Some people might consider this episode to be a filler, but there really isn’t time for fillers in season 4.  This episode was actually pretty important.  Not only did the Rebellion get more people on their side, but the secret of Lothal only gets more mysterious.  Everything is leading up until the mid-season finale, “Rebel Assault”.  Let’s get to reviewing!  Major Spoiler Warnings!…

The Ore Crawler

At the start of this episode, the rebels are still on the cliff and have set up a little camp.  Oddly, there is more people than before, including Jai Kell.  I’m really wondering how they got there.  Anyway, Sabine is trying to get hold of Hera with a transmitting devise.  Unfortunately, they can’t because the Empire is jamming all non-Imperial transmissions.  Kanan says that they have to find a way to call Hera.  “If she made it past the blockade,” says Ryder.  “She made it,” Kanan replies.  “And she’ll convince Rebel Command to launch an attack.  We need to be ready to help.”  Ryder doesn’t want to just help the Rebellion, he wants to fight.  But the Empire has thousands of troops and their hiding in a cave with no ships, no supplies, and a couple blasters.   “We’ve done a lot more with a lot less,” says Ezra.  There’s a way and we’ll find it.”  The transmitter begins to make weird noises.  “What now?”  Zeb asks.  Sabine says that she can’t make contact outside of the planet but she’s picking up something nearby.  Kanan asks how close.  “Close enough to check it out,” Sabine replies.  The rebels go to see what it is.  Outside of the cave on Lothal’s plains, they see a large Ore Crawler mining materials.  In the process, it’s destroying Lothal’s plains.  Zeb says that the crawler could be just what they need to call Hera.  Sabine points out that the crawler is equipped with a long range communications array.  She’s sure it will be able to reach Hera.

 

Pirating The Ore Crawler

At the rebel base on Yavin 4, Hera is trying to convince the Rebellion that the TIE Defenders are dangerous enough to attack the factory.  General Dodonna explains what the Defender is capable of and Mon Mothma asks if it can be destroyed.   “In single ship to ship combat, unlikely,” Dodonna says.  He says that they have not been able to find a weakness in the TIE’s design.   “if we can’t find a way to fight this thing it’s imperative we prevent it from being mass produced,” says Hera.  She requests permission to lead an attack on Lothal to destroy the TIE Defender factory.   “Considering the Empire’s defenses and our limited attack capability, I’m not sure now is the right time,” says a hologram of Bail Organa.  Hera says that they can’t afford to wait and she has forces waiting on Lothal ready to help.   “What about the blockade and Admiral Thrawn?” Bail asks.  Mothma tells Hera that her evidence is persuasive but they will need some time to discuss further actions.  She tells Hera to wait outside.  Frustrated, Hera leaves the war room.  Back on Lothal, the rebels are preparing to infiltrate the ore crawler.  They ride over on a land speeder and have Sabine fly up with her jet pack to take out Mining Guild droid patrols.  After she’s done this, the others join her aboard the crawler.  Ryder stays behind in the lad speeder.  Another droid comes, but Sabine easily takes care of him.  Ezra, Zeb, and Kanan climb up a high ladder that leads up to the control room, Sabine simply flies up.  In the control room, they see a Trandoshan, Captain Seevor.  Seevor doesn’t notice them, since he is wearing headphones and listening to a song.  Zeb pulls off the headphones and says, “I like that song,” before grabbing the captain out of his chair.  Seevor immediately alerts the Mining Guild with a wrist comm, causing an alarm to go off.  Kanan tells Sabine to shut off the alarm while they take care of Seevor.  Ezra takes Seevor’s wrist comm and crushes it.   “Do you have any idea who your messing with?”  Seevor says.  Ezra tells him that they know it’s the Mining Guild.  At that moment, the Mining Guild calls and asks what the problem is.  They want an answer right away.  “Ezra, this one’s all you,” Kanan says.  Ezra steps up and tries to imitate the Trandoshan’s voice, and it was just…bad.  Even Seevor is offended.  “Is that what I sound like?” He says.  Ezra tells the Mining Guild that they are having and engine malfunction but they’re trying to fix it.  Seevor begins to shout, “Liars!”  So Zeb knocks him out.  The Mining Guild replies that they are sending a technical crew to assist them, even though Ezra tries to tell them that it won’t be necessary.   “That could have gone better,” says Ezra.  “I thought it was pretty good,” Zeb replies.  Kanan tells them to keep the captain quite while they get to work.  Sabine starts working on the transmitter, saying that it will take a while since it is old.  But then she finds that someone had activated the intercomm and is sending out a signal from the back of the crawler.  Kanan and Zeb go to find the source, letting Sabine work on the comm and leaving Seevor with Ezra.

