Star Wars Rebels: Season 3 Episode 12-13 (Television Review)– A Great Character Study of Saw Gerrera

It has been just about a month since the mid-season finale of Season 3 of Star Wars Rebels but it feels so much longer considering how strong that episode was and how it ended. It really set up some exciting things ahead for the show. Moreover, the trailer that was released this week for the remaining episodes made me even more excited to get back into this season of Rebels with this double-header return, titled ‘Ghosts of Geonosis’.

Saw Gerrera

One of the strongest elements of Star Wars Rebels, and the new canon in general, is its ability to tie-in to wider events and enhance your experience with Star Wars and this is what made this double-feature, on the whole, such a pleasure to watch. For instance, a heavy presence in this two-parter was Saw Gerrera, a character who was first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and, more recently, played by Forest Whitaker in Rogue One.

Whitaker actually came back to voice Gerrera in these episode of Rebels and it was great to delve deeper into Gerrera’s methods and his mentality in fighting the Empire. He was really fleshed out in these episodes and we now have more understanding about why he is so unhinged and extreme in his approach. I also appreciated how the Ghost crew reacted to Saw Gerrera as it highlighted the stark differences in principles between them and gave the Rebel Alliance more depth.

More Connections

Other links to The Clone Wars and Rogue One which were cool to see included a Geonosian trying to draw the Death Star to warn the crew about what the Empire were doing on Geonosis. Obviously, no one could understand it. Indeed, Rex called it “the circle in a circle”. Seeing Rex and Gerrera back together was great too as it linked back to the Onderon Arc in The Clone Wars, an arc which I recently watched and very much enjoyed. As such, those immersed in the Star Wars universe will appreciate this episode to a much greater degree than casual fans which may be a negative for some.

Still, the only criticism I would levy at this double-header was that there was a particular line about “sand” which I could have done without. I know that the line was a little dig at the Prequels but all it did was bring back some repressed memories about those films. Still, this is my only little nitpick about what was otherwise a very strong start to the next batch of episodes we’ll get in Season 3 of Rebels.