Star Wars: Rebels, Episode 7 “Gathering Forces” Broadcast November 24, 2014
Written by Greg Weisman
Directed by Steward Lee
Picking up where last week left off, our heroes are speeding off into space on the Ghost, pursued by the Inquisitor in his advanced TIE, with four additional TIE fighters as back up. Chopper was taken out of commission last week, so Zeb has to take his place manning the guns. He takes out one TIE, but another four join the others. The Inquisitor demands them to “Open fire. Their shields won’t hold indefinitely.” Over the ship’s com, Hera orders Sabine to man the nose guns, but she’s busy trying to get Ezra to acknowledge that Tseebo has information about his parents. The young Jedi-in-training says he knows that they’re dead and shoos her off with a glance. Alone with the Rodian, he asks, “Are they? Are my parents dead?” Hera asks why they’re so popular and her crew tells her that Tseebo has half of the Empire’s secrets downloaded in his cybernetic implant. After this exchange, the scene returns to Ezra and Tseebo, who asks forgiveness for not helping his parents when they were abducted and for not raising Ezra himself. “Forgive you? My parents trusted you and you failed them,” the youth rails. “I’ll never forgive you!” The upset boy leaves for the cockpit, summoned by Hera. Outside, the Inquisitor attaches a tracking device to the Ghost. Back inside, Ezra has to fix the nav computer since Chopper is out. “Make it fast,” Hera tells him, seeing two Star Destroyers coming at them, “or this ship becomes a real ghost.” Cue opening title card.
This was a decent conclusion to last week’s “Empire Day,” and even went back to the episode “Out of the Darkness.” There was quite a bit of bonding between Ezra and Kanan, which only intensified when the Inquisitor entered the picture. Chopper’s reawakening was pretty fun, though that ended the droid’s involvement in the episode. Zeb does even less, and Sabine gets two short scenes with Ezra, with the final one being a nice moment. Hera has now got some information to spill, but she can’t at the end of this episode, so hopefully next week she can tell the others what she’s learned. The Inquisitor is particularly nasty in his dialogue, and his fight with Canan goes as it should. There is an event in this story that should cause him pause if he feels the need to monologue before Ezra again. In fact, I was thinking of Akira in Ezra’s big scene.
The good: More Ezra and Kanan bonding, Hera gets some intel she can’t share, Chopper’s waking up, the Phantom‘s exit from hyperspace was an effect I’ve not seen before, good familiar image of the shuttle leaving the Star Destroyer that will have Star Wars fans smiling at its similarity to a scene from a film, and a great sound effect when Ezra has his emotional breakdown.
Fun lines: “Stop grumbling and find that sucker, you rust bucket,” “Should we…?”, “At once,” “Go make some new friends,” “One with the Force…One with the Force…”, and “My master will not be pleased.”
The bad: A return to a setting I didn’t care for the first time around, three leads out for most of the episode (But with episodes at about 20 minutes, it has to happen), and Ezra’s continual power increase being too fast.
The final line: Ezra the person grows, but Ezra the future Jedi possibly takes a turn in the wrong direction. Not as good as the first part, but fun. Overall grade: B+
Patrick Hayes was a contributor to the Comic Buyer’s Guide for several years with “It’s Bound to Happen!”, he reviewed comics for TrekWeb, and he currently reviews Trek comics at TrekCore. He’s taught 8th graders English for 20 years and has taught high school English for two years and counting. He reads everything as often as he can, when not grading papers or looking up Star Trek, Star Wars, or Indiana Jones items online.
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