Pirates, lost treasure, maybe a Jedi. That’s what you get this week in Skeleton Crew, and it’s a pretty interesting one.
Hopefully you had a chance to watch last week’s two-episode premiere, because the new episode has dropped on its new day and time, Tuesday, and it picks up right where we left the kids: in the brig, with a new Jedi friend who turns out to be the old captain. It’s Jude Law, and the kids assume he’s a Jedi. Well, that’s not quite true. Wim assumes he’s a Jedi. Everyone else is like, I don’t know if we can trust him or not, because he’s super shady.
Now mind you, he’s doing forcey, pushy things all over the place, so I get why. Especially the way they showed Wim at the very beginning. He’s enamored with everything having to do with the Jedi, everything having to do with that era.
Back on At Attin, the Plot Thickens
We get a brief moment back on At Attin, at Wim’s father’s house, with the other families there. They’re figuring the kids are just lost and the safety bots will show up and get them. Sure enough, a safety bot shows up and says your children are on a starship that has illegally exited the Barrier.
The parents freak out. We’ve got to go after them, we’ve got to go get them. And the robot’s like, that’s not allowed. So they want to see the supervisor. They’re insisting: can we reach out to the Republic? And the robots tell them that once the kids have left the Barrier, contact outside is not wise, and we’re not going to do that.
Okay. The plot thickens. That’s where they leave it with the parents, and the secret of At Attin is still sitting there.
He Never Actually Said He Was a Jedi
Back with the kids. With the help of Captain Silvo they sneak back onto their ship, only to tell him: what about SM-33? They’ve got to go back for SM-33. So Silvo says I’ll go, you guys stay here, it’s safe, don’t touch anything.
By then everyone’s searching for him. Apparently his trial was coming up and he escaped with the kids. Oh yeah. So he goes to the droid recycling area, sees one of his old guys there, and next thing you know he’s being chased. The kids know they can’t trust him, but again, Wim is super enamored, because he’s romanticized all of this from the stories he’s read.
Jude Law gets back with SM-33, and the ship is still attached to a fuel line. They’ve got to go. He’s got a friend on a moon who can help give them directions, so he punches it in, and they make the jump to hyperspace while still attached to that giant, thick fuel line. The line goes whipping back, wrecks everything, things are falling, and the new captain is just standing there watching it all. You can tell he’s seething. He puts a bounty on his head. So of course bounties are happening. It’s wonderful.
The ride’s going to take a couple of hours, so he makes the kids food, which is great. The kids are all happy they get to eat something. Then he goes looking around the ship. They reactivate SM-33, and SM-33 is suspicious of him, because the kids introduce him as a Jedi. Fern’s friend with the visor tells him flat out, I don’t trust you. And he says look, there are some things in the galaxy you can’t trust. Go with your gut.
The Owl With Maps to Everywhere
They make it to the moon, park far away and walk the rest of the distance. Before they even get there, you find out his friend has already called the cops. She called some X-wings in, because she knows exactly who he is. He’s got a pirate name: Crimson Jack.
She’s an owl person, which, okay, go with it. As soon as she lets them in, the first thing she does is ask the kids why they’re all with Crimson Jack, what’s going on, are you okay? The kids tell her they’re lost. She says where are you from, I’ve got maps to everywhere, all kinds of hyperspace maps. And they say we’re from At Attin.
She says, At Attin? And he goes, I know. She asks if they’re serious, and they are. So she explains: in the early days of the Old Republic, there were several planets that vanished. Hidden away, for whatever reason. It’s not exactly murky, but the timeline’s a little bit awkward. At the end of the day, their planet was one of the ones that were lost.
So now the kids are the map. She says describe anything. You talk about a barrier, what is this barrier? She’s basically playing 21 Questions, eliminating things, and she manages to eliminate 99 percent of the planets, which leaves roughly 10,000 of them. Fern’s upset about it.
Then the little owl lady sees Fern’s badge, the one her mother gave her for being top kid in class. The badge has very specific writing on it, and the owl uses the writing to suss things out. She thinks she’s going to have a solution. It’s just going to take her a little bit.
