Full Series Rebels 3.10 - An Inside Man - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Okay, by Rebels standards anyway, this one was a nice improvement. Thrawn was cool, and it was refreshing to see the Empire enforcing basic security like giving serial numbers. Some vaguely competent AT-AT pilots at the end, that's a move I wouldn't have thought of, and it would've worked had the Jedi not had the little cheat of their sabers.

 

I repost my opinion about the episode here:

For once I really liked that episode. 9/10 because nothing is never "perfect", come on, the rebels are attacking that big factory with... 3 guys? 2 speeders and 1 bazooka? REALLY?

But apart from that, I think that Thrawn's character was really respected and close to what he is in the books. Also

Spoiler

I'm glad he let the old traitor die, it also shows that Kanan and Ezra were ready to let that man die just to keep their cover. And no surprise, Kallus is Fulcrum, the traitor, and I hope that Thrawn will use him (like giving him false information) to lead the rebels into a trap! because he seems to have discovered that the spy is him, so he won't let his guard down.

For once, even if the heroes have escaped, it's almost a defeat for the Rebels: they lost friends and allies, the saboteurs of the factory will all be inspected and arrested, Kallus is "discovered" by Thrawn (and that's very bad for the heroes) even if Kallus doesn't know it, and they got plans of the next new Tie fighter but it doesn't help them: now they just can fear the worse for the future battles!

I wanted Thrawn to act and he did, I really hope the next episodes with him will be as good. And I hope that Kallus will get caught.

I'm tired of all the immature people on tumblr and other websites crying "Thrawn if you hurt the heroes I'll hate you!" "Thrawn is so cruel and ruthless, blabla" : come on, of course he's against the heroes, he is the antagonist, what do they expect? and of course he will not have any pity for saboteurs and traitors, they are responsible of the death of soldiers, of accidents, of explosions! it's normal to execute or punish traitors who are criminals and responsible of the death of others.

He doesn't punish people for pleasure, he does that because he needs to. Other soldiers and people will die if he does nothing to stop the saboteurs. Asking everyone to test their own machines is a very good way to avoid them from sabotaging them! it's not "cruel": you're innocent? you have nothing to fear. You're a criminal setting a trap to kill the next person who will use this bike? well, you deserve to finish the same way.

 

I liked the episode a lot, even if I was expecting Thrawn to give someone a promotion for pointing out technical flaws in the AT DP design.

 

He didnt point out the flaws in the AT DP design,

Spoiler

he just outed another saboteur forced labor engineer and sabotaged walker all within a few seconds. Only interesting thing was that the AT-DP's can be remote activated and apparently operational without pilots. Reminded me a little of ED-209 from Robocop(1987).

 

Spoiler

I was pleasantly surprised by the murals/art in Thrawn's chamber. Particulary one that seemed to show an old-styled Mandalore waging war against the Jedi. Another reference to the fall of the Old Republic? There was a similiar mural during Maul & Savage's duel against Sidious in TCW.

He somewhat reminds me of Mandalore the Ultimate/Indomitable from the old EU...

 

Spoiler

Can Thrawn just wrap up his plan already? The rebels are below him, in my opinion. He just got outsmarted, sort of.

 

This episode was amazing.

Spoiler

Kallus is Fulcrum 2.0. No surprise there. Kanan and Ezra trying to beat him up in the elevator and Ezra force pushing him into the glass was hilarious. Unlike the last two episodes the humor in this one did not feel forced. Man I loved how ruthless Thrawn was here. Having that old farmer killed like that was just cruel and cool at the same time.

And they didn't downplay the horrified reactions of the witnesses who saw the death either. Good. I like that. It shows that the death has consequences and that Thrawn doesn't mess around. Finally we get some more action from him aside from him analyzing stuff and talking about art. Though I do love it when he analyzes stuff and talks about art.

I also loved the little bit of Zeb admitting that he must've inspired Kallus to become the next Fulcrum.

10/10.

 

Spoiler

I really didn't like the explosion - not the death but the reaction to it. Ezra at least wanted to do something but Kanan? He just waited totally cold. Really? I don't buy it and for me it's a sloppy writing of that scene - we go for the shock value and we don't care for anything else.
I also didn't like all those "looks" Kanan gave Ezra, little nods etc. Is he blind or not? Where is that struggle we were promised?

 

Spoiler

I love this episode. Thrawn was amazing and I can't wait to see what he has planned for the Rebels. I have to say though, that the new TIE fighter looks incredible. Hopefully we get to see it in battle.

 

Next week is Maul and the return to Dathomir! Awesome stuff is coming, sadly it will be the mid-season finale but let's hope they go out with a bang.

