I don’t think they’ve really had a Hera episode on Star Wars Rebels. It’s weird, when you consider it. She’s been in the main cast from the beginning. But it’s pretty much been the Ezra show more often than not.
So the Empire has set up a blockade around a Rebel aligned planet, starving them out. The rebellion’s solution is to send the Ghost, a freighter, and a handful of A-wings to deal with it and get supplies down there. Needless to say, Kallus is there, so of course he focuses fire on the freighter. The freighter goes kablooie, Steve Blum dies again, and Hera feels like shit.
They need to get supplies down on that planet, though. So they start gearing up for another run at the whole thing. Rex, however, has gotten in contact with an old friend of his, a shipwright that has built a new fighter that could break right through the line, but the guy will only give it to someone he meets in person. Kanan volunteers Hera for the job, because he’s sure she would’ve done it anyway, even though she’d rather be there for the next run.
For some reason, she takes Zeb and Sabine with her. Actually, Sabine I can understand; she can fix things. Zeb, I have no clue. Anyway, Hera did some research on the planet, and decides to clue the others in to the fact that the upper atmosphere is tricky for even experienced pilots. Tricky as in, it knocks your engines out and cuts your power, which is why it’s less “tricky” and more a one way trip/ship graveyard.
The shipwright is a crusty old Mon Calamari with a beard named Quarrie, who criticizes their landing. To be fair, they nearly died, though in their defense, the landing strip was super fuckin’ short. Also, nothing in the Phantom works now, so Quarrie sets his droid to work on it while he shows off his baby. And it is nice.
It’s literally the first B-wing (or as he calls it, a Bladewing). These things were always a favorite of mine, even though you didn’t see them much in the movies, mostly due to the fact that rotoscoping them was a pain in the ass due to their profile. But a couple of them can totally take out a star destroyer. Too bad Quarrie won’t hand it over; he’s waiting for the right pilot.
Hera winds up giving him the bare minimum of backstory to get him to consider letting her fly it over the repairs on the Phantom. She does a run with the thing and loves it, including the ridiculous focus-beam-thing that I don’t remember being possible elsewhere. Unfortunately, that knocks the hyperdrive out, meaning that it’s going nowhere fast.
Lucky for them, he put his last hyperdrive in the Phantom, because why the fuck not? So they use the Phantom to transport the thing to the battle. Hera uses it to rip a cruiser to shreds. Kallus fills his pants, absolutely stunned that he lost. And after the mission, Hera gets promoted to Captain of Phoenix Squadron on Kanan’s suggestion. She is their best pilot, after all. And the B-wings get put into production.
Final thoughts:
- Even I thought the paint job made it look like an elephant stepped on a blood orange.
- For a character that actually has a fairly fleshed out backstory somewhere, I will never understand why they didn’t drop a bit more of Hera’s in this episode.
- I am coining the term Deus Rex Machina. Deal with it.
- Spell check really hates Star Wars names.
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