Review: Star Wars Rebels – “Stealth Strike”

Spoilers Below

Captain Sato has taken Ezra with his crew to find a lost ship. As they speed through hyperspace, they are suddenly yanked back into regular space travel. Confused, they find themselves face to face with a new type of Star Destroyer. Sato tries to send off a plea for help but his ship is shut down before he can finish the message. The group has been captured by the Empire. But Ezra isn’t worried about it. He’s escaped tough places before.

Back with the rest of the team, Hera receives Sato’s extremely brief message. She questions how a ship can be pulled out of hyperspace. Sabine tells the group that, when she was in the academy, the Empire was working on a gravity drive that could pull a ship out of hyperspace. It seems like they finished the drive and are now in the testing phase. Hera sends Kanan and Rex on a rescue mission. Oh, and they have to wear Stormtrooper suits. It will be Kanan’s favorite mission, for sure.

Kanan and Rex fly another stolen Imperial shuttle to Sato’s last location. Once they arrive, they find a group of Imperial ships. The new Star Destroyer hails the tiny ship, telling them this is restricted space and they need to leave. Rex has a coded conversation with them and manages to get them inside the larger ship.

Inside, Ezra has freed himself and locked up his guards. When a few more Stormtroopers rush in, Ezra stuns them. How was he to know that Kanan and Rex were inside the suits? Kanan is a little upset but Rex said he should have set his gun to kill. Now that Ezra is free, they still need to find Sato and destroy the gravity drive. The padawan decides that they should split up. He will take Chopper to destroy the drive while Kanan and Rex save the others. Kanan is not happy with the plan but he realizes they have no choice.

Chopper, with some help from Ezra, sabotages the gravity drive with little fanfare. So little fanfare that Ezra isn’t convinced that the droid actually completed the task. He can only trust Chopper so they head back to the ship.

Meanwhile, Kanan and Rex quickly find Sato and the rest of the Rebel crew. Unfortunately, they run into a mess of Stormtroopers on their way out. Rex sacrifices himself by staying behind to fight while the others rush back to Sato’s ship. However, Kanan can’t leave his friend behind. Once everyone else is safely on board Sato’s ship, he goes back to save Rex. Hiding in plain sight in his Stormtrooper suit, Kanan quickly dispatches his enemies and gets Rex back to Sato’s ship.

The Rebel group takes off in Sato’s ship, hoping that Chopper actually destroyed the gravity drive. But when they go to jump to hyperspace, they are pulled back out again. Calmly, Chopper tells them to wait. It turns out that the gravity drive is now attracting every ship in the area to the Star Destroyer. Including Sato’s. It isn’t until the Imperial ships smash together that they are freed and can resume their jump to hyperspace.

At first, I thought this was going to be a boring episode. Boy, was I wrong! For the first time, we see a truly capable Ezra taking charge and kicking butt. It’s obvious that all of his training is finally paying off. Buuut…it seems that Ezra might be a little cocky when it comes to his abilities. He actually gave orders to Kanan and Rex. Considering their master/padawan relationship, Kanan shouldn’t have stood for that. Instead, it was like no one noticed the exchange at all. I hope this doesn’t turn into something bad further down the road.

I found this to be a really fun episode. It will be nice to see the Jedi return to doing Jedi things and not just hiding. Jedi Ezra will be a nice change to the absence of Jedi powers.