This review contains full spoilers for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Season 1, Episode 4.
Who said Skeleton Crew was just Star Wars Goonies? Because this episode offers up another beloved reference point, and – for once – it’s not even from the ‘80s. In this, Skeleton Crew’s best episode so far, the show actually goes for something more akin to Doctor Who, complete with a trip to a planet with one central thematic gimmick (two factions, the Troik and the Hattan, are locked in a self-perpetuating, generation-spanning conflict) and even a lesson that the characters can take home (that real strength is sometimes found in kindness and not in fighting).
It helps that the episode centers on the best member of the Skeleton Crew (though that’s apparently a rare opinion): Neel, the elephant boy. The kids of the Crew remain pretty one-note, and while the young actors are all doing their best with what they’re given, there are one or two who could still stand to be given more. Neel gets more in this episode, spending some time with a warrior girl named Hayna who initially takes his reluctance to join his friends in playing around with guns as a snobbish attitude toward weapons that aren’t as big as a bus.
Hayna’s intrigued when she learns that Neel’s actually just nice and doesn’t like fighting, even with his tiny siblings. Learning about him and his homeworld at least plants the idea in Hayna’s head that fighting a meaningless war forever is kind of stupid – a particularly poignant lesson for Neel to impart, considering that, as we learned last week, these kids don’t even know that the Galactic Civil War happened. It took something like eight movies before anyone else in Star Wars questioned whether or not the whole thing was a mistake (and the conclusion that time was “no, it wasn’t”).
This all happens on a planet called At Achrann, which is where the coordinates the crew got last week actually sent them instead of their homeworld of At Attin. At Achrann, it turns out, is identical to At Attin, it’s just been ravaged by endless wars. This switch-up reveal has the potential to be so terrifying that it’s probably smart that the show doesn’t lay it on too thick. That’s not to say it doesn’t feel unnerving, though. Locations that the kids recognize – most notably their school – are creepy, bombed-out ruins. What does that say about At Attin? It’s another good hook to pull us all along with the central mystery.
The shift to a sort of Evil Dead-style direction seems unusually artful for this or indeed any Star Wars show.
That great, spooky twist leads to a couple of others, like the fact that SM-33 has been to this planet before and that his oft-repeated utterance of the episode’s title line (“Can’t say I remember no At Attin”) is some kind of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.-style memory wipe trigger phrase (remember that?). This bit was a little predictable, but Skeleton Crew wisely doesn’t linger on it as some kind of unthinkable betrayal. SM-33 was always kind of off-putting, and the crew shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place.
The shift to a sort of Evil Dead-style direction when 33 turns bad (with, seemingly, a camera strapped to a physical droid puppet) is also a little off-putting, since it seems unusually artful for this or indeed any Star Wars show. This episode was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Sheinert (a.k.a. directing duo Daniels from Everything Everywhere All At Once), and even if it seems weird, it’s nonetheless nice to get a bit of auteur-ish flair in a Star Wars project.
Also, with SM-33 becoming a bad guy, Jude Law’s Jod Na Nawood has the “I don’t trust this guy” burden removed from his shoulders and he’s free to spend the episode goofing off. He fires off a couple of solid gags in this episode, including immediately surrendering to the Hattan militia and requesting that they just kill him, and then him considering whether or not there’s a number of animal hides he’d be willing to trade the kids for. A lingering question after last week was whether or not it would remain fun to watch him play off of the Crew, and hey, it still is!
As a matter of fact, this is all still fun, and the crew is making just enough progress getting home each week that it doesn’t feel like anyone is wasting time.