 

Zeb’s Big Fight

In the engine room, Zeb and Kanan find nothing.  “That signal came from somewhere,” says Kanan.  He has Zeb check around upstairs while he goes below.  Below, Kanan gets ready to pull out his blaster.  We see someone running around in the shadows before multiple people are shown hiding.  “Please don’t hurt us,” one of them says.  Kanan knows that the people are slaves and puts his blaster back.  Kanan tells the slaves that he’s not with the Mineing Guild and that they’re safe.  The slaves come out of hiding, revealing one of the slaves to be very familiar; Cikatro Vizago.  “Finally!” He shouts.  “My friends have come to rescue me!”  Kanan is surprised to find him there.  Vzago says that the Empire had banished him to the Mining Guild for helping the Ghost crew.  “But I knew you would not leave me here to rot,” he says.  “Right, right”  Kanan says.  Vizago says that he had told the other slaves that the foreman would be no match for a Jedi.  Right then, another Trandoshan, this one bigger and meaner, comes up with an electro-whip.  “Let’s hope you’re right!”  Kanan says.  The Trandoshan pulls Kanan’s lightsaber out of his hands using the whip and wraps the whip around the Jedi.  The whip electrocutes Kanan and he blacks out.  Zeb arrives and tells the foreman to step away from Kanan.  The foreman gets up to Zeb using his whip and the two begin to fight each other.  In the control room, Sabine and Ezra are hard at work.  Sabine says that she’ll need to encrypt their message to Hera so the Empire won’t be able to trace it back to Yavin 4.   Seevor wakes up and starts throwing a tantrum.  “Can’t you keep him quiet?” Sabine asks Ezra.  Ezra takes the captain to a closet to lock him up.  “You can’t put me in there, I know people!”  Seevor shouts.  “Yeah, well, if you see any of your people in there, tell them I said hello,” Ezra replies before locking him in the closet.  Sabine suggests that Ezra checks on Kanan and Zeb, but Ezra thinks they’re fine.  Meanwhile, Zeb takes his fight with the foreman outside.  I must say, it was nice to see Zeb fighting someone his own size.  Kanan, finally awake, runs out to see the two hanging on a ledge kicking each other.  “I’m coming Zeb, hang on,” Kanan says.  The foreman gets his whip and hits Zeb with it, wrapping it around his arm.  Zeb is electrocuted and barely hangs onto the ledge.  Zeb causes the foremen to fall, but creates more problems.  The foremen hangs onto the whip’s hilt and weighs Zeb down.  Luckily, the foreman slips and falls to his death, but Zeb is still about to fall as well.  Right as he does so, Kanan grabs his hand.  “You’re really, really heavy,” Kanan says as he pulls Zeb to safety.  The slaves see that the foreman was beaten and cheer.  “You see that,” says Vzago.  “Those are my friends!”

