Make way for Mon Mothma.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Yes, it was very cool to have Mon Mothma make her Star Wars Rebels debut, but my true fanboy moment was seeing Gold Leader himself, Jon "Dutch" Vander. No offense to the talented voice actor Yuri Lowenthal, who played the character here, but I couldn’t help wish Angus MacInnes voiced Vander, given MacInnes just recently recorded new lines for the character for Rogue One – and has a pretty distinctive voice as the character.
Still, the inclusion of Gold Leader, Y-Wings and even just the orange flight suits first seen in the original Star Wars all offered big connective tissue towards A New Hope/Rogue One, as Mon Mothma arrived to truly form the Rebel Alliance. And while MacInnes didn’t voice Gold Leader, Genevieve O’Reilly did play Mon Mothma, reprising her role from Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One.
Mon Mothma got some very big moments here both as a character and for the larger Star Wars/Rebellion story, as we saw some of her speech in which she publically denounced Palpatine – and then, in the final stirring moments, watched her give her call to action for other Rebel cells to join together, with glimpses of characters like Bail Organa, Jan Dodonna, Ryder Azadi and Commander Sato hearing her and clearly becoming inspired by her words (no Ackbar cameo, alas).
Amongst a lot of strong material, there were some off moments here as well. Ezra being a decent pilot because Hera’s trained him? Sure! But then it went beyond that to him essentially giving Gold Leader orders a couple of times, and it definitely crossed a line into Ezra not just being too good at everything but others being too subservient to him. You don’t give Jon Vander orders, kid! This guy’s a hero of the Battle of Scarif and the Battle of Yavin! Or he will be, damn it...
Also, right after Thrawn came off as a scary and intimidating presence last week as he deduced Kallus’ secret, he suffered another loss here. Okay, he put Pryce in charge of the mission (per her request) and wasn’t there personally, but still, it just feels like there’s been too much step forward, step back with Thrawn and now the onus is on the end of the season to have him do something truly monumental to live up to his hype.
On the action front, this episode delivered some fantastic space battle moments. This included the always fun, nostalgic touch of seeing the targeting displays in the Y-Wing of course, but the backdrop of the nebula most of the fighting took place in was especially cool and made a lot of these battles visually unique. Seeing those TIE Fighters burn up (complete with some cockpit interiors of pilots) was a pretty bold move for this show, and while we’ve seen plenty of Star Destroyer explosions in Star Wars history, the ones here looked very different and impressive thanks to the nebula causing them. Also, the loss of Gold Five, as he purposely blocked the shot from the TIE Defender meant for the Ghost, was a notably powerful moment for this random Rebel pilot.
The Verdict
Bringing Mon Mothma into Rebels for the first time, “Secret Cargo” impressively included a rather monumental moment in the history of the Star Wars universe, as we saw her truly bring together the Rebel Alliance for the first time. On the downside, Thrawn – or at the least those under his direct command -- suffered another loss that chipped away at his reputation, while Ezra was depicted as an overly skilled pilot who others with more experience were subservient too. But it was still great to see good ol’ Gold Leader – and get a namedrop of the Rebel base on Dantooine we’ve heard about since 1977. On top of that, this episode included some of the show’s best visuals yet.
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