“Star Wars: Rebels” 2.6– Blood Sisters (7 out of 10) – Based on characters and situations created by George Lucas; Starring: Freddie Prinze, Jr., Vanessa Marshall, Taylor Gray, Steve Blum, Tiya Sircar, David Oyelowo; Special Guests: Gina Torres; Rated TV-Y7, Aired on Disney XD 11/18/15.
This review contains spoilers.
The next episode in “Star Wars Rebels” gives us our first Sabine-centric episode. She’s sent on a mission to collect some plans needed by the Alliance. Ezra, for reasons I don’t quite comprehend, decides to go with her and gets ditched early on in the process and disappears for the rest of the episode.
For her part, Sabine runs into her old partner, Ketsu Onyo (played wonderfully by “Firefly”‘s Gina Torres.) Through their conversations, we’re told that they escaped the Imperial Academy together and worked as bounty hunters for a time. After Onyo left Sabine for dead, Sabine ended up joining the Rebels.
The episode plays out with the two of them sniping back and forth, first with blasters, then with ships, then their wits. And then they’re thrust into the fight together when the Imperials show up.
For me, the episode was fun and exciting and I loved learning more about Sabine, but the episode moved too quickly and Onyo changed far too quickly. She’s an interesting character, or can be, rather, but right now she’s sort of a cardboard cutout of a character. The thing I love about this show, though, is that I can almost guarantee I could have said the same thing about Asajj Ventress in her first episode of “The Clone Wars” but would never have said that by the end.
Structurally, the episode seemed odd to me. I think more could have been done to keep me from wondering why Ezra disappeared for the duration of the episode. I kept asking myself where he went and it wasn’t until the end that I realized he just went back to base completely without incident.
Again, this is another one of those episodes that feel as though it’s doing a well enough job on its own, but that it’s setting up things we want or need to know for the conclusions we’ll be getting later in the season. We have a character who is promised to return and hopefully get a little more well developed.
My favorite thing about this episode, though, is how expendable everyone seems to be to Sabine, save for Chopper. Ezra falls out of the ship? No big deal. Want to blow up an RX droid? Done. Leave Chopper? Never.
My next favorite thing was the moment of western showdown with Kevin Kiner aping the Ennio Morricone music. That brought a smile to my face like nothing else in this episode.
To be sure, this episode was a good time, but didn’t feel as important or threatening as other episodes we’ve had this season. I’m hoping for much more from the next episode, as it seems as though I’ve already seen one scene from it at NYCC, and if this scene is in this episode, then the next will go down as one of the greatest. In the meantime, this episode gets a 7 out of 10 from me.
Season 2 Scorecard:
- The Siege of Lothal (10 out of 10)
- The Lost Commanders (7.5 out of 10)
- Relics of the Old Republic (8 out of 10)
- Always Two There Are (8 out of 10)
- Brothers of the Broken Horn (8 out of 10)
- Wings of the Master (8.5 out of 10)
- Blood Sisters (7 out of 10)
Season Average 8.14 out of 10