 

Protocol 13 Revealed

Back at Yavin 4, Hera is pacing around waiting for the the Rebellions decision.  Mon Mothma walks out to tell Hera that they still haven’t decided on what to do.  “They don’t trust me,” Hera says.   “It isn’t that,” Mon Mothma replies.  “The TIE Defender isn’t our only problem.  The Empire has some new plan.  As evidence by Protocol 13.”  Hera says that she has never heard of this protocol.  Mothma explains that the protocol is the immediate evacuation of all Imperial personnel from an occupied planet.  “An order like that should only confirm our worst fears,” says Hera.  “And we’re to afraid to do anything about it.”  She walks into the war room and stands before the higher ranking rebels.  Bail tries to tell her that it’s an closed door council, but Hera isn’t going to have any of that.  She tells them that she knows that the odds are against the attack’s success, but if the Defender goes into production their squadron would not stand a chance.  “I believe it’s a risk worth taking, whether we fail or succeed,” she says.  “At least our actions will show the Empire and the galaxy that we will not stand down. That we will not be broken by fear!  That we are strong.  United by our courage!”  The rebels listen to her, inspired by he words.  “Now, is our time to strike,” Hera tells them.

 

Another Successful Mission

With the foremen dead and Seevor locked in the closet, everything seems to be going as planned on Lothal.  Ezra comes outside and sees all the slaves, asking, “What is this?”  Vizago replies tat it’s freedom.  Ezra is surprised to see Vizago on the crawler, making the scoundrel realize that the rebels didn’t come to save him.  Kanan says that they’re there now and Ezra says that they’ll rescue them.  Sabine calls Ezra and tells them all to get up to the control room.  When they get there, Sabine tells them that there are to targets coming in fast.  They look, and two Imperial gunships are heading their way.  Zeb suggests that they abandon ship, but they still need to contact Hera.  Ezra says the crawler is to valuable and that they could use it in their attack.  Zeb tells him that the crawler is unarmed and no match for the gunships.  The Empire calls and asks for their security code.  Ezra says that he thinks they can hold the crawler without a fight.   “If you got a plan, now’s the time,” says Kanan.  Ezra has Zeb get the slaves on the deck to show that they have things under control.  Next, he makes Vizago act as captain of the crawler.  While Vizago talks to the Empire, Sabine worries that he’ll turn them in.  Ezra says it’s to late to worry about that.  Vizago tells the Empire that they’re having a maintenance issue and they lost their security codes, but everything is under control.  Seevor begins to yell from the closet, so Zeb steps in to make him be quite.  The Empire tells Vizago to prepare to be boarded.  Kanan, Ezra, and Sabine hide in a different closet than Seevore and Visago goes to greet the Stormtroopers coming aboard the crawler.  Visago tells the troopers that he’ll report their intrusion to the Mining Guild, but they clearly don’t care, as they begin to search the control room.  Ezra worries that Seevor will wake up and start being noisy again.  A trooper goes to chech on the same closet that Seevor is in, causing Vizago to get nervous.  “There is nothing in there!” He shouts.  When the trooper aims his blaster at him, Vizago allows him to look inside.  When he does, Seevor is not there.  Vizago wonders where he went.  He tells the trooper that he could give him a full inspection of the place.  “It shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours,” he says.  “You may have that kind of time, but we do not,” the trooper replies.  He tells Vizago to get the crawler operational and orders his squad to leave.  One the Imperial have left, Ezra tells Vizago that he did a good job.  “Like mother said, ‘Once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel’,” Vizago replies.  Vizago says that they have another problem; the real captain is gone.  Kanan finds that the ventilation shaft in the closet had been opened and says that he got loose.  Sabine tells them that she thinks she can call Hera, but when she tries, the panel sparks.  “That doesn’t sound good,” says Kanan.  Sabine finds that the transmitter lost power.  “I told you not to mess with me,” Seevor says over the intercom.  When Ezra asks how he got a comm link, Sabine explains that Seevor is on the crawler’s intercom and he sabotaged power to the long range transmitter.  Seevor orders them to patch him through to the Empire or he’ll destroy the crawler.  Kanan, Zeb, and Ezra go back into the closet to look at the ventilation shaft.  Kanan says that they’ve got to find Seevor before he sabotages the whole crawler.  Sabine tells them that Seevor’s main target would be the reactor core in the refinery.  Kanan and Zeb head that way, but the door to the refinery is magnetically sealed, so Kanan can’t even cut through with his lightsaber.   “Well then, we need someone who is capable of navigating those ventilation shafts,” Sabine says as she looks at Ezra.  If you remember season 1 and 2, then you know that Ezra used to do stuff like that all the time.  But Ezra is a lot bigger than he was then, and it doesn’t come as easy anymore.  Ezra says that he is not going to do it.  “It’s a ventilation shaft, it’s what you do,” Sabine tells him.  “If Vizago can fool Empire, then Jedi can climb into shaft,” says Vizago.  Reluctantly, Ezra goes.  “I don’t do this anymore,” he says as he climbs through.  Sabine guides him through the shafts.  Ezra, being the clumsy Jedi he is, crashes around wasting time.  I don’t really blame him though, since I don’t like going into small places either!  Kanan nags on him to hurry and Sabine asks what he sees.  When he doesn’t answer, Zeb says that he’s probably taking a nap.  Ezra, ignoring Zeb, makes it to the refinery.  He tells Sabine that the reactors had been shut down.  Sabine tells him how to turn them back on, but when he goes to do so, Seevor jumps up behind him.  The two of them fight, and Seevor causes Ezra to drop his lightsaber.  Ezra doesn’t pick it up, and watches as Seevor trips on the hilt and fall into the nearby furnace.  “Watch out,” Ezra says with a smile.  He retrieves his lightsaber and looks into the furnace.

