Star Wars Rebels - 'An Inside Man'

"Welcome to Lothal."

The Rebels are going home, returning to Lothal to meet up with their local contacts and swipe plans from an Imperial factory. They make contact with ex-governor Ryder Azadi during a tense speeder chase, and learn that the Resistance, although small, is doing well thanks to their infiltration of the factory, ensuring that there are fatal flaws in all of the locally made equipment.

Kanan and Ezra are smuggled into the factory as workers, but unfortunately this coincides with an inspection by Grand Admiral Thrawn, who quickly deduces the cause of the equipment failures and announces a new programme under which all workers will test everything they build, with a demonstration which costs the life of a Rebel contact. While they do manage to secure the plans, the two Jedi are detected, escaping only with the help of a diversionary attack and a surprise ally; the inside man of the episode title: Fulcrum, aka Agent Kallus.

"Did I mention art?"

This is another episode which manages to give the Rebels a win without slamming Thrawn's credibility. They capture the plans for his new weapon - and points for the fact that the TIE/D Defender is Thrawn's kind of weapon; a precise, flexible force multiplier rather than a one-off supergun - but he weakens the Lothal rebellion, noses out the likelihood of a traitor, and discerns the Ghost crew's attachment to Lothal from their starbird emblem. Thrawn's long-game mentality really helps him to not outlive his welcome, but there's a lot of credit that has to go to the writers and showrunners on this one.