By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
So I was all excited to finally get to see a wookie Jedi Master explored in detail this week but instead got a flashback to the incident that has triggered this whole story.
Again we get a couple of revelations with biblical themes to it and see what happened that day; or do we?
First off seeing Kelcanna in ful Jedi robe mode was interesting and screamed buy the figure now (which I am going to but he’s the only one because there has never been one like him before) but it all fell rather flat. He can fix machines bringing in the ghost of Chewbacca but he contributed little else. Again this is such a waste of a character and demonstrates just how the writers do not know how to build tension or structure a story to shock and surprise. And for some reason, Kelcanna puts in mind of Billy Connoly the way his hair is done. I can’t help hearing the Big Yin in his heyday in concert with the hair flying.
And that’s how I feel about this episode. It’s flat and cliched while confusing the entire story told so far. The horror elements with the witches reveal are not scary; indeed I couldn’t help but laugh when they did their chant during the Ascension ceremony. Add to that whoever the lone witch who was cackling in the background was cringeworthy to say the least. I could so picture a lone extra seeing this as her big chance to stand out from the others and giving it a cackle large lol These are space witches so make them different just like Ahsoka did with hers. Maybe these are their ancestors; who knows? That solo cackle will stay with me forever for all the wrong reasons. To be honest all I could think of was the Hansel and Gretel movie with Jeremy Rinner. But this is Disney being lazy and not thinking how to make these witches different and innovative.
They use the Force or the Thread as they call it and while it does show us the divide between Mae and Osha, Mae just comes across as unhinged even as a child but given she ascended and gained some sort of witch force in her head then it might explain it. Osha wants to be a Jedi so when the four targeted Jedi arrive their presence especially Sol’s (still loving Lee Jung – Jae) causes Osha to want to leave against the witches intentions including her heartbroken mother. They talk of almost being extinct but it is clear the birth of the twin girls gave them a new hope. It looks like a hope that needs both of the girls to ascend but Oaha’s decision leaves them freaking out. It is touching to see her mother put Osha’s wishes first eve before the survival of the coven itself.
But the witches have a secret. The girls have no father; they were born from some dark magic and carried to term by one of the other witches. Now I assume it was dark magic and we get the cliched good twin, bad twin scenario. I get the Jedi ensuring children are not being taught the dark ways of the witches but the fact they take any kid that shows an inkling in the Force is disturbing. You don’t just take kids so they can be padawans. Even Sol didn’t want to go when he was four years old. Given how they treated Anakin in the Phantom Menace, the Jedi are fundamentally rotten to the core with the likes of Sol having any hint of conscience slapped down by Jedi law.
But it was Mae that started the fire that killed everyone. It wasn’t the Jedi so that begs the question as to why Torbin willingly took his own life last week because of what she did. You didn’t so anything son, catch a grip. It could be that Mae forced to him to take it with her Witch mind trick. Unless the dark force that Mae serves now caused the deaths of all the witches, making it look like it was because of Mae’s firestarter tendencies. I don’t know. I’m confused. I’m beginning to not care.
I’ll be honest and say “Was that it?” The writing structure here fails to deliver twists and turns is more like a bowl of spaghetti. It’s all over the place with underused characters that should be awesome but a shop window dummies. Let’s hope that this gears up in the remaining episodes or this will once again show how little Disney know about what makes great Star Wars.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 