 

The Good News

Ryder joins the rebels aboard the crawler and Kanan asks if they’ve made a believer out of him yet.  “You’re getting there, Kanan,” Ryder replies.  Sabine calls from the control room to says that she had gotten a signal out to the Rebellion and they have to wait for a reply.  The rebels look out over what’s left of Lothal’s grassy plains.  “At least these plains have been spared, for now” says Ezra.  Vizago thanks him for rescuing him, even though that’s not what they came to do.  Ezra thanks him for not turning them in.  He tells the slaves that they’re free but they could use their help to fight the Empire on Lothal.  the slaves express their excitement to fight.  Though, they’re apparently more excited to fight alongside Zeb!  Vizago volunteers to be caption of the crawler, since it is now also apart of the rebels.  Sabine says that they’re receiving a transmission and they all run down to hear what it says.  It’s Hera, and she tells them the news they’ve been waiting for.  “Rebel command has authorized the attack,” she says.  “Fighter are being fueled and bombers loaded.”  Ezra gets excited that the attack is finally happening.  Hera tells them they they’ll be launching their assault on the next rotation and that she told Mon Mothma that they would coordinate the ground assault.  “You can count on us,” Ezra says.  The fight for Lothal is about to begin.  But the question is…how will it end?

 

Conclusion

So this episode might not have been about Loth-wolves or dangerous assassins, but it was pretty good.  It’s nice to see Vizago finally join the rebels in their fight for Lothal!  Now, when I saw the end of this episode and saw how happy the rebels were when they heard that they got permission to lead an attack on Lothal, I got kinda sad.  Think about it, could the rebels ever win against Gran Admiral Thrawn?  I’m really scared that someone might not make it out alive, but we’ll have to see.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll get a surprise and they might win?

Stray Thoughts

– In case you were wondering, Captain Seevor was voiced by Seth Green.  It turns out that he does a really good Trandoshan voice!

–  Star Wars Rebels isn’t the first time where Protocol 13 has been activated.  In “Rogue One”, that was the same protocol that was used before the Death Star blew up Jedha city.  Surely, the Death Star wouldn’t come to blow up Lothal’s city, but perhaps another weapon’s test that is equally devastating?

 

The Star Wars Rebels season 4 mid-season finale will air on November 13, at 9:00 p.m. ET

 

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