The clone episodes were among some of the best The Clone Wars had going for it. The other fun ones? Hondo episodes. It’s a hell of a lot of fun watching someone play every side against one another and ultimately come out on top.
Which is sort of what we get here in Star Wars Rebels “Brothers of the Broken Horn”. Hondo Ohnaka has lost his sizable crew to the Empire, and he’s much older. Honestly, if I had to guess, Anakin hunted them down for all of those times they totally screwed him out of something, be that time all the way up to capturing Count Dooku. It’s really no surprise he survived, though. Characters like Hondo work best when they’re flying by the seat of their pants anyway, and Hondo has just enough honor and good sense to get while the getting is good.
Ezra gets sick of having to balance all of the expectations put on him by Kanan, Rex and Hera. So he’s in luck when the rest of the crew leaves to go find power generators for the rebellion, having him stay behind with Chopper to clean the ship and earn his keep. They get a distress signal from Vizago’s ship, and Ezra decides to take the Phantom to go help; he technically owes Vizago, after all.
When he finds no one but Hondo on board the ship, he’s suspicious from the start, even though Hondo’s lie is fairly plausible in the Star Wars universe. Ezra lies, telling Hondo that his name is Lando Calrissian, and steals the droid controller for Vizago’s enforcer droids off his belt. They decide to sell off Vizago’s cargo of generators, with Ezra taking his cut directly out of the generators themselves.
Their attempt to sell doesn’t go over too well. Azmorigan doesn’t trust Hondo, and even Ezra’s helmet isn’t enough to protect his identity when things go belly up. this is the point that the episode switches to insanity, and doesn’t let up until the end. Azmorigan decides to go the Bond villain route to kill them, since Hondo’s got a bounty on his head, and the Ghost crew really pissed him off last time, so he’s going to kill Ezra for fun. The problem with his plan is that Ezra’s training to be a Jedi, and also, Chopper can somehow operate a blaster with his head hands despite his lack of suitable digits or opposable thumbs.
Hondo gets Azmorigan’s money out of the debacle, and they were able to keep the generators since that’s just how Hondo rolls. But Ezra picks up that the backstab is coming, and finds Vizago in his own ship’s brig. Once he frees him, things turn chaotic in the best way. All sides get turned against each other (the enforcer droids counting as a side on their own) in an absolute clusterfuck of a fight scene taking place in the cockpit. Hondo sneaks off in the Phantom while no one is looking, taking all of the generators with him. The insane fight finished, Vizago chucks Ezra and Chopper in an escape pod and exclaims his hatred of children.
Hondo didn’t actually get away, though. Chopper had set the autopilot to return it to the Ghost, which is exactly where they find Hondo spinning a false tale about how he came into all of those generators to the crew. Ezra puts that shit down pretty fast, and Hondo makes an exit. Ezra comes to the realization that as hard as his current duties are to keep up with, he wouldn’t want to go back to being like Hondo.
Final Thoughts:
- It’s always nice to hear Jim Cummings.
- I seriously lost it when Ezra claimed to be Lando. I don’t think Ezra could sell Colt 45 if his life depended on it.
- Several of Azmorigan’s henchmen straight up died in the vacuum of space.
- At least Hondo’s idea of a fair markup is better than Martin Shkreli’s.
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