Have the kids finally found a competent adult, or someone very good at pretending to be one? Let’s find out.
Recap
The parents of all the vanished kids have all gathered and are approached by one of the Security Droids. It has been sent by “the Supervisor,” who has instructed the parents that their children have exited the Barrier and that there is nothing more that can be done. The parents are furious, but they are warned that they may not exit the Barrier. Back in the brig, the kids begin their escape with their new companion who introduces himself as Jod Na Nawood. They sneak out of the port and head back to their ship, arguing the whole way over whether or not he’s a Jedi. Jod wants to head to an old friend of his, but the kids insist on retrieving SM-33 before they go. When he balks, they say they’ll go without him. He agrees to retrieve the droid.
Jod finds SM-33 in a room full of deactivated droids. A member of his old crew, Benjar Pranic (Alfred Molina), recognizes him. He is happy to see “Silvo,” but wonders why Brutus would have let him out right before his trial. Jod tells Pranic that he let himself out; Pranic suggests that he should probably report this to Brutus. Back on the ship, the kids are arguing over whether Jod is really a Jedi who can use the Force. Jod makes it back to the ship with SM-33, but he’s being followed; they have to jump to hyperspace in a hurry. Brutus tells his people to put a bounty on Jod’s head.
Jod makes a meal and questions SM-33 about whether the kids are truly from At Attin. 33 has no answers for him, but is suspicious. Jod tells the kids to get some sleep, but KB can’t sleep—she’s calculated the odds and knows it’s unlikely Jod is a Jedi. He tells her that not everything can be calculated by odds and that they’ll be at his friend’s moon in a few hours. They arrive and walk to the base on the moon—Fern realizes that Jod is trying to hide the ship. He admits that he’s not 100% sure he can trust this friend, and that she might betray them.
There are two women on the station who discuss calling for reinforcements at the sight of Jod. When the group approaches approaches, they meet Kh’ymm (Alia Shawkat), who calls Jod “Crimson Jack,” and has maps to everywhere in the galaxy. When she hears that the kids are from At Attin, she tells them that there are no maps to At Attin; it was one of the worlds known as the “Jewels of the Old Republic,” planets holding incredible treasures. All of them are destroyed, or so they thought. Kh’ymm uses the knowledge the children have of their homeworld to try and narrow down a location. They figure out that the barrier is probably nebulous gasses, which narrows their search to 10,000 planets. Then Kh’ymm notices the “head of the class” badge Fern has, which are Palmarish numerals—something she’s never seen in proto-Republic artifacts.
Kh’ymm keeps narrowing down the planet range; Jod expects she’s stalling. He turns on her radio and finds out that New Republic has sent X-Wings at her request to help; she tells the kids that he’s a scoundrel and they shouldn’t trust him. Jod and Kh’ymm fight; he steals the possible coordinates and destroys her computers. Kh’ymm tells KB not to listen to her gut, but use her head to find the truth, and that they can call on her if they ever need help. As they make it back to the ship, KB and Fern insist that Jod tells them the truth. He admits that he’s just like them, lost and alone… and that he’s not really a Jedi. X-Wings show up and they have to leave, but KB says Jod can only come along if he works for them. He agrees.
There’s a short battle where Jod has the kids man the gun turrets and help pilot the ship in order to escape. They manage to get into hyperspace. One of the X-Wings lands and Kh’ymm berates him for letting them get away. The pilot (Andy Powers) points out that fighting was too risky with the kids on the ship, and asks where they’re headed. Kh’ymm says he’d never believe her.
Commentary
I do appreciate that we get some small sense that Fern’s mom maybe used to be like her kid: She suggests that she and her friends tried to run away sometimes, but were always caught by the Safety Droids. So this place really does wring all the interest out of its populace by blocking all attempts at non-conformity and exploration. The parents don’t seem to have any idea that they’re being controlled either, which is horrifying in the extreme.
And the Supervisor definitely isn’t some Wizard-of-Oz computer matrix that runs the planet. Certainly not.
The thing I’m most pleased about is that we’ve dispensed with the Jedi stuff quickly. Now we can find out what Jod’s actual deal is, which I’m far more interested in. Also, I appreciate that half the kids were canny enough to question him from go. Fern and KB have nice healthy amounts of suspicion, which is likely uncommon on their planet, given… everything.
Another thing I appreciate: We stopped to eat again! It so rarely happens, and it always bugs me when it’s absent. It’s even more egregious when your main characters are kids because kids need to eat more often. I get that we can’t spend all our time on the minutiae of living, but show food. For my suspension of disbelief and also because it’s fun! Show food.
They do a great job with Jod’s dialogue giving him away in terms of being a fraud. All that “the Force provides” and answering “practice” when asked how he distracted guards during their escape. And Law has always been particularly adept at finding that perfect intersection between charming and smarmy. (Wonder what happened to poor Pranic?) As a fun sidenote, Crimson Jack was a character in Star Wars comics who stole Han’s reward money from the Rebel Alliance? So giving that name to Jod as one of his aliases is incredibly funny.
