In the penultimate episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the kids find their way back to At Attin, but their troubles are far from over.
Finally, after all their adventures, difficulties, and near-death experiences, the kids have finally made it home to At Attin and reunited with their parents. It's not over yet, though, as Jod has managed to sneak aboard their ship and made it to the planet too, and is now holding them all hostage as he tries to get his hands on the planet's treasure, while his ship and crew wait outside the Barrier.
This episode pulled quite the twist with Jod. So far, he seemed to be friendly enough to the kids, wanting to help them get home and protecting them from danger, until he betrayed them and took control of the ship after finding the coordinates for At Attin in Tak Rennod's treasure room. But now he's threatening them and their families with a lightsaber. Sure, he's always been self-serving, and it's unlikely he would ever have helped them if he didn't see profit in it for himself, but this is a step beyond.
I wonder if there's going to be another twist next episode where it turns out he's really a likable guy after all and this is just an act he puts on to get by in the dangerous world of piracy. There have been a few hints that he had a hard life when he was younger. He tried to tell Wim to forget about his parents and called them all spoilt kids in this episode. We still don't know anything about his childhood or life before he was a pirate, where he learnt to use the Force, or who his parents are. There are certainly a lot of possibilities that could explain his sudden character change.
Review: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Episode 7, "We're Gonna Be in So Much Trouble"
As this is the penultimate episode, there was naturally a lot of set-up for things to come in the finale. This is to be expected, but even so, it didn't feel like there was much of a center to this episode. A lot of stuff certainly happened, and yet not much really happened at the same time. The parents sent out a communication buoy to send a message to the kids, which is illegal, and were caught by the droids. They don't seem to have been punished. Then there's the way the kids escaped from Jod, using a weak technicality of the pirate code which only allows a pirate to captain one ship at a time, a rule I'm sure has been subverted many times by characters like Hondo Ohnaka.
There was also the way Jod became captain again, by convenience rather than skill, taking a moment when Brutus was helpless to take him out rather than having to trick or fight him. It makes him look more like a chancer rather than a smart operator who has a handle on things.
It's all just there to get Jod and the four kids together on the surface of At Attin and into the vault full of credits. It feels kind of rushed and super-convenient that things played out the way they did, with most of the characters being passengers rather than major players.
Now that it's done, though, all that's left to see is how well the finale caps things off. Will Jod go full "Anakin" on the kids, or get away with the money to start a new life? Maybe he'll do a full turn and stop being the bad guy.
A lot of it will depend on the truth about At Attin. There's still a lot to be cleared up about the planet. We know why it was hidden, what its purpose is, and that there were other planets like it, but this is the only one that survives intact. What we don't know is why the planet has continued to exist like this for so long. Have the authorities never tried to contact the Republic after so long without hearing from them? Do they know it doesn't exist anymore? Have they been minting credits all this time?
The biggest question of all is who is in charge? The mysterious Supervisor is voiced by British actor Sir Stephen Fry. Will he play him onscreen in the finale, or is this a Wizard of Oz situation where the leader isn't what he seems to be? Maybe it's a reverse of Plazir 9 from The Mandalorian episode "Guns for Hire," where a utopia has been created by humans using droids to do all their work. Perhaps here the droids are in control but the people don't know it, allowing them to build a peaceful, ordered society.
Whatever the ending is, I hope it does justice to the rest of the show and pays things off in a satisfying way. While Skeleton Crew hasn't been a mind-blowing series, it's still enjoyable to watch these kids go on their adventure across the galaxy, and I will be a little sad to see it come to an end next week.
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