Skeleton Crew Ep. 4 melds Oscar gold.
Where I see The Daniels' imprint on this series.
The Short Take:
A surprisingly sobering episode about innocence and war, with a spurt of adventure at the very end. I liked how this one added to the unfolding lore behind our crew’s home planet. Made me love a character even more (and I didn’t think that was possible).
[SPOILER WARNING: Can’t say I remember no spoilers. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any!]
Image Credit: Collider
The Long Take:
To begin, an ode to Neel.
Like so many, I, too, am a member or Neel Nation. There’s something so pure about him. So precious and worthy of cherishing. Earlier episodes very clearly establish him as the voice of reason and unconditional source of support for Wim, and his every-elephant (but not Ortolan, apparently) qualities make him the most relatable character in the crew. Even though dangerous adventure has found them, he still gets mildly offended when Wim neglects to ask him how his assessment went. He gazes longingly across the classroom at a crush he’s too chicken to talk to. He helps take care of his younger siblings and worries about them as he and Wim are swept off. He freely admits he’s scared and is self-assured in declaring so. And that sweet, adorable face is so full of earnestness.
When I had originally heard the word on the street that this week’s episode would be very Neel-centric, I was, unsurprisingly, very excited. But I and many others on the Internet assumed that meant we would learn more about Neel’s past. That we’d get some backstory about his family to flesh out his character a little more. I would say, though, that what we got instead was much better because Neel is just Neel and that is great. This episode was all about how Neel’s very nature — his gentle kindness, his empathy, and his emotional self-awareness — forever changes how warrior teen Hayna views her world and what her world could be. Neel shows her that even though all she has ever known is war, the fighting she does daily need not define her; in fact, someday her generation might be able to stop the cycle of violence if they believe an alternative is possible.
Neel, meanwhile, comes out of this episode having proven to all those around him that he can be a gentle pacifist and a hero at the same time. He beautifully faces his fears and doesn’t change who he is. He shows that he had the strength he needed all along. He can throw the rock at a haywire SM-33 and he can faint afterwards.
Image Credit: Collider
This episode is such an effective showcase for Neel in part because it was directed by The Daniels, the directors who brought us Best Picture Winner Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. That film has a similar sincerity and heart to it. Not in spite of but because of all the wacky time-hopping sequences, a moving family drama emerges. And I see so much of Neel’s heart and soul in the film, especially in the character of Waymond. If you haven’t seen it, the couple at its center, Evelyn and Waymond, have reached a stale period in their marriage, with Evelyn thinking about whether or not her life would be more exciting or more successful had she not journeyed with Waymond to the States and opened a laundromat. Through Evelyn’s perspective, the film initially presents Waymond as an ineffectual or “weak” man, but the wild adventure they go on proves to her that he’s been an amazing hero the whole time.
And yet, he stays true to his desire to do laundry and taxes with Evelyn, creating an ordinary/extraordinary paradox. In arguably his most dramatic scene, in which Ke Huy Quan (who was Data in The Goonies, don’t forget!) plays a debonair tuxedo wearing version and his prime fanny-pack wearing version, he says:
Waymond Wang: You think I'm weak don't you?
CEO Waymond: [to Movie Star Evelyn] All of those years ago when we first fell in love, your father would say I was too sweet for my own good. Maybe he was right.
Waymond Wang: [to Verse-Jumpers] Please! Please! Can we... can we just stop fighting?
CEO Waymond: You tell me it's a cruel world and we're all running around in circles. I know that. I've been on this earth just as many days as you.
Waymond Wang: I know you are all fighting because you are scared and confused. I'm confused too. All day, I don't know what the heck is going on. But somehow, this feels like it's all my fault.
CEO Waymond: When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I've learned to survive through everything.
Waymond Wang: I don't know. The only thing I do know... is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind - especially when we don't know what's going on.
CEO Waymond: I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight.
Similarly, Neel doesn’t suddenly transform into a brave, confident action hero. He never actually hurts anyone. In the midst of death and destruction, he only brings love to At-Achrann, having a positive impact on Hayna and therefore the entire planet who will, it seems, be under her leadership eventually. When he doesn’t know what’s going on, he chooses to be sweet and kind. He chooses to see the good side of things. That is how he fights.
Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Skeleton Crew is all about doing laundry and taxes, but it’s also about saving the universe.