Kh’ymm is fun and also a new species for Star Wars, although she has a bit in common with the gozzos, which we saw on Star Wars Resistance. Most of the lore she’s delivering in terms of “Lost Jewels” and “Palmarish numerals” are new pieces, as far as I can tell. The question now becomes what these lost jewel planets were in charge of in terms of production and/or resources. It seems likely that At Attin is where they made Republic credits? Question being, is this a mint/banking situation, or were Old Republic credits made of a rare material only found on this world?
Spanners and Sabers
- KB’s moms say they’ve lost the signal to her “life monitor,” which is likely meant to invoke those sadistic bracelets that Cindel and her family had in the Ewok Adventures. No joke, these bracelets have lights on them that indicate the status of family members, and when they go out… that means they’re dead. A great thing to have your child keep on their person!
- Wonder what KB’s “urgent medical needs” are? And if they tie to her cybernetics…
- Fern’s point that you could make things look like they were floating with the Force by using string could be called a very deep cut inside joke: Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) helped production on the first film when they got stuck on the issue of getting R2 to jack into Imperial computers because they couldn’t get the mechanism to align correctly in order to plug in. Daniels suggested they use string, an idea that was initially laughed off… and later used.
- You can see Hondo Onaka’s ship at the port. Which… gosh, he must be ancient by now. I’d love to see him, but just knowing he’s around brings me some measure of comfort.
- Why does the moon get theremin music? More theremin is never a bad thing, I just feel like it’s intending to create an atmosphere here that it isn’t quite achieving.
Next week we’ll see where the hyperspace jump takes us…
Ooohhh, pleasepleaseplease have Hondo show up! (I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed that the X-Wing pilot didn’t turn out to be Carson Teva. On the one hand, huge coincidence if he shows up everywhere; on the other hand, who doesn’t want more Carson Teva?)
I’m really liking this show. It’s so much better than I expected. The story and characters are fun, it’s well-made, and Mick Giacchino has inherited his father’s musical gifts. I loved “That’s a very well-made fuel line.” The owl-cat alien was nice too.
KB continues to be my favorite character. I’m a bit disappointed that I was apparently wrong about her being reluctant to show her face to anyone but Fern. I liked the idea that maybe she had social anxiety and only opened up to people she knew and trusted.
I was wondering where I knew Alia Shawkat’s name from. Turns out she was the voice of the robot Levi in Scavengers Reign.
I’m pretty sure this is the first Star Wars streaming series where the montage of droid faces and helmets in the intro includes a visible part of a human face (under the X-Wing pilot’s helmet).
@ChristopherLBennett: Giacchino the Younger also did well on THE PENGUIN – it will be interesting to see if we have to start talking about the Giacchino family in the same way historians discuss the Bachs and the Mendelssohn family.
I’m choosing to believe that the title is a reference to Joe Vs. The Volcano.
I will always be here for bringing Joe vs. the Volcano back into public consciousness…
I’m still loving it, but I do wonder if this will end up being a good show that could have been a great movie.
Right now I’m more curious about what At Attin is over who Jack is. Clearly Jack thinks it’s money but all their parents are essentially analysts. So its gonna end up being some sort of data. Maybe they’re the ones who update the starmaps or something. I don’t know, but between the show being fun and the little mysteries, they’ve got me looking forward to Tuesday.
I’m glad they pulled the rug out from under “Jod” that soon. No one was buying the Jedi facade – not me, and not them either.
Kudos to the escape scene. Seeing Fern and Wim manning the guns outside the hull was far more effective than the similar scenes of Rey and Finn mastering the Millennium Falcon on Force Awakens. It makes a lot more sense for kids to display that wow, we’re living the space adventure childhood dream factor compared to fully grown characters. And it didn’t need any Death Stars, Starkiller Bases or any other needless nods. Just a simple effective escape sequence. Note to the sequel trilogy: this is how you tap into the nostalgia.
I still like the At Attin mystery more than the pirate plot, and then they cut right as the droid is about to make things clear for the anguished parents. <sigh> There’s always next week. At least they’ve established that At Attin is not the only seemingly lost/hidden world from the Old Republic era. And the episode makes it pretty clear that the kids have zero knowledge of the Empire.
One detail that stood out: KB’s mothers. Very similar to the animated Young Jedi Adventures, where pilot/mechanic wizard Nash is also a daughter to two mothers. I wonder what her medical issue is.
Really liked the new character, Kh’ymm, but I do have a rather big nitpick, not so much related to the show itself, but to the overall handling of this New Republic era of Star Wars across all the shows. How come she’s able to call the Republic for help and they respond this quickly and efficiently? Episode 1’s opening crawl made it clear that the Republic was disorganized, which is why pirates flourished across the Outer Rim and elsewhere. I feel if the intent is to make the New Republic inept and incompetent, then the X-Wings should have never responded that fast.
