Review: Star Wars Rebels “An Inside Man”

Denzel is nowhere to be found.

Spoilers Below

Ezra and Kanan have returned to Lothal. Unfortunately, the Imperials have tightened security around the capital. The duo (and Chopper) get some help from the former governor, Ryder, to escape. As the group rides away on a landspeeder, they are blocked by an AT-DP walker. After some cool moves by Ryder and a few lightsaber swipes from the Jedi, the walker becomes little more than a pile of scrap metal. This doesn’t mean they are free, of course. A couple of Scout Troopers are following them on speeder bikes. When Ezra and Kanan express their concern over their situation, Ryder is cool as a cucumber. When they get the speeder bikes up to 190, they overheat and explode. It turns out that the Rebels have some friends on the inside at the production factory that are sabotaging the Imperial vehicles.

At the Rebel outpost in the desert, Ezra finds an old family friend, Morad Sumar. During the group’s discussion of why Ezra and Kanan are back on Lothal, it is revealed that the Rebel informant, Fulcrum, told them about a new weapon coming out of the Imperial factory. The Jedi are here to try to figure out what is going on. It’s decided that Ezra, Kanan, Chopper, and Morad will all go undercover at the factory as citizens hired to be workers.

Inside the factory, the workers are being lined up for inspection. At first, the Rebels think it’s just Agent Kallus and Governor Pryce doing the inspection. But they are wrong. Grand Admiral Thrawn has come to investigate all of the malfunctions coming out of the factory. As he walks among the workers, he pauses briefly at Ezra and Kanan before turning his attention to a speeder bike. It’s a bike that Morad inspected. Thrawn orders Morad to get on the bike and take it to top speed. When the bike starts to malfunction, Morad tries to shut it down. The Grand Admiral has other things in mind. He remotely speeds the bike up again until it explodes, killing Morad. From now on, all workers will personally test anything they work on.

Thrawn orders the factory locked down while he checks the assembly line for sabotage. The workers are lined up in order to double check their IDs. In order to save the Jedi, Chopper crashes a speeder bike into a crate. Kanan and Ezra use the distraction to escape. (Chopper gets ordered to go to maintenance.) With the factory locked down, the duo needs to change their disguise. Luckily, they run into a Stormtrooper and a Scout Trooper in the hallway. They easily knock the troopers out and take their armor.

Back at the assembly line, Thrawn, Pryce and Kallus discuss the new ship that is being built at the factory. Kallus doesn’t know a lot about it but he doesn’t think one ship will make a big difference in their fight. Thrawn has a different opinion. One more vehicle gets inspected. This time it’s an AT-PT. It immediately falls over and it’s worker is taken away by Stormtroopers.

Ezra and Kanan have joined back up with Chopper. The trio has found themselves outside a high security area. Chopper zaps a nearby Imperial droid and steals it’s code chip to get inside. He steals the plans for the new ship and hightails it out of there.

A quick cut to Thrawn’s office where the Grand Admiral is talking to Pryce and Kallus. He tells them about the Phoenix Squadron and how they will always return to Lothal. For some reason, he seems to have decorated his office with a variety of Rebellion-related artwork.

Once Chopper is back with Ezra and Kanan, they get cornered by a group of Stormtroopers. They try to run but get cornered in an elevator with Kallus. Kallus claims to be the informant Fulcrum and gives the proper code phrase. Since communications have been cut off, Kanan orders Kallus to help them get in touch with their friends. Kallus takes them to the communication room and helps them knock everyone out. Chopper easily restores communications. Kanan calls Ryder and they agree to meet at the east gate. Kallus tells them about a walker they can jump in near that gate. When he wonders how he’s going to make the chaos in the communications room look convincing, Ezra force-throws him through a display.

Of course, Thrawn finds out about the stolen plans and orders an attack on the Rebels at the east gate. At the gate, Ezra and Kanan hop into an AT-DP and join the fight. But the AT-AT pilots realize the smaller vehicle isn’t supposed to be there. Thrawn orders the AT-ATs to attack the rogue walker. The Jedi hide their walker behind one of the AT-ATs but those pilots decide to simply crush the smaller walker under them instead. Ezra and Kanan use their lightsabers to cut through the metal on both walkers and jump into the AT-AT. They easily take out the pilots. As they shoot the other AT-AT, Ryder’s men shoot out the knee of their AT-AT. The Jedi jump out of their fallen vehicle and rejoin their friends.

Sabine decrypts the stolen plans while Ezra, Kanan, and Ryder talk to them via hologram. The group quickly find out that it’s a new TIE fighter with shields. If the Empire puts these into mass production, the Rebels are done.

Finally, Thrawn talks to Pyrce and Kallus about a possible mole in their ranks. Pryce protests but Kallus admits that Thrawn’s strategy is without flaw, as always.

Just a few episodes ago, I was lamenting how off-track the series had gotten. With last week’s episode and this week’s, it feels like we might be back on track. Unlike all of the “let’s rescue everyone!” episodes that have taken over this season, we’re back to Rebel vs Imperial head-on battles. Thrawn is the bad guy that this show needs and, sadly, we haven’t seen enough of him. Now that we know that Kallus is on the Rebel side, his ineptitude makes a bit more sense. But none of the other Imperial commanders are any better. Without the Inquisitors, it’s a wonder why the Rebels haven’t been able to destroy three-quarters of the Imperial fleet. Maybe Thrawn will be more apparent now and there will be some real conflict.