4x05 The Occupation

[7.4/10] I’m a big fan of TV kismet -- those little coincidences where shows you like overlap in silly but fun ways. When I was binging the first 2 1/2 seasons of Rebels, I often paired it with Avatar: The Last Airbender, another show that Rebels co-creator Dave Filoni worked on before he went supernova with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. So it’s a real treat for me to hear Dante Bosco (Zuko from Avatar) return as Jai Kell, Ezra’s friend from his fake Imperial Academy days in Season 1, here.

But that’s just a little bonus, for the most part, Kell is just there to get our heroes out of a jam and then run alongside them while they’re attack by the usual Imperial so-and-sos. But what I like about the episode is the difficulty Ezra has with seeing Lothal in such a state, and worrying that it’s a lost cause.

The episode does a nice job of conveying that visually. We’re used to seeing Lothal as a sunswept, Tatooine-like backwater. Here, it has all the look of an occupied city -- replete with giving us a look at the place at night, the kind the show rarely displayed before. The streets are mostly empty aside from stormtroopers and other Imperial personnel, and there’s even a Fredrick Zoller-esque fighter pilot running Old Joe’s bar, in another nod to where Rebels is finding its influences.

As has been the case lately, the episode isn’t shy about broadcasting Ezra’s emotional reaction to this. He remarks on everything he sees and even goes so far as to declare that Saw Guerrera was right about the place being already gone. It’s not subtle, but it’s an interesting thing to explore -- someone seeing their homeland turn into something they don’t recognize because of war and control, and “The Occupation” gets credit for that.

It also gets credit for a tender scene between Hera and Kanan. I don’t know why though. The “we’re hiding from guards and then end up in romantically close quarters” is a tired, tired cliché. I even excoriated Iron Fist for the same shtick not too long ago. But something about the scene just works. Maybe it’s that we so rarely get to see Kanan and Hera get to be outright romantic with one another -- they’re always busy and tend to keep things professional in front of the troops. The fact that they lament that, that they never have time to just be together, makes it one more tragedy of the Empire and this fight, and Kanan’s wish that he could see Hera, and Hera’s response that he could always see her is cheesy but no less effective in tugging my heartstrings.

Naturally, it ends in a big chase and fight, but it’s a nice one. The sewers as a backdrop and the tentacled droids going after our heroes give the outing a bit of flair, and the maze-like qualities, with Rebel symbols being the signposts that lead the way, creates a purpose to it all rather than just a “threat appears/threat neutralized” setup. The rescue from Ryder is predictable, but I like Ezra reinvigoration here, realizing that the fight is not lost, but that they’ll just have to start small again.

Overall, it’s an well-done episode of the show, one that takes on an interesting issue (occasionally loudly), delivers a solid emotional moment, and a good fight. That’s doing plenty.