STAR WARS REBELS
“Ghosts of Geonosis”
By Jason Gibner
Let me guess: you suddenly heard a Mardi Gras style marching band going down your street on Saturday night and you were confused why this outburst of joy was happening. Let me help by letting you know that the unbridled happiness you heard was from Star Wars fans unable to contain their excitement that FINALLY, we’ve entered the age of the Rebels / Rogue One crossover. No more are we twiddling our thumbs while the Rebels hang out with teenage space waffle eating pirates! That’s right, happy days are here again and who can believe it but we’ve got Forest Whitaker back as a slighter younger Saw “Lies! Deceptions!” Gerrera! Like a freaking magic trick, they somehow got an actor from everyone’s new favorite Star Wars movie (until next year when it’s out of nowhere cool to make up elitist nitpick reasons about how much you didn’t like it) on the show. Like peanut butter and chocolate, pizza and beer or Captain and Tennille, this new friendship between Rebels and Rogue just feels so right.
The episode starts with our Ghost crew heroes sent to the beautiful planet of Geonosis to find out why Saw’s crew hadn’t been to the Alliance and what they found on their mission to the planet. Once they get there it’s clear that Geonosis is a planet of spooky secrets and a sweet little Geonosian buddy named Klick Klack just adds to the fun. It’s a dark and moody episode filled with references to awesome Clone Wars history and little nods to the slightly more off the rocker Saw we see in Rogue One. Sadly, we do not see the handsome Bor Gullet in this episode. There’s always next week, I guess to go insane with Bad Boy Bor.
The episode wraps up feeling like just maaaaaybe it could have been just an excuse to bring Saw and some Rogue One action. Our heroes don’t really learn a lot about the mysteries of Geonosis, the secret Death Star project that was there or Saw or anything in general. Saw gets a nice little arc as he’s reminded of his humanity and his late, great sister but that’s kinda it. Maybe it was in this episode he remembered that he left that sixteen year old Erso girl in a cave with a loaded blaster and a box of pop tarts. Maybe he started to feel bad about that and got the Bor Gullet for her for a present? I’d like to think the did.
Final grade : B+
Tons of fun having Whitaker back as Saw so quickly after Rogue One but I just wish the episodes had just a little more to them.
Also: Was that Imperial Rae Sloane?!? Probably not, but man, that would be cool bringing her in even for just one episode.