TV Review — ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Episode 8 Is Above All A ‘Star Wars’ Story

Much like its first episode, the vast majority of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew‘s final episode, “The Real Good Guys” takes place on At Attin. In doing so, it creates a striking contrast, not only between the serene, cloistered world of the premiere and the frenetic, pirate-ridden one of the finale, but between the characters themselves. It illustrates how much they’ve changed and grown as a result of their adventures. It also returns to the series’ earliest themes, and in affirming them, affirms that Skeleton Crew, for all its varied influences — from Treasure Island to The Goonies to E.T. and more — is first and foremost a Star Wars story. 

So in the end, it turns out Jod (Jude Law) was the villain of the piece all along. His earlier heel turn carries through as he marches Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her mother Fara (Kerry Condon) into the Supervisor’s (voiced by Stephen Fry) chamber more or less at lightsaber-point. He then quickly dispatches the Supervisor (who turns out to be a droid, a not unexpected but still somewhat humdrum reveal) after it hilariously reveals that the last update it received from the Republic was that Jedi, like what Jod is pretending to be, are all traitors. From there, Jod looses his pirate crew on At Attin. And before long, the planet’s serene if cloistered and oppressive society comes tumbling down in more ways than one. 

Pointedly, the script from Christopher Ford & Jon Watts is careful not to make Jod too much of a villain. All throughout the episode, even as things start to unravel and his grip on the situation gets looser and looser, he protests that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Certainly, while he does lots of threatening and some mild fisticuffs, he also passes up plenty of opportunities to simply kill the kids and/or their parents. Jod is, without a doubt, the villain of this story, but like his literary antecedent, Long John Silver, he’s a complex and not completely amoral one. “The Real Good Guys” makes a point to both keep Jod alive and prevent him from doing anything too atrocious (it’s hard to believe no one died as a result of the pirate invasion, but Jod never executes anyone innocent on screen, and that’s usually enough to keep a TV villain in morally gray territory); a return for the character, in some form, would be neither unsurprising nor unwelcome. 

Furthermore, by serving as the story’s villain, Jod becomes a foil that allows the episode to showcase just how far the kids have come. Each receives an individual spotlight moment that, together, all contribute to Jod’s defeat and the liberation of their homeworld. KB (Kyriana Kratter) gets to fly the Onyx Cinder into the atmosphere to call Khy’mm (voiced by Alia Shawkat) for help — and she gets SM-33 (voiced by Nick Frost) up and running again!. Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) gets to show off what he learned from Hayna (Hala Finley) — his girlfriend from Space Canada — in episode four and fire Chekhov’s School Roof-Mounted Turbolaser to help cover KB. Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) reunites with his dad and ultimately brings out his inner child before tapping into his love of stories in a key moment. Wim also gets to wield a lightsaber — right-side up this time — briefly. And Fern proves herself to be a leader in her mother’s image, albeit an even more insightful one.

She and her mother debate dropping the barrier that would let the New Republic forces in to rescue the planet at the cost of leaving them exposed to the wider dangers of the galaxy after that. Fern points out that for all the shitty places they ended up on their journey, there were also good people along the way, little pinpricks of light amidst the darkness: the dancer who did her best to steer Fern and KB out of danger on Port Borgo, Ky’mm, Hayna, the Cthallops (voiced by Patrick Seitz) in the mud bath in episode five, even SM-33 siding with the kids last episode. 

Jod himself makes Fern’s case for her, essentially saying the same thing, derisively, when Wim tells him that the good guys are coming. But whereas Jod dismisses those pinpricks as being insufficient to curtail his greed and sense of aggrievement, Wim and Fern realize that because the light is so rare, it makes fighting for it all the more important. 

When Fern finally succeeds in convincing her mother to drop the barrier, Fara chooses to believe in the “real good guys” as well — not the New Republic fighters so much as the idea that there’s enough goodness in the galaxy to stand up to the manifest threats therein. When the barrier falls, it exposes At Attin to that darkness. But it also lets the citizens of the planet see, for the first time, the stars in the sky … the little pinpricks of light amidst the darkness. In the end, At Attin has lost its safety and security, but it has gained freedom and hope. Like Wim, Neel, Fern, and KB, At Attin has taken its first steps into a larger world.

One of the things which elevates Andor above other Star Wars streaming efforts (aside from an often phenomenal level of craft) is the way it ultimately taps into a core theme of Star Wars: the importance of rebellion, of standing up even (and especially) when the oppression seems overwhelming, and finding hope in the darkest of places. Skeleton Crew is, in its way, similar, albeit it taps into different core themes of Star Wars. Here, it is the opportunity afforded by adventure which underscores the narrative, the promise of the horizon, regardless of how many suns are sliding beneath it, the power of story, and a willingness to accept a reality where goodness doesn’t always prevail, but is still worth fighting for. Underneath all the pirate trappings and Amblin touchstones, that’s the story of Skeleton Crew. Above all, it’s a very Star Wars story. And a pretty good story, to boot. 

The entirety of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is now available to stream on Disney+.