Star Wars Rebels Review: “Always Two There Are”

— Spoiler Review —

What initially starts off seeming like another fun and breezy episode like “Fighter Flight,” from S1, “Always Two There Are,” quickly reveals its much darker and frightening secrets: the introduction of the Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother.

Sabine, Zeb, and Chopper are tasked by Hera to investigate an abandoned medical outpost—used by the Republic during the Clone Wars—for supplies, and Ezra tags along because he, like everyone else, can’t stand the arguments Kanan and Rex continue to have. While full of light humor and some spooky haunted house vibes, things truly take a turn for the worst when the Seventh Sister, and the Fifth Brother, reveal themselves. Ezra makes the sacrificial choice, like a true Jedi would, to allow his friends to escape. But Sabine gets captured and the circumstances force Zeb and Chopper to come up with a simple but effective rescue plan. Once they are all safely back at the fleet, the news of the new Inquisitors changes seemingly everything for the team.

Kanan might have started to trust Rex, but that doesn’t mean there’s plenty of issues ahead for the two of them. It’s pretty clear from how literally everyone in the room with Kanan and Rex rolls their eyes that their arguments about training and discipline are old hat. I think they both have valid points, but the whole “I’ve got a better way of doing things” fight looks to be wearing down on Ezra’s enthusiasm over becoming a Jedi. He’s always been one to fend for himself, and while he certainly trusts Kanan to show him the ways of the Jedi, having his teacher be more preoccupied with his distrust and superiority complex over clones is making the Loth-rat’s own distrust of authority figures bubble to the surface (which at least helps him against the Seventh Sister). Will he strike out on his own to get the point across to Kanan? Take sides? Go to Ahsoka more frequently? Here’s hoping Ezra’s issue with their fights doesn’t disappear by next episode and actually gets addressed at some point.

Other than the Seventh Sister (who I’ll cover more in a moment), my favorite aspect of this episode had to be how it handled the non-Force using members of the show while introducing new Force using villains. One thing I disliked about the first season was how the non-Force users like Sabine, Hera, Zeb, and even Chopper took a backseat the moment the Inquisitor happened to show up. Sure, they helped Kanan and Ezra from time to time, but they mostly were out of the picture when he twirled his saber into action. In “Always Two There Are” that changes, as Sabine holds her own for the most part, while Zeb and Chopper prove absolutely vital to saving everyone. This show has been about the crew from the beginning and letting all the characters deal with the big threats not only makes the threats more palpable, considering we don’t know ANY character’s fate at this point, but it also helps make all the characters feel important. This was pretty much exemplified by Zeb and his “mid-life crisis”/uselessness feelings throughout the episode, and his rousing speech before cooking together a rescue plan sums up my thoughts about keeping everyone important (especially as we add more characters to the show).

I’m not completely sure what it is about her exactly, but I’m totally digging the Seventh Sister. It’s a good thing they threw the Fifth Brother in as a cameo at the end of the last episode instead of her, as she’s definitely the star out of the two Inquisitors. The Brother is all intimidation and brutality, and while he has a cool design to go along with his attitude, he doesn’t seem to be much more than the big, strong, mostly silent type. The Seventh Sister on the other hand…maybe it’s the overall design, the way she expresses herself through body language, her posture/movements, how she’s thinking of the bigger picture, Sarah Michelle Geller’s voice work and the after-effects they added, or how she’s the first lady villain of the new canon, but whatever it is, can’t you tell I’m loving her already? While we don’t dive too deep into the Inquisitorius organization, the questions that come with the names “Seventh” and “Fifth” and how S1’s Inquisitor was the “Grand” one are going to perplex fans throughout the season. Are there six other “Sisters” and four other “Brothers” in training or already trained, but dead? Are the “Seventh” and “Fifth” on the low end of the number scale currently part of the Inquisitors? How does one get those numbers? And most importantly, what gains an Inquisitor the “Grand” title: the death of a Jedi? Whatever gets them that title, it’s definitely not a friendly competition, as already we see Brother and Sister come to heads a bit over Ezra’s fate. The one thing we do know, at least for now, is that they are out for Ahsoka Tano and the fledgling Rebellion. I wonder what else we’ll all learn as the 22 episode season goes on…

