TV Review: Pirate Robots, Lost Worlds & Jude Law Energize Episode 2 Of ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’
by Austin Gorton
The second episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier” does three things that kick the storytelling up a notch. After teasing it in the premiere’s cold open, this episode goes all-in on space pirate. It also introduces a mystery to the narrative, one which circles back to cast a few aspects of the previous episode in a new light. And finally, it delivers Jude Law‘s (still technically unnamed) character to the series. All three elements combine to keep up the entertaining vibe of the series’ first episode, while pushing the story forward in some significant ways.
After breaking through the mysterious barrier surrounding At Attin, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) find themselves far from home with no idea how to get back (there’s a brief moment of awe when the kids see a sky full of stars for the first time that is a great encapsulation of the series’ priorities). For help, they turn to SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost), a droid aboard the ship that gets reactivated and put into service thanks to Fern’s timely deployment of droid logic. This is where the pirate elements really amp up. SM-33 (get it?) is deeply pirate-coded. He’s got a peg leg, a missing eye, long hair (in the form of wires hanging off the back of his head) and basically acts as the Long John Silver to Wim’s Jim Hawkins.
The pirate allusions continue to come fast and furious throughout. The kids (guided by SM-33) reach Port Borgo (aka Space Tortuga), a locale replete with pirate tropes, including large cannons that covers ships as they pull into port, “mooring ropes” holding ships to docks in the form of fuel lines, a “dingy” that ferries passengers in from the docks, and the Brutus-led pirate crew from the opening of “This Could Be a Real Adventure.” There’s even a few shots sprinkled through the episode that seem like direct homages to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This is also the point in the episode where a narrative mystery rears its head: it quickly becomes clear that there’s more to the kids’ home world than futuristic suburbs and a love of civil service. Any time any of the kids mention their planet, the name is greeted with disbelief and guffaws, suggesting At Attin is some kind of Atlantis-esque lost world of treasure.
This recasts some of the details from the previous episode in a new light. Twice in “This Could Be a Real Adventure,” the words “great work” — with intentional emphasis — were used to describe whatever is being done on At Attin. Could that be a reference to the “Great Works” of Chancellor Lina Soh during the High Republic Era? If so, is At Attin a world cutoff from current events? It would explain Wim’s reverence of the Jedi, despite the fact that, in the show’s timeline, they’ve been reduced to a lone man dressed in black and an exile who would never claim she is a Jedi. It would also explain the use of slang like “wizard” (uttered by a youthful Anakin (Jake Lloyd) some forty-ish years before this story’s setting); At Attin may not be caught up with current slang. The money Wim flashes on Port Borgo — his lunch money, specifically — turns out to be dataries, Old Republic credits that send all the pirates into a tizzy for how valuable they are.
All of this suggests that At Attin is some kind of hidden world, cut off from the rest of the galaxy (to the point that they don’t know about the fall of the Republic or the end of the Jedi and are still using old currency and slang) or some kind of Brigadoon-esque “world out of time.” Perhaps the barrier that encircles the planet and keeps ships (and stars) out also keeps out time. Or at least, keeps the world cutoff, hidden from any potential visitors. Perhaps, in a further nod to the High Republic Era, At Attin exists inside the Nihil No-Space.
Along with this bit of narrative intrigue surrounding the home the characters are all trying to get back to, “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier” also introduces Law’s character. He is one of our great living actors when it comes to being smolderingly charming while suggesting just the tiniest bit of menace beneath the surface, and that’s in full display in his brief scene in this episode. He is immediately introduced as a complicated figure, a moral gray to shake up Wim’s black-and-white view of the world: on the one hand, he (seemingly) uses the Force to call a key to his hand, the better to free the kids from the brig in which they’ve landed. But pointedly, he only does so after overhearing the kids’ (loud) discussion about how they have a ship and apparently live on a lost treasure planet. His mastery of the Force also seems as wobbly as the key as it floats to his hand.
Like the mystery of At Attin, Law’s character introduces a bevy of unanswered questions and the potential for narrative momentum to the story. Combined with the episode’s full embrace of pirate tropes and aesthetics, it’s clear the show is with the setup of the first episode. By the end of “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier,” a clear picture of what Skeleton Crew is going to be about, in terms of plot, theme, and style, has emerged. Let the adventure begin.
New episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew drop every Tuesday on Disney+.