When the crew of the Ghost are ambushed on an Imperial construction base over Geonosis which was totally not building the Death Star or anything, Zeb and Agent Kallus get thrown into an escape pod and crash into one of the planet’s icy moons. Now, with the temperatures dropping and dangerous animals closing in, Zeb does the sensible thing and kills Agent Kallus dead for all of the bad things he’s done.
Actually, no… they have to work together and get along. I think every long running television series has to have this episode at least once.
This was a welcome change of pace for Rebels as it seems that the storytelling on the show has become less and less sophisticated over the last few episodes. Here, Rebels shows us that the good guys and bad guys aren’t exactly black and white… a predicable story, sure, but it’s done well here. This is actually the first time I’ve felt anything for Kallus as he’s usually been presented as a one-note bad guy. To see him portrayed as a decent fellow with only a different philosophical point of view is an improvement to say the least.
Now, the episode is not surprising nor is it inventive. Once it’s apparent what kind of story it’s going to be, it pretty much follows the formula from start to finish, but the dialogue is raw and honest and the action that takes place in between is well scripted and fresh. To see Zeb use his abilities to crawl and jump around like a monkey was a lot of fun.
So, yeah… there’s little originality, but at least they did a tried story with the goal of fleshing out not only Zeb as a character, but giving Kallus a personality and backstory as well making the thin line between hero and villain a lot harder to see.
Jason Gaston 