Skeleton Crew gives the people what they want with a Neel-centric episode

One of the best and most poignant episodes of The Clone Wars was “Heroes On Both Sides,” in which Ahsoka learned that the titular war wasn’t as black-and-white as she thought and that Padmé almost found a way to end the conflict peacefully. Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, but turning your a simple and easy-to-understand rebellion against an evil empire into a muddy, complicated political conflict where everyone is in the wrong is a rather bold move for a franchise aimed at children. Episode four of Skeleton Crew echoes that episode by having a character interrogate the very idea of war, recognizing and calling out the cycle of violence and how it never stops until one side does. 

Of course, it couldn’t happen to a better guy than Neel, our sweet blue elephant dude who just wants to go home and watch the circus hologram from the Holiday Special. After the kids land back on what they initially think is At Attin, they quickly discover that something terrible happened to their home (or that they’re on the wrong planet). Rather than lush forests and clean streets, this is a desolate wasteland filled with ruins and a statue of a headless guy Wim dubs King No Head. This is not At Attin but apparently At Achrann, one of the other four jewels of the Old Republic. What initially looks to be a more gritty version of The Lost Boys fighting Captain Hook’s pirates turns out to be an endless war between two factions in which one side is very French-coded and puts child soldiers in the vanguard. 

This faction is called the Troyk, and they are led by French actor Mathieu Kassovitz’s General Strix, who tries to pass his army of child soldiers as something noble and worthy of respect (rather than acknowledging the fact that he sits comfortably in the back while 12 year olds march to their certain deaths). Immediately, he forces our crew to train with his soldiers—with the explicit purpose of sending them to the very front in the next raid—and they reluctantly (except for Wim) agree to become soldiers. 

The only exception is Neel, who continues to be one of the best additions to Star Wars in years. He is more than just the comic relief or the nerdy guy in the group. He is the heart and soul of the show, the purest of souls, and also a rather emotionally intelligent sort who figures out in five minutes what it took child soldier Ahsoka a whole episode to learn in “Heroes On Both Sides”: that war is not a good thing and kids should be as far away from conflict as possible. If it was up to him, Neel says he’d just apologize to the other side and stop the fighting; otherwise, it will never end, and that is not fair to kids. Now, besides Neel being the best person in the galaxy, the fact that this planet seems engaged in a war that has lasted for several generations while At Attin is such a utopia immediately brings to mind another franchise that is all about isolated communities sheltered from the outside world that initially seem to be quite safe and idealistic but are actually nightmare social experiments: Fallout. We don’t know if At Achrann started out as At Attin before something went wrong or if it was always designed to be the war planet, but there is definitely more to these five planets than meets the eye—and it all stinks.

As for the rest of the crew, they are sent to lead the next raid. But right as Neel refuses to fight and right as the kids are about to engage in a bloody conflict, they encounter Jod and SM 33. Turns out, Jod and SM 33 (who has a babysitter protocol and stayed behind with Jod and the ship) encountered the other faction and used Wim’s credits to buy the stolen creatures the Troyk were fighting about, effectively ending the conflict (at least for now). As a reward, Jod only asks for the kids’ return, even though he does briefly (jokingly) consider trading them for some good-quality hides. Before that, however, Jod tried to ask SM 33 about At Attin, since the droid clearly knew and remembered being on At Achrann and understood it as a dangerous and belligerent place. However, whenever he is asked about At Attin, SM simply repeats the title of the episode, “Can’t say I remember no At Attin,” which is extremely suspicious and not at all a lead to a big reveal by the installment’s end.

That reveal, of course, is that SM 33 very much knew the coordinates to At Attin all along. (After all, he did make it to the planet at some point, otherwise the kids wouldn’t have found him and the ship.) This planet’s supervisor tower has the coordinates to all five of the lost planets (all conveniently having names that start with At) except At Attin because SM 33 was ordered to destroy its coordinates by his former captain, who also slaughtered his entire crew so he wouldn’t have to share the treasure. Also, and just like future Biff in Back To The Future Part II, the captain ordered SM 33 to pull apart anyone who came around asking about At Attin in the future. 

So far, Skeleton Crew has amassed a rather fascinating group of directors to tackle these episodes, and this week the task falls on the laps of the Daniels, the Oscar-winners behind Everything Everywhere All At Once. Though the episode is light on pirate-themed shenanigans or big alien landscapes, the duo do a really good job portraying the gritty, war-torn look of At Achrann and the effect it has on the people. Everything is covered in ash and looks abandoned. And even though we don’t get to see actual combat between the factions, the tension is as high as if there had been a Saving Private Ryan battle in the middle of the episode. Then, for the final moments of the installment, things go full The Terminator as SM goes haywire and tries to murder the kids, chasing Neel to pull his limbs apart. It’s a great sequence, with the camera fixating on SM 33’s point of view, giving it a manic, erratic Evil Dead-like look as the killer robot threatens to annihilate our favorite elephant boy—at least until Jod jumps in and deactivates SM 33. Forget the legend of Luke Skywalker, here’s Neel, he who stops wars and stands up to murder robots!

Stray observations

• • This week’s episode is filled with Treasure Planet references. Back at the ship, we see a golden orb that looks just like the map to the titular planet, while SM’s memory issues are reminiscent of B.E.N. from that film, who was also stranded on the planet and had his memory core removed by his former captain so no one else would find the treasure.
• • Jude Law is a fantastic addition to the show. He’s sarcastic in a refreshing way, playing a guy who has given up on everything and is desperate for any opportunity to reverse his misfortune. And yet, he is not one to fight or talk his way out of a losing situation, as seen when he just asks to be shot the moment he is caught by one of the warring factions.
• • It’s funny that the Star Wars show aimed at the youngest audience is also the one with some of the darkest elements. A planet full of child soldiers was not on my bingo card for this Goonies-inspired TV show.