On Skeleton Crew, Neel Wants Star Peace, Not Star Wars

After three episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, it’s pretty clear who the breakout character is. It’s Neel, the adorable blue elephant with the precious hair and aw-shucks charm. And, like clockwork, it was time to put the character front and center in the fourth episode. An excellent, jam-packed, adventurous episode that made Star Wars history.

The fourth episode of Skeleton Crew, called “Can’t Say I Remember No At Attin,” made Star Wars history in that it’s only the second time ever an Oscar-winning director has helmed something Star Wars. The honor first went to Ron Howard for Solo and now, the Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who made Everything Everywhere All At Once, helmed this episode of Skeleton Crew. So, I guess, it’s the first time Oscar-winning directors did a Star Wars Disney+ show. And, as expected, they crushed it, with a pretty sprawling, cool episode that had a little bit of everything.

The episode saw the crew make their way to the planet At Achrann, which looks awfully like their home planet of At Attin, just older and much dustier. Seems Kh’ymm was close, but slightly off on her calculations (or at least that the “Jewels of the Old Republic” all seem to have been colonized with identical structures and similar naming conventions). As the crew goes off exploring they get discovered by the Troik, one of two warring factions on the planet. They’re led by General Strix (played by Mathieu Kassovitz, best known to film fans as the love interest in Amelie) and his daughter Hayna (Hala Finley from Netflix’s We Can Be Heroes). The Troik are at war with the Hattan who, most recently, stole their eopies (recently seen taking a crap at a podrace on Tatooine, or in Obi-Wan Kenobi).

The Troik treat kids like adults, so the General wants to train the crew for battle. But Neel isn’t having it. As Wim, Fern, and KB go off and shoot blasters, Neel plays the pacifist, which gains the attention of Hayna. The two strike up a quick friendship where Neel questions why her people need to be warring in the first place and if they’ve ever even considered when, or how, it could end. “If it was me, I’d just say I was sorry,” Neel says. “No more fighting. But that’s probably cause I get too scared. We know Hayna heart melts in that moment, because ours does too.

Neither She nor Neel can stop the inevitable though and so the Troik head off to battle the Hattan, with Strix forcing the kids onto the front line. It’s an incredibly tense moment, and for just a second you think Star Wars might actually be putting these children right into the heart of a fatal firefight. That’s when, out of nowhere, comes Jod. Seems he and 33 paid off the Hattan (by rummaging through Wim’s credits, much to his chagrin) and got the eopies back for the Troik. The good deed allows him to rescue the kids and continue their journey. A journey that’s now reached a standstill.

Lucasfilm

To find their way off this odd carbon copy of their planet, the Troik suggest the crew visit the Fallen Sanctum, a place that might have coordinates to At Attin. Before they can go though, Neel asks Hayna if she wants to come with them. She can’t, she says she’ll never forget him and gives him a little kiss. Even through the blue skin, you can see Neel is blushing. It’s all classic young love tropes, but those are tropes Star Wars rarely gets the chance to play with, and it’s delightful to see here.

In the Fallen Sanctum, the crew finds coordinates to all the ancient planets save for one: At Attin. Those have been somehow destroyed and, turns out, it was 33 who did it. At this point, his incessant repetition of “Can’t say I remember no At Attin” from the very first episode to now, plus his knowledge of At Achrann, clues us into what happened here. 33’s last captain was on the hunt for the treasure on At Attin and had him destroy the coordinates (and help murder anyone on the crew who saw them) so as to keep the place secret. And, we know they got there, at least, because that’s where the ship was stranded.

Fern figures it out too but when she wipes the order that keeps At Attin out of his memory, 33 snaps. He says he’s trained to rip anyone who asks for the coordinates limb from limb which is when three things happen. One, 33 expands into a much bigger, more intimidating droid. Two, the Daniels flex those directing muscles putting a camera on 33 himself, giving us a close-up, third-person, Sam Raimi-esque view of his rampage. And three, Neel saves his friends by thwarting 33’s attacks with a rock, emboldened by his time with Hayna. When 33 turns on Neel though, Jod has to save him by deactivating the droid at the last minute. It’s all a bit too much bravery for Neel though, who promptly passes out right as his friends celebrate him for saving their lives.

The latest Skeleton Crew was a perfect, quick, Star Wars adventure. There’s wish fulfillment, cool new characters and creatures, we get to see and think about some actual morality, and young love is also in the air. Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of the Troik–especially Hayna, for Neel’s sake.

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