When Zeb asks Kanan why he didn’t tell them there were more Inquisitors, it reminded me of the moment in Empire Strikes Back where Luke asks Ben why he hadn’t been told about Vader. Obi-Wan doesn’t respond because, besides being dead, he’s one with the Force and close to all knowing, which means he’s laying on the mysticism even harder than usual. Kanan doesn’t respond because he had no idea there were more, and it’s telling how shocking this is for him and how game-changing it’s for the crew when the information so obviously rocks Kanan to the core. Thank the Force Hera is around to comfort him, in what is probably their cutest and most intimate moment shown yet, making their still to be revealed relationship history palpably complicated. As far as final images go for an episode, this one takes the cake, hitting on an emotional level while playing into the tone created by the new villainous duo.

Here are a few other things:

Dave Filoni recently sat down with IGN and discussed how these new characters could survive into the original trilogy, how he hopes we’ll see the Siege of Mandalore (and other Rex and Ahsoka stories not yet told from The Clone Wars) one day, and reveals who will not be killing the Seventh Sister…if she would even end up dying.
Don’t forget to check out StarWars.com’s episode guide for “Always Two There Are,” as it includes the awesomely creepy audio cue for the new Inquisitors, shows each Inquisitor has a custom handle on their spinning lightsabers, and a Rebels Recon episode revealing we’ve seen the Grand Inquisitor before…in TCW. Time to play Where’s Waldo with TCW looking for old Grandy himself. However, Freddie Prinze Jr. revealed we will know who the Grand Inquisitor was in TCW before the season ends!
After reading Kanan #7, which released on the same day as this episode, I found it interesting how both of them featured Kanan finding support from the woman, who is much stronger than he in subtle ways, in his life. It’s certainly a coincidence, but a happy one at that.
Jay and Sarah over at Eleven-ThirtyEight dive deep into the ambition and competition we see between the Inquisitors and how it’s important, but ultimately detrimental, to the Empire.
What are Wolffe and Gregor up to? I know we don’t need to see all three of them all the time, but a throwaway piece of dialogue to update us on their whereabouts would’ve been nice.
Kanan’s questioning of whether Ahsoka knew there were more Inquisitors plays into my idea the beloved Tano knows a lot more than she is letting on (besides the obvious lack of information about her old Master), but she’s withholding certain information because she’s going old school Jedi with it and trusting the Force to guide the others to what they need to know.
Which leads me to: how come Rex and Ahsoka never mention Anakin by name? And how come no one seems to want to ask them which Jedi they always talk about?

The Seventh Sister leaves her mark with her fun introduction in “Always Two There Are,” leaving the crew of the Ghost to struggle with the realization they don’t fully understand the scope of the enemy they’re up against and how Vader not personally in the picture doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods just yet.

+ The Seventh Sister
+ Keeping everyone important
+ Mashing of tones

– They fell for Commander Meiloorun?

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.

Season Four: Ep.1/2: “Heroes of Mandalore” Part One / Part Two | Ep. 3/4: “In the Name of the Rebellion” | Ep. 5: “The Occupation” | Ep. 6: “Flight of the Defender” | Ep. 7/8: “Kindred” and “Crawler Commandeers” | Ep. 9: “Rebel Assault” | Ep. 10/11 “Jedi Night” and “Dume” | Ep. 12/13: “Wolves and a Door” & “A World Between Worlds” | Ep. 14/15: Series Finale “A Fool’s Hope” & “Family Reunion – And Farewell”

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Star Wars Rebels Review: “Always Two There Are”

+ The Seventh Sister

+ Keeping everyone important

+ Mashing of tones

– They fell for Commander Meiloorun?

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+ The Seventh Sister

+ Keeping everyone important

+ Mashing of tones

– They fell for Commander Meiloorun?

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