Odd couples and bonding seem to be the theme of the week for the crew of the Ghost on Star Wars: Rebels episode Fighter Flight as Zeb and Ezra team up to take on the Empire.
Recap:
After terrorizing the crew with near constant, bickering Ezra and Zeb are sent on a supply mission to a local planet where once again the duo get in over their heads. After discovering that some old friends of Ezra’s are being shook down and forced off their farm by the Empire, Ezra and Zeb set their differences aside to team up and rescue the farmers from certain doom. Oh and they also steal an Imperial TIE-fighter along the way.
My Two Cents:
Honestly, where to start with the episode Fighter Flight? I hate to say it, but I deem it necessary to start with two words: filler episode. Falling back on a well used gag of “The Odd Couple,” Fighter Flight never really gets off the ground.
It was nice to see Ezra developing as a character and more importantly a Jedi but I only wish there was more to his character development beyond the same old “cool guy” tropes. The way he took to hitting on Sabine felt awkward and unnecessary, perhaps, because he feels far too young to be pulling the “Joey Tribbianii” standard. But it seemed that even Sabine noticed this and handled the situation gracefully, thus the story could move on without any awkward romantic entanglements that felt very out of place.
What was really shocking was how uncharacteristically obnoxious Chopper was through the whole episode. I recognize that giving mech droids tempestuous attitudes is a Star Wars tradition but this felt way past that. Chopper was absolutely out of control and not in a cute, “oh look at his attitude” way. It was more like a, “for the love of Pete get that thing off the ship” sort of way. I hope that Chopper’s terrorizing is scaled way back in future episodes so I can go back to enjoying the character.
The theft of the TIE fighter was a fun plot point and really the main driving force behind the entertainment of the episode and yet it feels like we have all seen this episode before on hundreds of different shows.
I cannot in good conscious say this was my favorite episode and yet, if this is the worst Rebels has to offer I can still feel ok with that. That being said Fighter Flight is an episode that is neither earth shaking nor an utter disappointment, it merely felt like an episode to fill a time slot while we move on (hopefully) to bigger and better things. Let’s hope next week has better offerings.
