1x04 Dealing with Lando

[7.8/10] Two good tales! I like Pace and Lena (who are the Freemakers’) parents teaming up with Lando and running afoul of the Empire and Grabala. Zeno Robinson does a great job of imitating Donald Glover as Young Lando (which has a certain irony since Glover was halfway imitating Billy Dee Williams), and the episode does a nice job at portraying Lando as charming but utterly duplicitous. L3 is in rare form here, undercutting Lando in an amusing fashion, and the “corsica crystal” encounter with a young Cpl. Estoc and Grabala has some cool space visuals.

I also enjoyed the fact that this is a fairly direct Freemaker prequel. Lando leading them to The Wheel so that they can let the heat die down, and telling them that they’re “free to make up” their own names is a nice setup. I also appreciate that Lena and Pace are apt to be together because Lena sees that Pace is, for the first time in her life, and honest and loyal partner, and that for Pace, Lena is “the right kind of trouble.”

I like the second tale here even better. For one thing, baby Zander and Kordi is the cutest thing ever, particularly L’il Zander’s childlike joy at spaceships and cuddling his new battle droid. For another, it sets up a good problem and solution with solid character beats and builds on what we saw last episode. Lena being thrilled to see Chewey after he saved her all those years ago, and Pace hating to see Han again after he destroyed Pace’s Jedi starfighter and more or less ruined his life (even if it led to this bit of bliss) is a nice moment. And the pair’s efforts to get Han out of dodge with the latest low-life he’s cheesed off is exciting.

But I also appreciate this as another bit of Freemaker origin story. As a Clone Wars fan, it’s cool to see the team threatened by the Zillo beast. And I really like Pace’s solution to use the old droid control station to distract it and get away. At the same time, this makes for a good excuse for why and how the Freemakers ended up with Roger (right down to a good explanation for his missing arm), and has Han making up for destroying Pace’s ship by delivering Anakin Skywalker’s starfighter to him (which, I guess, Roger will destroy later?).

Either way, the episode picks up a lot of pieces it set up in earlier episodes, and puts them together in fun and exciting ways that (roughly at least) line up with other pieces of the Star Wars universe. I’ll take that every time.