Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
As promised, here’s my very belated review of an episode I missed while on vacation. But as also promised, it’s going to be a very short one!
In the case of “Iron Squadron,” a short review feels fine because this was a notably weak episode. There was nothing conceptually wrong with the Ghost crew coming across a young renegade group fighting the Empire in their own way, but there were some frustrating aspects to the story. I was intrigued that the episode seemed to finally be fleshing out Sato, as we learned his own nephew, Mart Mattin, was the leader of the Iron Squadron, but then Sato felt peripheral to the story.
As for Mart, his decision to disobey orders and continue fighting briefly insinuated the episode could be going to a bold place – perhaps killing the young, brash youth for his folly, and then putting the focus more on his friends. But instead, it became all about pulling off an incredibly risky rescue mission for Mart, after he’d gotten himself into this mess in the first place (and we had no prior investment in him). He was so unlikable and unsympathetic and yet everyone was risking their life for him and it felt completely unearned, dramatically.
[Mart, incidently, was named after Lucasfilm’s Matt Martin, who’s a much more likable, engaging guy than Mart is – so I hope if we ever see Mart again, he gets a much better portrayal!]
I will say Zeb’s crack about an entire crew of Ezras was amusing and Chopper and the Iron Squadron’s droid, R3, had some very fun, competitive interaction. Thrawn testing Konstantine was also a nice touch, though we need to see Thrawn to get a big win soon. Okay, he’s analyzing how the Rebels work, and that makes sense, but I hope it won’t be an entire season of that before he strikes.
Following a run of strong episodes, “The Iron Squadron” was a low point for Star Wars Rebels. It felt like much more could have been done with the Ghost crew encountering, essentially, kids who were doing what they did in Season 1 (before they joined the true Rebel Alliance), but instead the focus was on a rescue mission for a character who didn’t seem like he deserved rescuing.
At least Mart's ship looking like Dash Rendar’s Outrider was cool…