As one would expect, the writers are spending a bit of time early in the season exploring the impact of the current status quo on individual characters.  What is surprising is that it doesn’t really work when it comes to Sabine, a character that has found herself in very much of a supporting role of late.  It’s the connections to the overall mythology of the New Canon that serve as the attraction here, not the colorful Mandalorian. 

Part of the problem is saddling an episode meant to focus on Sabine with a subplot that puts the spotlight once again on Ezra.  We get it, Ezra is the main character, and his current journey is at the heart of everything that represents the Star Wars universe during this period in the timeline.  But Ezra gets top billing aplenty, so letting Sabine get some much needed time for development would have been a better use of time.

This was a good setup for that, of course, since Sabine was once an Imperial cadet, and how better to peel back the layers of her past?  Sadly it’s all very familiar territory, and mostly exists as a means to an end: introducing Wedge Antilles and getting him out of the Empire’s hands and into the Rebellion.  Thus the plot has a workmanlike quality that could and should have been more personal.  Nothing in the resolution of the problem at hand requires Sabine’s involvement.  At the very least, how about a comment on her artistic side?

And then there’s Wedge.  For someone with such a storied place as a supporting character to the main cast, Wedge is awfully devoid of personality.  If anything, he comes across as a proto-Poe Dameron, which is a bit insulting considering that Wedge goes back to the original film in the whole franchise.  For someone facing a paradigm shift in his entire worldview, he seems awfully bland.

If there is a saving grace to the episode, it’s the fight between Governor Pryce and Sabine.  It’s very different from the often interchangeable Jedi combat sequences, and it gets personal.  There’s also Agent Kallus, who could very well be on a long trek towards redemption.  It’s also worth noting that this episode was written by one of the screenwriters responsible for Rogue One, and oddly enough, the main character of that film seems to act more like Sabine than Sabine does in this episode!