Star Wars Rebels: Stealth Strike Recap

Synopsis of 2×07: Looking for a bit of peace and quiet away from Kanan and Rex’s bickering, Ezra accompanies Commander Sato on a mission to track down a missing ship. Unfortunately they find themselves captured with experimental Imperial technology and taken into Imperial custody. Kanan and Rex have to put their differences aside to rescue Ezra and the others before Agent Kallus arrives.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Ezra seems to be taking the lead when it comes to getting more involved in the Rebellion’s cause at the beginning of this episode. Alone, he accompanies Commander Sato and his crew in search of a missing Rebel ship. Unfortunately, things don’t go very well for them. They end up pulled out of space by an experimental gravity well used by the Imperials and wind up taken into custody.

While Sato worries about their fate Ezra tries to reassure him by telling him he’s been captured – and escaped! – plenty of times. Unfortunately, Sato’s attempts to convince the Imperials that they are simply civilians falls flat. And the Empire has gotten wise to Ezra’s attempts to claim he’s really “Jabba the Hutt.” They realize that both of them are high value targets and call out Agent Kallus to pick them up.

Luckily the cavalry is on the way!

…unluckily it’s Rex and Kanan.

As you can imagine neither is that happy about working with the other. Rather, Kanan isn’t happy about it and he makes that abundantly clear. There’s some good-natured teasing mixed in with some very obvious distrust and animosity on Kanan’s side. He’s just not over the whole clone trooper thing. Not that you can blame him.

Decked out in Stormtrooper armor (with Chopper along for the ride and painted in Imperial colors), the two take a stolen shuttle and head of to rescue Sato and Ezra. Having Rex aboard winds up being a pretty fortuitous turn of events. He’s able to use the Empire’s own codes and protocols against them to gain access to the ship. And Kanan is able to use a Jedi Mind trick to get them past all the suped up security. With Chopper’s help they are able to find out where Ezra is being taken.

Not that Ezra necessarily needs rescuing.

After escaping from his security detail and locking them up in his place, he’s ready to take off when he runs into a pair of Stormtroopers. He shocks them with the energy weapon on his lightsaber… only to find out that it’s actually Kanan and Rex. (Whoops.) Now reunited it doesn’t take long for Kanan and Rex to start butting heads on how to break out Sato and sabotage the ship and it’s experimental gravity well. It’s enough to drive Ezra carzy – and he tells them as much before taking off with Chopper to take down the ship.

Both teams manage to complete their missions fairly easily. Kanan and Rex even seem to come to terms with one another – briefly – as they help each other out. But when Kanan, Rex, and the rescued Rebellion fighters get overwhelmed by Stormtroopers, Rex decides to be the noble one and forces Kanan and the others to leave him behind while he creates a diversion. It doesn’t work out and he’s quickly taken into custody.

They begin torturing him – intending to kill him – and Kanan realizes that he can’t leave the clone behind. They are – for better or worse – becoming friends. He leaves Ezra to lead the others to safety and goes back to rescue Rex. They all manage to escape until the gravity wells start drawing the Rebel ship back in. But never fear – Chopper knows what he’s doing. He manages to rig the wells to draw in the Imperial ships which wrecks them all, giving them a chance to escape.

It’s good to see Kanan and Rex finally starting to really come to terms with one another. I know the animosity is primarily on Kanan’s part. He had a really rough break. He spent so much time trusting clone troopers only to be hunted down by them, constantly living in fear of being found and killed by the troopers he once called friends. But that’s not Rex. I like the conflict that’s existed throughout the season so far – but I’m also glad to see it’s starting to resolve itself.

A few other great moments in the episode include the little nod to the the franchise as a whole when Kanan wonders how it is the Empire keeps letting them manage to steal Lambda-class shuttles. And I love how Sato constantly underestimates Ezra’s abilities only to be proven wrong. Sato doesn’t think much of Ezra (probably because he’s so young) but gets proven wrong when Ezra not only escapes on his own but manages to save them all with a pretty impressive show of Jedi skills.