I can see the same ordinary/extraordinary paradox in the juxtaposition of At-Attin and At-Achrann. Even though it seems as though every Jewel of the Republic has been designed to be identical — our crew recognize so much of their home planet here — one, At-Achrann, has fallen into a ruinous, post-apocalyptic dystopia while the other, At-Attin, ominously thrives as a pristine utopia. How can whatever social experiment set forth by the Jewels generate two so radically different outcomes, such that one presents high danger and death while the other sleepy mundanity? What was the catalyst on At-Attin that At-Achrann has yet to encounter? Neel’s attitude, while pure and good, does seem extremely privileged. He has only learned to be a kind, gentle, bright light because he has only ever known comfort and safety. I keep going back to The Goonies (1985), in which the real villain is capitalism. The Great Work…treasure…and Wim’s emphatic declaration of just the word “Money!” when he and the gang sit around contemplating what their parents actually do. That has to be the key to unlocking this series’ mystery.
It seems that the most logical answer to my questions lies in the episode title, “Can’t Say I Remember No At-Attin,” as we learn that SM-33 has been repeating that catchphrase so frequently because he has been programmed by his previous captain to forget all memories of At-Attin, likely right after they scratched out the coordinates. Why would the series want to show us this war-torn world, in which The Great Work crumbled, if it were not somehow tied to what our friends find at the end of the episode: a series of carvings on pedestals with coordinates to each of the Jewel planets and the revelation that someone has tried to obscure the return route from At-Achrann to At-Attin. Could the mystery captain of the Onyx Cinder have caused the downfall of The Great Work and forever changed At-Achrann from its idyllic At-Attin-like state?
Image Credit: Screen Rant
Whether it’s through The Rebellion, The Resistance, prisoners on Narkina 5, or even Obi-Wan yelling “To the Republic! To Democracy!” on Mustafar, Star Wars, at its core, is about fighting for freedom. And so I think it makes perfect sense that the mystery captain would be a freedom fighter of some kind; the one who tried to expose the system for what it really was and bring the whole thing down.
Who is the mysterious captain, though? Is it someone we’ll know, or someone our crew will know? The Rebel Base Card Podcast’s discussion this week included an impressive number of Easter Eggs and what they call “Canon Connections.” My jaw dropped to the floor each time they mentioned another reference. If you listen to that episode (and you should), you will hear theories about what we have seen thus far on At-Attin and At-Achrann that relate to not only the Old Republic, but the High Republic as well. It’s genius stuff that I can’t possibly compete with because developing an encyclopedic knowledge of the Galaxy has never been my strength as a Star Wars fan. But what I can offer is a suggestion of how this all fits together from a character perspective.
At the end of the day, this is a story about this group of kids learning about themselves and their homeward by going on a faraway adventure. It’s inspired by Amblin Entertainment, which favors grand stories that address anxieties about more domestic real world problems. So it makes the most sense that any big reveals of the plot will remain within the microcosm of Wim, Neil, Fern, and KB’s lives. I don’t think it would feel right to have the captain be a.) someone starrier than Jude Law and b.) an iconic character from Star Wars canon.
So I’m placing my highly speculative bet on Wim’s mom. It’s gotta be Wim’s mom. That’s why there’s a shot of Wim’s dad looking more contemplatively concerned as all the other parents chatter nervously about their lost kids and how they should talk to the Supervisor. Perhaps Wim’s mother is no longer on At-Attin, not because she died as we assumed she did, but because she faked her own death and escaped the Barrier in order to rectify whatever she thought was wrong with The Great Work. That she has all the answers, and we just need to catch up with her (maybe even at the end of the season?). Or maybe she IS the Supervisor of At-Attin, taking over after having brought disaster to At-Achrann? I’m prepared, as always, to be 100% wrong about this, but it would fit so well with the innocence and ignorance of Star Wars suburbia. That these kids are the least likely to expect their parents to be a renegade pirate captain revolutionary because they assume their parents lead boring, bean-counting lives.
To indulge my theory a little more, I would also point out that the captain did not destroy evidence of all the Jewel planets but specifically of At-Attin only. This would indicate that they wanted to protect At-Attin from whomever they agitated (to put it lightly) on At-Achrann. A fear of the Supervisor on At-Achrann retaliating by going to the person’s home planet and hurting one of the kids, even indirectly, would be a solid character motivation and a reasonable explanation for what we see here.
I concede that the timing of this doesn’t make sense if the ship is as old as it seems, having been buried and overgrown when Wim finds it. So maybe it’s an ancestor of Wim’s or more of a One-Eyed Willy situation where the captain is just a McMuffin who is long dead (and therefore one of the skeletons on the ship), but at the end of their journey in pursuit of the captain, we will find Wim’s mom, who ran away in order to retrace the captain’s steps.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
My point is, the answer has to relate to one of these kids and their families in order for it to resonate and remain consistent with the type of story this is. And I’d like the story to be as pure and wholesome as Neel himself.