So what’s a Great Barrier look like anyway?
Recap
The kids’ parents are working in the woods at night on their communications device to contact the kids. They are discovered by security droids and form a relay race to pass off the device to each other as each of them is stunned in turn. Once the device is passed to Fara, it is powered up and ready to be released, and she gets it to launch. On the new Onyx Cinder, the kids are playing, but Wim is depressed—he knows their adventure is coming to an end and they’ll be right back where they started. His friends insist that they’re still glad they had this experience and that everything will be fine. In the meantime, the pirates arrive at the coordinates of At Attin and discover a planet of toxic gas storms. Jod insists this is all a trick, so they send out a scout and promptly lose contact.
As Jod is sent to the airlock, the new Onyx Cinder comes out of hyperspace, and Jod tells them this is how they’ll get to At Attin. The ship is caught in the pirates’ tractor beam, and the ramp to the ship lowers. Brutus tells the occupants to surrender and the kids use the cargo claw to grab him, using a voice-changing mechanism to tell the pirates to let them go or they’ll kill him. Jod does the job for them, shooting Brutus in the head, and telling the pirates that they obviously want to follow him. The crew agrees, and Jod tells them the ship is full of kids who can be easily subdued. The kids are taken hostage and the Onyx Cinder is under pirate control. Jod wants to find out why the Cinder can get through the storms to At Attin, and as his crew works to that end, the message from the kids’ parents makes it through the Barrier: They tell the children that they can’t reveal the location of At Attin to them directly, but that the children should be able to make it home if they find a Republic Emissary who knows the planet’s location. They weren’t supposed to find out about any of this until they graduated.
Wim decides they need to take control of the ship and tries to attack, but is quickly stopped. However, SM-33 points out that, according to the pirate code, you can only captain one ship at a time. Jod claims the ship, but Fern calls “unclaimsies” and claims the ship for kids only. That’s good enough for SM-33, who has clearly been looking for a glitch in the rules, and he throws the pirates off the ship, knocking Jod out. The kids and 33 escape the pirate freighter and begin to fly through the Barrier, pursued by pirate fighters. They realize that the reason the Onyx Cinder can get through the Barrier is because the ship is from At Attin. They make it through to find their planet, getting put on an autopilot sequence for landing. Jod got back on the ship, however, and means to take over again. SM-33 goes to fight him and Jod decapitates him with the lightsaber he pilfered from Rennod’s treasure room.
Jod tries to contact his ship, but can’t get through the Barrier interference and makes the kids get on the ground and not say a word, calling them spoiled and weak. He tells them that if they out him to anyone on At Attin, he’ll kill them or their families. The kids’ parents are currently being told off by a security droid, when there’s an interruption: An Emissary is arriving for a shipment. KB’s moms get the light back on their bracelet and know the kids are aboard. The Cinder lands on At Attin and Jod introduces himself as the Republic Emissary, and is told that he must proceed directly to the Mint to begin offloading procedures. He and the kids are taken underground, and the safety droids refuse his request to contact his ship outside, saying he must speak to the Supervisor about the Barrier.
They make it to the Vaults and Jod finds himself surrounded by Old Republic credits, more than anyone could ever imagine. He begins to laugh hysterically at the sight. The kids’ parents are brought down to the Vault and the children are reunited with their families… but Jod comes toward the group with his lightsaber.
Commentary
This was another short, sweet, fun episode, but we’ve gotta talk about how At Attin seems to work, now that we have some more information.
So, when you live on At Attin, you don’t find out what the planet is for until you’re essentially grown enough to be thinking of entering this society and getting one of your (extremely limited) possible jobs. Which means that right as you’re becoming an adult, you learn that you have only a couple of options for lifelong purpose and employment forever, and that if you choose to have a family, your kids will be given the exact same (lack of) choices.
Now, it’s possible that when the planet was in more consistent Republic contact, it was a bit easier to leave if that’s what you wanted. But leaving would mean that you might never really see your family again, since you can only enter the atmosphere on a special Republic ship designed for the planet. Essentially, if you’re a denizen of At Attin, you’re supposed to exist in service of the Mint and have children who exist in that same service and no one is really all that bothered by this? Because the planet does need these people to breed in order to have more workers for the Mint, right? That’s how you keep the system running. The brainwashing quotient on this population is so high that I’m forced to ask how it was achieved in the first place. Genuinely, I need someone to tell me how this system was put in place and when and who conceived it and why it was considered to be the best system at the time…
I’m not saying I don’t like the concept—it’s horrific and screwy and I’m fascinated—but I don’t imagine the show is gonna get into that before end? Like, we might end on a dismantling of this world as it functions since there is no Old Republic anymore, but that doesn’t mean that anyone is going to address how this very upsetting place came to be and continued for so long uninterrupted.
Having said that, Jod is really getting the chance to stretch his villain legs properly, and I’m enjoying it immensely. Killing Brutus was kind of a given—the guy was beyond useless and such a pushover—but the way he treats the kids in this episode is absolutely monstrous. He knows exactly what buttons to push after spending so much time with them, precisely what they’re all afraid of. He knows that Wim is the most sensitive and that Neel is the most frightened. He knows that Fern can’t stand not being able to do something. (The look on her face as she keeps quiet, the repressed rage, ugh. That one hit me right in the childhood.) And the fact that Jod uses the lightsaber, poisoning something that brought Wim so much comfort and joy… What a hideous piece of work he is.
A shoutout to SM-33 who was clearly looking for any possible loophole out of his programming and took the opportunity with both brawling hands. At least we know he’s not permanently dead, and we’ll hopefully see him restored next week.
We’ve got some fun Wizard of Oz-esque shenanigans at this point around the Supervisor and what is truly running the planet. Bets on who it’s going to be? Perhaps the biggest droid on At Attin? The planet’s a big computer? It’s Rennod himself? An Emperor clone? Jod’s former Jedi master? We’ll know soon enough…
Spanners and Sabers
- It’s important to note that the mechanisms that create the Great Barrier are the same sort of implements used to carry out Operation: Cinder at the end of the Empire’s reign—this was an orbital bombardment initiative against key worlds with great resources that the Emperor put in place to be executed in the event of his death. Undoubtedly, a planet like At Attin would have been high on that list had anyone still known of its location.
- Sorry, but when did Jod get the ligthsaber back? Why was the pirate crew just keeping all his effects on the ship, wouldn’t they have left his stuff back at the port?
- Again, why is this planet the Mint? What are the dataries made of that’s so valuable and can’t be made elsewhere? I just need someone to make it make sense.
- Really wanna know if KB’s moms are both her bio parents—it’s always a possibility within sci-fi premises and I want that to be an easy thing in Star Wars for queer couples, should they want their own kids.
Next week it’s the finale! Can’t wait to find the man/woman/being/droid being the curtain…
