Skeleton Crew episode 6 reviewed
Zero friends again
Skeleton Crew is a new series streaming on Disney+. It is set in the Star Wars universe and occurs at some vaguely-defined period between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
What happened: The trapdoor didn’t lead to a pit full of spikes, but rather a network of garbage chutes that very much echo the ventilation shafts that Luke Skywalker fell through in The Empire Strikes Back after Darth Vader kicked his butt nine ways to Sunday. The kids land, roughed up but otherwise uninjured, at the base of Skull Ridge Mountain. The immediately start to bicker. Wim wants to follow the semi-intelligent biomechanical “trash crabs” that scavenge the waste in order to find help. Fern, on the other hand, wants to climb the looming mountain to get back to their ship. Amid hot tempers, the kids split up. Surprisingly, KB goes with Wim while Neel chooses to follow Fern. Things go sideways for both groups pretty quickly. KB collapses, on the verge of a system shutdown, as her implants have corroded. Turns out her augments aren’t some trendy neurotech for watching TikTok but are actually keeping her alive after a catastrophic accident years before. With KB nearly paralized, she talks Wim through the process of scavenging wires from random droid parts, melting them down and casting a new augment fuse. Wim manages to replace the crude fuse in the interface at the base of KB’s skull just in time to save her life. KB chose to go with Wim because she knew her augments were failing and she’d never make the climb with Fern—but she couldn’t tell Fern, because Fern thinks everyone can do whatever she does and doesn’t listen when told otherwise. Since she and Fern had the falling out, KB says she’s down to “zero friends” but Wim says she can be friends with him and Neel. KB thanks Wim for saving her life, like a real Jedi, and that absolutely makes Wim’s day. Unfortunately, the trash crabs lead Wim and KB to a kaiju-sized trash crab that wants to eat them rather than help, which pretty much puts the kibosh on all the warm fuzzy feelings.
Meanwhile, Fern keeps leaving the smaller Neel far behind as they scale the garbage chute infrastructure on the side of the mountain. Fern insists Neel can keep up but he’s exhausted and frustrated that she won’t listen. Finally, Neel’s struggles jog something in Fern. She spies a discarded piece of rope dangling from the infrastructure and rigs a kind of harness for Neel with it. Tying it to herself, she bears some of Neel’s weight allowing him to more easily keep up with her. At this point they spy four drone ships tethered to the Onyx Cinder lift their battered old pirate ship off the landing pad to take it to the scrapyard below. Thinking quickly, Fern leads Neel to the end of a boom extending from the infrastructure they’d been climbing. As the drones pass beneath them, they jump, and commandeer controls from the droid who’d been piloting it. They swoop in to rescue Wim and KB, but the kaiju trash crab hurles a piece of debris that causes them to crash. After a relieved reunion and apologies among the friends, they realize a giant recycling center is about to shred the Onyx Cinder. They rush to the ship and attempt to take off, but the recycle bot already has giant hooks into the ship. KB attempts to juice the engines, Neel and Fern try to pilot and Wim ineffectively blasts at the recycler, to no avail. In desperation, Fern triggers the “emergency hull destruct sequence” (I referred to it as a self-destruct button in my episode 2 review) and the exterior explodes, revealing a smaller, sleeker, sexier ship underneath that escapes from the relentless recycler. As KB’s augments recorded the coordinates of At Attin from Captain Rennod’s lair last episode, the kids are finally on their way home.
Unfortunately, so is Jod. Draped in riches, he’s immediately captured by the pirates when he emerges from Rennod’s lair. New Republic X-wings show up and route the pirates, but the ship with Jod escapes and takes him back to Prot Borgo where Captain Brutus (something of a bat/werewolf mashup who led the mutiny against Jod in episode 1) pronounces “Mad” Captain Silvo guilty of all manner of crimes and sentences him to death by airlock—a very The Expanse move on his part. Jod gets to speak in his own defense, though, part of the never-ending “Pirate Code,” and spins a heartfelt tale of always being hungry, having to scrape by on the margins to survive. But Rennod discovered the location of At Attin, as the legendary songs attest. Jod knows where At Attin lies, and with the pirates united, they can plunder the Old Republic mint world just as the other eight Old Republic mint worlds had been in the past. He wins over the pirates—even a gruding Brutus—and preparations begin for a daring pirate raid on At Attin.
Disturbances in the Force: This episode may well have been titled “Plot complications” because things go wrong early and often for all of the main characters. If the previous episode was stressful for them, what with sneaking through the spa and evading pirates and deadly traps, this episode saw them facing equally deadly but far less glamorous threats. Plus the kids were fighting among themselves—understandably so. This is the typical “break up the band” episode that is common in ensemble shows (think Captain America: Civil War for the cinematic equivalent) but fortunately they reunite before the episode’s over. This series is doing a great job of showing that the young stars of the series are clever and inventive but still kids. They’re not just miniature adults. They indulge in juvenile behavior. They try to put on brave fronts but at the end of the day they’re still kids. That’s great. And with the stress they’re constantly under, it makes sense that interpersonal conflict is going to erupt, even among the closest of friends.
I will confess I was surprised how easily Jod was captured by the pirates. SM-33 was neutralized hilariously fast and Jod’s new lightsaber promptly confiscated by his captors. That makes me wonder just how much Jedi training he may have received in his youth, because even Padawans are skilled enough with lightsabers to deflect blaster fire. Jod giving up immediately after so eagerly taking the lightsaber leaves me with more questions than I had when the episode began. Maybe he knew he’d be able to talk his way out of the hangman’s noose, but that seems like a big gamble to me.
A couple of other thoughts: The kaiju trash crab immediately reminded me of Jermaine Clement’s Tamatoa (SHINY!) from Moana, and the hull dstruction sequence was evocative of several anime spaceships, including the Fiery Phoenix from Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman and the Comet Empire from Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato. I’m sure I’m leaving out others, but you get the idea.
Can I give a shout out to the real star of this episode: Bryce Dallas Howard, the talented director. Honestly, folks, this episode felt unusually lush and textured, with sweeping cinamatic vistas and action sequences. I should’ve known it was Howard behind the scenes yelling “Cut!” The episodes she directed of The Mandalorian were always head-and-shoulders above the others, never sacrificing character moments for spectacle, but the spectacle she delivered was always top-shelf. She delivered here again. I’m not sure why or how, but everything I’ve seen her direct always feels like there’s more to it than comparable episodes by other directors. A quick Google search shows that pretty much all of her directoral work is confined to TV episodes and shorts, but that’s she is slated to direct a remake of the 80s SF classic Flight of the Navigator. After seeing her work with child actors in this episode of Skeleton Crew, I’m very interested in checking out what she’ll do with that film. I’m not a huge fan of remakes as a rule, but I’ve become such a fan of her directing abilities I’ll set that bias aside.
Skeleton Crew episode 1 reviewed.
Skeleton Crew episode 2 reviewed.
Skeleton Crew episode 3 reviewed.
Skeleton Crew episode 4 reviewed.
Skeleton Crew episode 5 reviewed.