Full Series Rebels 1.11 - Idiot's Array - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

It was the moment when Lando Calrissian made his inevitable appearance in Rebels. He was kept intact to his original character, if a bit humbler in his beginnings in consideration of his eventual acquisition of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. But Idiot’s Array, named after a signature gambling move from Calrissian, is at the end of a day a rather unremarkable episode that plot-wise mostly treads water. At a certain point in the future, this episode may perhaps pay off in ways that I have no idea about and that’s certainly fine. But for now, Rebels feels like its treading water with filler episodes that may be entertaining but lack a substantive motivation to move the plot forward. A distinct advantage Rebels has over its predecessor The Clone Wars is that Rebels functions less like an anthology series with the same characters and is a direct narrative with the same core throughout. To fully take advantage of this format, the story needs to feel like its progressing but after the excellent Gathering Forces, it’s apparently stalled. In a scant sixteen-episode season, the storytelling needs to be sharp and on its toes. Here it’s meandering.

Lando himself is written excellently and as it is, having Billy Dee Williams to return and voice him was a nice touch. His simultaneous ability to enchant and repel is kept hilariously intact and his presence is even able to bring out the best in Chopper. The gambler in him pulls off several tricks, even though by the end of the episode he ends at an equilibrium (which, considering the circumstances, was the best outcome he could have hoped for). He strikes contrasting relationship amongst the Ghost crew and that interpersonal dynamic is played exquisitely. In character work however, this week belongs firmly to Hera. The pilot and in many ways the leader of the crew, Hera has gotten the relative short shaft in terms of character development but this episode while not dedicating nearly enough time to her, proves how vital she is to this group. There’s a complete despondency without her, as if the lives of everyone aboard that ship just became that much more restless and aimless without her. She’s clever, quick-witted, and tough. Yet she never allows those strengths to take ahold of her and become warped into weaknesses. It’s remarkable, really.

But for all of strength of characterization here, the plot suffers determinedly. The Lando sequence at the beginning was fun but from that moment forward everything became contrived. The involvement of the pirates just turned everything into a gobbled mess, as if the writers were truly straining to find some credible plot in a galaxy as giant as this one. The Hera as a slave bit was a dark part of the episode and perhaps plot-wise the most credibly handled. It was relatively stable, the narrative, despite the snafus throughout. Then they land on Lothal and it goes quickly downhill from there. The shootout in the dark was poorly done, beginning with the pirates’ random a-ha reappearance that literally seemed to come out of nowhere. Rebels works when it pays attention to its characters in equivalence to its narrative, but right now it’s not really sure what to pay attention to at all. Sure, we got an awesome dogfight sequence and great little character moments, but they can become increasingly marginalized if there’s a prevalent feeling that we’re not going anywhere. Maybe we need more fuel. Chopper, get on it.

Great/Not So Great Moments Not Mentioned Above:

+“You have the goods?”; “Always.”
+“Her attire is preposterous.”
+The fruit eating is back
+“That was a really useful tray.”
+Lightsaber gun
+Hera punching Lando
+“You will have to own me one.”
+“A gambler never shows his cards.”

-The explosion gave Chopper a great hero moment, but it did feel incredibly weak

8/10

 

Stay classy, Star Wars fans.

 

Classic

 

I love this.

 

It took me a while to figure out it was a gif.

 

Something that surprised me about the puffer pig was it quickly running up the ship's vertical ladder after it got out of the crate; for a non-sentient creature that doesn't have hands, it sure is a great climber (or whatever you can call it).

 

Maybe it has some grippy things on it's hooves or whatever, it is the GFFA after all.

 

You mean like octopus suction cups?

 

Lando, you ole smoothy!
Loved seeing Lando make an appearance. Billy Dee's delivery hasn't lost a step!
I loved how they made Lando as a total double-crossing scoundrel. Lol!

 

I'll link to my recap here too!

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/ch...sode-9-recap-idiot-array-blog-entry-1.2084398

It was fun episode, Billy Dee seemed to have fun returning to the character.

 

Anythings possible

 

Can I just ask why was there no blockade to fly through when leaving Lothal to dock with the smuggler's ship?

 

I really enjoyed this episode. Loved seeing the Crumb Bomber gunship built into the bar at the beginning. Lando wasn't perfect, but definitely very good. I think they did a swell job with his characterization. I'm really liking Hera a lot, too, and would love to learn more about her backstory.

 

Perhaps we didn't see it and everything worked out the one the outbound flight, and the issues just happened on the return? Meh, who knows. It at least gave us confirmation that there is a blockade/checkpoint system on the planet.

 

And that the Empire is know looking for the Crew instead of what they were doing before.

 

Well that is really weak storytelling. We are going to start and end on the same planet and a major plot point is getting past the blockade but we'll just ignore it on one half of the journey.

 

I agree. Someone mentioned that this episode was written by the same person that has written probably the three weakest episodes of the series so far.

 

Isn't this the same Empire who's definition of "blockade" is blocking ONE side of a planet. Seriously, in ESB, it looked like they were blocking one side of Hoth. If the Rebels had flown in ANY other direction besides straight ahead, they'd have gotten away no problem. Maybe the Empire is unfamiliar with what the term "blockade" actually means.

 

Can I make it all OK in my head by assuming they were only blockading a major city or something?

 

I have often wondered how Luke seemed to get a way with no trouble. Inadvertently using the Falcon as a distraction perhaps?

Anyway, Lando was good to have back. The overall episode plot, though? Pretty thin. Still enjoyable, though. I laughed out loud at Kanan's "I don't want to know" as soon as he saw the pig.

 

A blockade sounds like a neat idea, but then you've got all kinds of problems when it comes to planetary blockades... it'd require a lot of ships to surround a planet. With that many ships, and the ion cannon only located in the one spot, the Rebels wouldn't have a chance. But even with all the ships...why did they need the walkers? They have cold-adapted troops, but no cold-adapted repulsorlift craft that they can drop outside the shield to travel under it? A few Imperial Troop Transports or similar craft should've done the trick, no walkers required... but then again the speeders may have taken 'em out quickly. If the ITTs were plated with the same armor as the AT-ATs, tho...

TPM's another case where the 'blockade' was poorly used. You've got tons of ships at the start, then at the end "Welp, only one ship left... good thing, that, since we're able to avoid them well enough on approach and then we only have to take out that one ship to stop the army! Good thing they didn't leave the whole blockade, or even just a couple, or this would be the shortest Saga of all time."

 

Plot holes plot holes everywhere.

 

I would think that using capital ships for blockade duty would be extremely inefficient. They're big, slow, and their guns only have a limited range...not to mention that your Star Destroyers probably have better things to do than loiter in orbit day in, day out...more so if there's a war going on. A blockade would make more sense using a bunch of fast gunships, corvettes and starfighters that can actually chase down ships trying to escape. Maybe a few frigate-sized ships if you need the extra firepower, but that'd probably be it.

 

Well they won't be staying on Lothal for that long thats for sure.