Review: Star Wars Rebels – “Brothers of the Broken Horn”

Spoilers Below

Ezra is doing some blaster training with Rex. (By the way, where are the other clones?) Kanan interrupts to chide Ezra for not being at Jedi training. Apparently these guys can’t figure out a schedule for Ezra’s training. Everyone wants him in different places at the same time. Luckily for Ezra, Sabine interrupts everyone with a mandatory meeting announcement from Hera. Some local colonies require new generators. They will freeze to death if they don’t get them. So the crew, minus Ezra and Chopper, go out to find some on the black market. Ezra and Chopper are tasked with scrubbing the Ghost instead of helping.

While the duo cleans the ship, Chopper gets a distress signal from Vizago’s ship. (In case you forget who he is, Vizago is the crime lord that the gang frequently works with.) The young padawan decides to answer the call and steals the Phantom, claiming he can fly it. He can. Barely. Somehow, he manages to get the Phantom to Vizago’s ship in one piece. But when he boards, he doesn’t find Vizago at the helm. He finds a pirate named Hondo Ohnaka. Hondo claims he won the ship and Vizago’s doids in a sabacc game. As if that isn’t using enough of the Millenium Falcon’s back story, Ezra claims to be Lando Calrissian in order to hide his identity. Recognizing the name, Hondo offers “Lando” a spot on his crew. Ezra turns down the offer but, when he finds out that Hondo is smuggling generators, offers to help him finish his job in exchange for half of the generators. The two agree on 2 generators and half the price of the third for Ezra and the rest for Hondo. Unfortunately, the Empire shows up to ruin their day. Ezra and Chopper fix the ship and the group lightspeeds away from the enemy.

When they arrive at Hondo’s rendezvous point, Ezra finds out that the buyer is none other than Azmorigan, the crime lord that he helped Lando screw over. Of course, Azmorigan recognizes him and reveals that he is not Lando Calrissian. Hondo and Ezra get the jump on Azmorigan and manage to get out with the generators without losing too much. Though Ezra did have to reveal his Force powers to Hondo.

Back on Vizago’s ship, Hondo once again offers Ezra a spot on his crew. For some reason, Ezra accepts this time. But, again, only in exchange for the generators. As Ezra walks around the ship, he finds Vizago in the ship’s brig. It turns out that Hondo did not win the ship in a game. He stole it and the droids. Ezra gives Vizago Hondo’s droid controller, which he stole earlier, and releases him from the cell. The two confront Hondo, who steals the Phantom and runs away. Vizago loads Ezra and Chopper into an escape pod and shoots them off toward the planet. Thankfully, Chopper knows where the Phantom is going.

Ezra and Chopper walk into the Ghost to find Hondo talking to the rest of the gang. It turns out that Chopper turned the auto-pilot on in the Phantom so it was always heading home. While Hera and Kanan aren’t thrilled with Ezra’s side job, they are happy that he retrieved the much needed generators. Now the villagers won’t die.

Sometimes this show takes awesome concepts – smugglers, Force powers, droids with guns – and makes them super boring. At no point in the show, did any of this feel exciting or new. It felt like yet another day saving yet another criminal in order to get yet another needed item. Even when Ezra agreed to leave the crew of the Ghost and join Hondo, it didn’t feel like it would actually happen. We, the audience, weren’t worried that Ezra might really leave the gang. It felt like an empty, hollow threat. When the Empire randomly showed up shooting at Vizago’s broken ship, that didn’t feel like danger either. There has to be some sort of conflict to keep the show entertaining. This episode only had lame conflicts. Maybe the crew of the Ghost joined the rest of the rebels too early. It seems to have made them boring people.