As for 'An Inside Man' it was a great episode, great action, humor (Ezra just throwing Kallus against the glass was hilarious and Chopper claims yet another victim), the At-At laying down to crush the AT-DP was awesome, really makes great use of the iconic walkers, nice to see Ryder again and so long... Sumar? Solmar? We only knew ye for two episodes but you did not die in vain. Nice to see Pryce lose her cool a bit, also I need to ask; was that Lieutenant Lt. List? It was bugging me as to whether it was him or not.

Thrawn is fantastic, way better episode to showcase him than Iron Squadron; cruel, intelligent, calculating, ruthless, calm, and cultured, a great villain. Also it was nice to see that he bothered digging up Grand Inquisitor's Jedi Mask for some reason. Also was the Advanced TIE Interceptor the reason Palpatine is so interested in Lothol? They haven't followed up on what Tua mentioned back in Siege of Lothol Part 1 and I'm betting it's a giant Kyber Crystal and I was hoping this episode would go back to it but I guess we'll get back to it sooner or later.

Also Kallus' development is fantastic, he's come a long way from evil guy who kicked a poor Stormtrooper to his death for asking an obvious question.

 

Okay, now I REALLY liked this episode.

Thrawn was a little more active this time and we actually had a familiar character killed. Also, good to see the rest of the allied Lothal citizen characters forming their own resistance movement after being absent since "The Siege of Lothal".

And it looks like Thrawn's the only Imperial character that doesn't ignore the droids. I think he's been onto Chopper since "Hera's Heroes", because I'm very sure he would have noticed the junky build and be suspicious of a non-standard astromech design with an Imperial paint job (nitpick for something that should have been happening since Season 2, they should have painted him all-black like in "Breaking Ranks" since that's the standard for maintenance astromechs and not use the courier droid paint scheme).

And I'm glad Thrawn didn't do any "All part of the plan" pretenses after Kanan and Ezra escaped (especially since he ordered the AT-ATs to kill them; that or he's just trying to make a scene), but still learned something from his failure.

As for Kallus, wasn't surprised at all. However, I do like how the crew reacted to the reveal and decided to treat him with caution.

And TIE Defenders... that is all I need to say.

 

Oh yes, the TIE Defender! Even the schematic is a thing of beauty. It's such a wonderful feeling sitting in the cockpit of one of those, gliding up so easily behind an A-Wing and ramming a concussion missile up it's tail pipe, or taking a squadron of them and laying waste to a capital ship. Maximum Shields, hyperdrive, tractor beam, and let's not forget a full armament of projectile and energy weapons that makes it every starfighter pilot's worst nightmare.

...at least that's how it was in TIE Fighter Space Combat Simulator, circa 1994 (avail on GOG and Steam!!). I'm just so in love with that ship (and the game itself if we're being honest). I really do hope we get to see the real thing in action after all these years.

So the episode gets points alone for bringing that beauty into the canon.

As for the episode itself, overall I do think it was a marked shift away from the previous episodes. Maybe they were having some light fun before they had to get serious again. The death of the poor old farmer was pretty tense, although maybe Ezra got over it a little too fast. Even so, it was emotional, at least for me. Had a feeling already who the new Fulcrum was. It will remain to be seen if he can stay hidden from Thrawn's carefully calculated maneuvering, but somehow I don't think he will. It'll be interesting to see if he can make his escape to the rebellion or if Thrawn squashes him underfoot.

Overall, very pleased with how things are going.

 

Okay I'm kinda disappointed in this episode.

• Really Thrawn? A new starfighter? That's your master plan to defeat the Rebels? Are you a Grand Admiral or a starship engineer?
• Okay so how does nobody know that this particular Fulcrum agent is Kallus? Do these Rebels not know the identity of their own agents?
• So Thrawn finally achieved something in this episode. He exposed a couple factory saboteurs and in exchange lost the element of surprise for his secret weapons. Doesn't seem like an even trade.
• The Force power levels for Ezra fluctuate ridiculously. In a previous episode he could barely hold a probe droid in place. In this episode he Force slams Kallus through a glass panel, shattering it to pieces.
• So is Kanan not blind at all now? He clearly has no issues functioning as he used to. And why would the Empire allow a clearly blind worker into their factory, where he'll be of no use at all?

A good episode with some action but I feel like the writers are getting lazy and don't put enough creative effort into these episodes anymore.

 

Kanan was annoying this episode indeed. Why was a blind man even there. Why isnt he blind anymore. Something else silly is Kanan just outs Kallus in public in front of everyone, something they were always otherwise careful of not doing. They're also inconsistent on their call signs or just give up from time to time,lol. Not sure how the Tie Defender is a big improvement over Tie Interceptors . Why are Defenders supposed to match X-Wings when the Empire isnt fighting them yet and the Empire apparently has no enemy other than the occasional pirates and most of their enemies are using supposedly obsolete crafts. Why did the Empire dump all their Republic craft in such a short period and adopt weaker crafts like the Tie's and Tie Interceptors, both of which seem capable of otherwise taking down A-Wings which are older fighters. Why is Lothal like the only place to produce new fighters where was just recently( a year or two ago) were supposed to be creating the Tie Advanced v1 and there was this big very public ceremony. Then another version(updated?) comes along not to long after out've the blue called the Tie Advanced x1 which was another production model.

