Star Wars Rebels S2 - Episode 15: Family Problems

Post number one hundred! And still coming... hopefully.

Right, another largely one-off episode. Star Wars Rebels' fifteenth episode of the second season, Homecoming, is yet another tightly-packed story... though a little predictable as usual. However, this time we meet another familiar character, and explore a little bit of another character's past as the previous episodes of Rebels did, this time Hera. Spoilers follow, be it intentional or otherwise.

Homecoming opens with a space battle, with the Ghost transferring some supplies while being pursued by an Imperial-class star destroyer and a couple of TIE fighters. Nothing much to say about the fine, tense battle, as usual.

One fighter was destroyed just before it docked, which raised the matter that the Rebels are losing fighters fast and need a base to store new fighters.

Thus Hera, reluctantly, called upon her father, Cham Syndulla, the hero from the Clone Wars. The general was indeed a pain in the backside, if I remember clearly when I watched that season of Star Wars the Clone Wars a year ago, and it should repeat here.

And oh my, remember that little Twi'lek girl, Numa, that said "Neera, neera!" to the clones? It seems she's become a warrior! Though a more or less unimportant character here. Shame.

From the start it was apparent that Hera did not get along well with her father, debating over whether to destroy or steal an Empire carrier over Ryloth, the Twi'lek home. This could also be that one case of family feud that is resolved by the end. Anyway, they decided to infiltrate the carrier with a TIE bomber.

Apparently, that may very well be the case, for when Hera got some quality time with her father, their past was revealed. Cham, ever the proud Twi'lek, put his family aside to fight for his people. However, he accuses Hera of putting attention on lost causes.

This episode also got its fair share of laughs, one of them was when Hera, sulking, closed off the blast door to the other pod of the TIE bomber.

After a deliberately tense crash landing at the carrier's hangar, the crew woke up to find that they were betrayed by Cham, who still wanted to plant explosives. Hera did try reasoning, to no avail.

See, this is turning out quite close to what I expected. Rebels just have a lot of cliches, though the story itself is all sound up until now.

The rest of the rebels continued with their original plan, blasting their way to the cockpit in quite an epic way, Ezra and Kanan force pushing and pulling each other across closing blast doors. Star Wars could indeed get impressive when it shows off the fights.

More laughs, this time when Ezra used the Force mind trick on the captain. nothing much to say here, really.

However, they find that they could not reach hyperdrive as Cham has disabled it, and went to the cockpit to force the rebels to cooperating. And, as expected, due to reinforcements coming in, Hera managed to reason with her father. That scene was quite a proud moment for Hera.

They quickly dispatched the fighters and shuttles sent by an Imperial light cruiser. However, the TIE bombers also got involved. Needless to say, that was a good long battle. And after that, they dispatched of the light cruiser in quite a creative way. The fireball became a symbol upon which Ryloth rallies.

So, in the end, Hera made up with her father, while the rebels got their ship. Simple, predictable story, though no big gaps in the storytelling itself. We got to see the little girl, Numa, now a warrior serving Cham Syndulla, the questionable general from The Clone Wars, who is actually part of Hera's family and past. End of arc, and I'll be waiting for next week.

I still got some jobs to complete...

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Star Wars Rebels is a series by Disney Lucasfilms.