by Kallus, who tells her to tell Zeb they are even now. They get shot up a bit, but Ezra and Kanan pop in and extract them, and now the Rebellion has a Wedge.

After a storming second season, Star Wars Rebels is coming out swinging. 'Steps into Shadow' is not quite as good as 'The Siege of Lothal', if only for the absence of Darth Vader's heavy metal walker lift, but Thrawn is promising and Pryce a welcome heavyweight female presence on the Imperial side. I like the tension between nuEzra's growing confidence and abilities and continuing uncertainty, and more Tom Baker is always welcome, as well as bringing an intriguing new perspective and a set of slightly silly names to discussions of the nature of the force. It's also worth remembering that both previous series built up to a strong finale, so it's not really appropriate to judge these episodes against the likes of 'Twilight of the Apprentice'.

If I have a complaint, it's that there are signs of Cerebus Syndrome setting in, with the show becoming more po-faced and losing its humour as the stakes rise. I hope that this isn't a one-way street, as not only Rebels but also Star Wars as a whole has always done better when mixing up the serious with a bit of fun.