Hope next weeks isn't schlock too, seems more like a Halloween episode.

 

Really liked this episode. Rebels is doing its job when its focusing on the rebellion and the relationship of the Empire to its subjects and this episode accomplished both of these objectives well.

They kinda go over this in the recon-Thrawn has the foresight to see that the Rebels will be a big problem. Even with no X-wings around, he can tell they are escalating in ability.

It appears to me that the Empire has a different strategy than the Republic-quantity over quality. Hence swarms of simple TIEs instead of a few, more powerful fighters. Hence mass conscription into Stormtroopers rather than pay for superior clones.


But yeah, blind but not blind Kanan is annoying. I get that the whole "seeing through the Force" is a character thing for him, but that theme is meaningless if the audience can't tell the difference.

 

Not seen the episode but read the spoilers. So much for the Rebels being broken on Lothal !
Also bringing in new style fighters now really doesn't mesh with Canon. Like why they are not used in in ANH.

 

Well this episode was awful.
1. Two famous Jedi openly attack imperial forces on Lothal
2. Another dumb infiltration.
3. Imperials has no security cameras
4. Thrawn lose again
5. Thrawn can't recognize Ezra or just let them go for the fourth time ( he must be Fulcrum too)
6. Episode end with another Thrawn is brilliant speech... Yea... Sure
7. Imperials control the entire planet. Star destroyers everywhere. And yet they just cant't track down some speeder.

1\10

 

Better than before - The Imperials did actually act pretty logically and intelligently for the most part, an escape that felt earned and not granted and with the new TIEs in production and the new Fulcrum already under pressure we might actually get some consequences down the line - my theory that ''Fulcrum'' is going to be fed false info as a trap seems pretty nailed on by now if I do say so myself. Also, Kanan's reaction to Ezra's force shove on Kallus was absolute gold, the delivery made the line.

On the other hand, I am a little bit concerned from a production/scripting view that they are mishandling things a little - Thrawn FINALLY gets to show some smarts, there's new TIEs coming, the undercover agent risks discovery... so let's forget all that and swan off to catch up with Maul next time instead, Maul who we haven't seen nor heard of since the opener. I like the idea of multiple threads running simultaneously but it's feeling a little too ''busy'' for my liking.

 

Great episode, it felt like a breath of fresh air after 2 filler ones.

 

I enjoyed the parts where our Rebels got free digs on Kallus.

 

I thought this was a great episode on a number of levels - how does Kallus handle this?! Here's my recap, which highlights some little details I noticed.

 

I enjoyed the episode, it felt darker. Big minus was Thrawn saying yet again: "We wait and watch". Do something already!! So Rebels destroy 2 big walkers, 1 small one (technically the Imperials did, but still), oh and another small walker that was built poorly. At what point does the Empire realize they're getting their backsides beat by punks on backwater Lothal? Just destroy the population or the planet already. Geez the Empire looks pathetically weak.

 

Ok so I saw all the 10/10's and went against my instincts and watched the episode. Turns out I should have trusted my instincts.

Another Infiltrate an Imperial complex episode Because the Ghost Crew are so invincible and the Empire so useless there is simply no tension which is the whole point of these type of episodes
The fact that Ezra and Kanan are talking out loud and even trying to use a communicator in a Line up, with no one noticing is unintentionally hilarious.
Chopper, I just find him really annoying though it's obvious the writers think he's great.
Thrawn is unable to recognise Ezra and he has done nothing to justify the awed tones when his name is said by the Ghost Crew
Meh a glorified Redshirt is killed who hasn't been seen since S1 and I am supposed to feel something for it
So much for Vader breaking the Rebels on Lothal !
Kanan's supposed blindness, not having any effect. God I hope the kids watching this don't think that's how blindness works in real life and try and do that to each other on the playground, is all can say.

On the plus side the voice acting was great and the Kallus scenes were pure gold and easily the best thing about the episode. Proving yet again that the more interesting characters are not the Ghost crew and they could easily replace a few with Kallus and one or too others.

Over all 4/10 for the Kallus scenes and Voice acting which saves a humdrum script.

 

An overall impressive episode the only downside I can point out is that yet again our heroes are stealing storm trooper uniforms, really makes you wonder how the empire hadn't cottoned on to the trick by the time of ANH.

Other than that the humour in this episode was actually witty instead of juvenile for a change.
"I don't know a thing about engineering"
"You'll fit right in then"

Thrawn was very impressive as he was actively trying to stop the rebels for a change and in his classic way turned their escape into his advantage.