That’s when Jack realizes this is taking a little bit. And then it comes over the radio: sector patrol, inbound to your position. The X-wings are coming, and they’ve got to book.
On the way out, Fern’s little buddy stops to help, because Jack had pushed the owl lady away and books and pads and stuff fell on her. She helps her out, and the owl asks: what did he tell you? Trust your gut. Use your head, get the truth, and if you ever need help, you can call me.
Okay. The kids are making friends. Right on.
I’m the Captain Now
They make it back to the ship, but the kids won’t let him on, and neither will SM-33, who’s sitting there with a welding torch. You’re a Jedi, right? “I never actually said that.” I knew it.
To be fair, he never said he was a Jedi. The kids made that assumption, and he just didn’t disabuse them of it.
So he offers a partnership. Let me help, I’ll get you home, I’ll do the right thing, maybe they give me a reward, whatever, but either way we get where we’re going. And Fern says wrong. I’m the captain now. You work for us. And he’s like, okay, fine.
Nostalgia Bait of the Best Kind
This entire series continues to be a bunch of callbacks to different things, and I’m okay with that. It’s nostalgia bait of the best kind, in my opinion, because they’re using the nostalgia to say hey, remember this, without just doing it again.
That’s what makes it different from The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens literally was: we’re going to repeat beats and moments. This has the kids doing a thing, and there happen to be two gun turrets. So you get moments that do hearken back to the original Star Wars, but there’s nothing inherently bad about how it’s being done, especially because it’s being executed very well.
The kids do manage to make a hit on one of the X-wings. Meanwhile visor girl has the little key card with the coordinates ready and locked in. They hit the hyperdrive and they’re gone, and that’s where we leave them.
Then the X-wings land. The owl lady says you let them get away. The pilot asks where they went, and she tells him you wouldn’t believe me, because of where these kids are from.
Where This Is Headed
I think for sure, hands down, this planet predates even the Republic before the Empire. The kids had no clue about the war. So we were right. If you were playing at home and you guessed the kids weren’t going to know anything about the war, they don’t. This is literally them trying to suss out what’s happened. But they have a way to get home now, and we’ll see where that takes them.
Obviously this isn’t the last of the pirates. I think the pirates are going to end up tracking them to the owl lady, she’s going to end up giving up information one way or another, and the pirates are ultimately coming to At Attin. If this follows the Jon Watts ’80s formula, we’re headed toward a big to-do with the pirates showing up there. And I believe we end this series with At Attin being revealed, the New Republic discovering that it exists.
And remember, we still have to find out what the secret of At Attin is. I’m here for it. The kids are speculating about whether it has to do with the Great Work, and honestly the kids are doing a lot of the work for us, and it’s great.
One of the things I really dig about this show is that it’s telling mature, elevated stories with kid protagonists, and it’s doing the same thing those movies did in the ’80s. I don’t even mean the nostalgia there. I mean cause and effect: those of us watching see kids, and we get sucked in because we care about their wellbeing. Let’s just face it.
And SM-33 is SM-33, and I’m loving it. That’s Nick Frost.
The Verdict
Skeleton Crew Episode 3 lands at an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
Technically this is only episode three, and I’m trying to keep myself very modest. But I’m willing to bump this one up to an 8.
I’m like a kid again. Look, I’ve got the shirt on, okay? That’s how excited I am for this. This is Star Wars, and I’m loving it.
There are people out there complaining that this is Star Wars for kids. Bro, when did you see it? I saw Star Wars when I was a kid. Let’s not kid ourselves about this.
I firmly believe Star Wars is at its best when it understands who its audience is. Right now, in this space and time, we’re getting Andor, a very mature, very grown-up Star Wars story that for me feels very Star Wars. And then we’re getting Skeleton Crew, which is also carrying the torch for Star Wars in an amazing way, one I find both exciting and thrilling.
Your turn. When did you see Star Wars for the first time, and how old were you? And what did you think of this episode? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
