Review: Star Wars Rebels – “Wings of the Master”

The Empire is trying to take over another planet. People on the planet are about to starve if the Rebels can’t get them food and supplies. Hera and the gang will do what they can to save the innocent people.

During their first run at the planet, the Empire destroys their transport ship and the leader of the Phoenix squad. Knowing that the people will starve before the next day, Hera makes plans to do another run with more ships. Kanan knows that they will never be able to punch through the Empire’s defenses. Rex knows a guy that has been building a ship that blasts through blockades. But the guy is on a planet that no pilot flies to. It turns out that, while in the atmosphere, ships lose power and end up crashing instead of landing. Since Hera is determined to get that new ship, she takes the Phantom (with Zeb and Sabine) on the suicide mission. Thankfully, Hera is an amazing pilot. She manages to land the Phantom but only barely.

A lone Mon Calamari and his droid save the Phantom from tumbling into the void. He is the ship builder but he is unwilling to allow Hera to fly his prototype. It isn’t until she confesses her love of flying that he allows her to take the controls. The new ship is a B-Wing. Not only is it fast, it also has some very powerful weapons on board. Unfortunately, when Hera tested the weapons, she blew out the hyperspace drive. Of course, the spare hyperspace drive was put on the Phantom. But Hera has an idea.

While Hera, Zeb, and Sabine work on obtaining the B-Wing, Kanan decides that they can’t wait any longer to get the supplies to the villagers. He loads the supplies onto the Ghost, planning to fly the mission himself. When the Rebels begin their second run, the Empire scans the ships. They quickly find out where the supplies are and focus all of the firepower on the Ghost. Just when things look bleak, the Phantom soars in with Zeb at the controls. It is carrying the new B-Wing into the battle. Hera flies the B-Wing to the front of the convoy. At the last minute, she gives the order to Sabine to fire on the Empire. That one shot completely annihilated a Destroyer, giving the Ghost enough time to get past the rest of the Empire’s ships and drop off the supplies. Mission accomplished!

Everyone, including the new ship builder, returns to the Rebel base. The new B-Wings are going to be put into production once all of the flaws are worked out. In addition, Hera has been promoted to leader of the Phoenix squad. Hopefully, the rest of the pilots will learn a thing or two from her.

There wasn’t a ton of action in this episode but that’s OK. There was enough story to make up for it. We learned why Hera started piloting ships; we got to see the creator of the B-Wings; and we got to see Agent Kallus knocked down a few pegs. I also liked that this episode didn’t completely focus on Kanan and Ezra. It let Hera shine for once. I only hope that we’ll get to learn more about her (and Zeb and Sabine) in the future. Kanan and Ezra aren’t the only ones in the group!