And, of course, this is a carryover feature from The Mandalorian with the Carson Teva character. Maybe it’s because I’m used to having read a ton of EU novels, but I have a hard time seeing the Republic acting like this. It makes little to no sense to send X-Wings in pairs to solve petty crimes in some neighborhood. As far as I know, that is not how a galactic government would operate. Pilots aren’t soldiers or cops. Two of them? What if there is a fleet of pirates waiting for them? They’d be outmatched in a second. And yes, I know that’s how the Old Republic operated, sending pairs of Jedi to settle petty conflicts and other disputes, and it’s probably the reasoning behind Favreau and Filoni’s creation of Teva and these random X-Wing units that don’t seem to be parts of bigger squadrons or answer to a more rigid hierarchy. It feels way too loosely planned, much like the plotting in the Disney era in general.
The gun turret scene bothered me. What if they’d actually hit the X-Wings? What if one of these preteen kids had killed someone? What would that do to them? Not to mention the insane irresponsibility of putting young children in charge of deadly weapons in the first place, although that just reveals that Jod/Silvo/Crimson Jack is not an ethical or responsible person.
Of course, Star Wars has rarely delved much into the ethics and emotional consequences of killing, usually just treating it as a casual action beat. It certainly looked like that very well-made fuel line killed a bunch of people when it snapped back under tension and crashed into the pirates’ port, but it was a throwaway moment.
I wouldn’t even try to apply to Star Wars things like normal ethics or the emotional fallout of killing others, even ones who are a threat (unless it involves actual Jedi). If Star Wars went the Star Trek way, Luke would have become a hermit on the Unknown Regions right after blowing up the first Death Star.
I have found myself reflecting increasingly on killing in the Star Wars franchise, and how frequently it is portrayed in an offhand, video-game style fashion unless the victim happens to be an important character. (With regard to the contrast between Star Wars and Star Trek, my wife once pointed out that as their respective titles suggest, Star Wars tends to be focused on war, and thus combat and killing, while Star Trek is focused, at least originally, on exploration. We did both agree that putting the kids in the gun turrets seemed like a bad idea.)
This was actually brought home to me while watching a different film, Mortal Engines, and comparing the aerial combat scene in the film with that in the original novel. In the book, the main character shoots down an aircraft piloted by a pair of bad guys, killing not only them, but several innocent bystanders on the ground, and he is sickened and wracked with guilt afterward. In the equivalent scene in the movie, he shoots down the bad guys without any collateral damage, and whoops with triumph; watching it, I immediately thought of the similarity with Star Wars.
(Mind you, this is a common phenomenon in the action-movie genre in general: the death of a central character or their loved ones is meaningful, as is the hero sparing the live of the archvillain, whereas the death of the latter’s faceless lackeys, or sometimes even innocent bystanders, is often passed off as an action beat (as ChristopherLBennett said), or even played for comedy.)
Lucas himself tried to ameliorate the violence in the prequels by using droids as the majority of the enemy forces, so that it was only the bad guys who were killing a lot of people. Although of course that clashes with the way SW implicitly treats droids as sentient beings while casually accepting their enslavement and lack of rights.
On a less serious note, I did chuckle when Jod activated a broken-down Battle Droid and it asked “Did we win?”
Another good episode. I’m liking all the kids, and the way their different personalities interact. I love the fact that the boring home they left behind is turning out to be one of the most interesting planets in the galaxy. And Jod/Jack/Silvio/Whatever is like an onion; every time you think you know who he is, another layer is revealed.
I really want to learn more about KB. She’s the most intriguing member of the crew, but thus far she’s mostly been portrayed as Marcie to Fern’s Peppermint Patty (at least we occasionally see her eyes). I am enjoying this show, which, unlike most serialized Star Wars shows, feels more like an adventure serial than a chopped up movie, though that might be down to the vibe more than the editing. It also looks fantastic, which isn’t always the case for these shows.
Count me as another person who sees KB as the most intriguing member of the cast. I hope that we will learn more about her in the episodes to come.
With regard to the introduction of Kh’ymm, did anyone else get flashbacks to Aughra from The Dark Crystal? I think it was a combination of her voice and appearance, her setting, and the role that she plays in the story (pointing the characters to their destination).
I absolutely thought of Aughrah.
Hmm, I didn’t think of Aughra, since Aughra was big (proportionally), lumbering, and hideous, while Kh’ymm was small, fast-moving, and cute. But I guess I see your point about her setting and her story role.
What puzzled me were those shelves or bookcases or whatever revolving past behind the clear walls. Was the room itself rotating, or was the room standing still while the shelves beyond revolved? Either way, the fact that the moving shelves surrounded the room at floor level meant that the people inside the room would’ve had no way to get out — unless there was a gap in the shelves, but they still would’ve had to wait for it to align with the exit. Or unless the rotating room was a level up from the entrance, but it didn’t seem that way to me.
The shots of figures walking along the moonscape as framed against that gas giant were just gorgeous.