3x12 Ghosts of Geonosis (2)

6.6/10. Part two is a little better than part one, but only because it's a little more active and a little more interested in engaging in the themes the episode is going for. Unfortunately, those themes are delivered very loudly. Rebels has not always been a very subtle show, but the way it repeatedly underlined the arc for Saw, being hardened by war and defensive after the loss of his sister during The Clone Wars period, only to soften his initial harsh behavior toward "Click Clack" after realizing he too has lost his planet and his family, took away any real punch those ideas might have.

There were a lot of other problems. Click Clack was supposed to be kind of cute, but he quickly started to devolve into Jar Jar-esque annoyance with his cutesy jibberish. At the same time, the fact that he's protecting a Geonosian Queen Egg didn't inspire much sympathy in me, since the last time we saw a Geonosian Queen, she was a freaky evil giant worm thing that used smaller brain slugs to raise a bunch of zombies and try to mind control Obi Wan and Anakin. That changes the complexion of the whole "let's save the remnants of their race" thing.

And the depiction of Saw is a bit muddled as well. They want to show him as an extremist, which coheres with what we know from how he was on Ondoran during The Clone Wars, but there's only so far they can go on a kids' show, so it all feels pretty heavily and unsubtly signposted in other characters telling us how he is rather than letting him show it. When they do demonstrate it, it's in the form of him harassing Click Clack and making grand threats and double crosses that don't have the nuance the character is capable of.

The closest the episode comes is when Saw declares that "war is loss" and that he knows that better than anybody. Again, the episode isn't exactly subtle in how it conveys that Saw is still morning his sister (and tying his disdain for the Geonosians to the fact that they built the gunships that killed her is a bit of a stretch, but a good attempt to explain his mentality), but it at least works as a character motivation. Though again, his epiphany comes a little too late to be particularly meaningful, and Hera and Kanan giving a big "when you're the underdogs, sometimes you have to just fight with whoever will join your side" speech doesn't help on that front.

Still, there's some good action and excitement. The fight descending down into the big airshaft on Geonosis is a cool set piece, especially with Sabine showing off her Mandalorean jetpack skills. (Though I thought she'd lost her jetpack in her last encounter with the Imperial Mandaloreans?) And the Ghost rocketing out of the shaft and blasting through an Imperial ship in the process was a great visual. Hell, I even had a good laugh when one of The Ghost's guns jammed and Sabine made a crack about hating sand "because it gets everywhere." But overall, this was a disappointment of a mid-season premiere.

I appreciate the thematic resonance Rebels was going for -- Saw and Click Clack having a "not so different" moment and a change of heart, but "Ghosts" couldn't really ground that arc in meaningful character work or plot for it to come off the way it needed to. There's some cool action set pieces, and it's nice to see a character who's made the jump from weekly animated show to a real live movie show up with a famous voice in tow, but the results were a less-than-stellar start to Rebels as it kicks off 2017.