I decided to watch most of the episodes since the last ones I watched (because I'm a huge SW fan with little self control, apparently
).
Imperial Supercommandos is legitimately the first "mandalorian" story I've managed to sit through since TCW "mandalorians" were introduced. It was...ok. Honestly, if Sabine was just from a mercenary clan and they didn't call her or the others "mandalorians", I'd call this episode solid. The action was done fairly well, Sabine and Rau were interesting, and the story was well put together and made sense. The villain and his motivations were pretty standard and nothing that hasn't been done a thousand times before, but with that in mind it wasn't bad. As it is, the episode was decent, and I enjoyed it by ignoring the references to "mandalorians".
I skipped
Iron Squadron because I had no desire to watch a story about teen/young Rebels (at least Ezra is the only real kid on the main cast, a whole crew of them would be intolerable). I skipped
The Wynkahthu Job because I've always hated Hondo, and looking at the summary it didn't seem like a particularly important episode.
An Inside Man was alright, although not having a real connection to Lothal I wasn't that invested in the planet's plight. I did like seeing the TIE Defender, and Thrawn, while still very simplistic as a character, did come up with things I could see the original Thrawn doing. Kallus being the spy was a surprise, maybe he'll end up being the first Rebels villain that has interesting character development.
Visions and Voices was mixed. I think I actually kind of like Maul as a character, but I dislike the "night sisters" stuff in both TCW and here, especially because I really enjoyed the old EU's Dathomir stuff a lot. Still it worked ok, and the possessed Sabine and Kanan were creepy. I think the new canon night sister stuff has always been a bit too "magical", but it worked for this episode. I really hope we actually see Obi-Wan eventually.
Ghosts of Geonosis was pretty good. It was interesting to see Whitaker as Saw outside of Rogue One, and the character felt like the same one from the movie, just less damaged (both physically and mentally). Having some Clone Wars elements (the droids and the geonosian) was cool, although the design of the geonosian seemed off, even taking Rebels cartoony style into account. Besides that it was a surprisingly solid story, even Chopper didn't get any stupid gags and we had some good action moments and some impressive force moves by Kanan.
I'm skipping
Warhead because I HATE droid episodes. They sucked in TCW and haven't improved since then. Next up is
Trials of the Darksaber, which I haven't gotten to yet. I have been surprisingly entertained by these episodes (and most of the ones from the beginning of the season that I watched). A lot of the problems I've always had with Rebels still remain (the lack of good characterization for most of the main cast, Chopper being terrible whenever they focus on him and the villains mostly being either unimpressive original characters or poorly done versions of old characters). But, hey, I was entertained and even complemented a "mandalorian" episode.
I suppose with little SW stuff getting produced outside of the movies, I'm becoming a bit more forgiving toward Rebels, despite its flaws. It helped that most of the episodes I watched were solid and kept stuff like chopper's antics to a minimum. At this point I genuinely want to see where the Kenobi stuff goes, see more with Bindu and watch how the Thrawn plot is going to end. I think I can even tolerate the "mandalorian" stuff, although I'm sure the next two episodes are going to test my resolve when it comes to that. So, I don't take back anything I've said about the show in the past, but I'll keep watching it from here (except
Double Agent Droid , which will get skipped for obvious reasons).
