Imperial forces arrive and take over the city.

And there it is. For three episodes, the show has been an increasingly compelling descent into a very dark, small colony world with problems all it’s own. The arrival of the Empire also brings the Jedi/Sith conflict to the fore and does so in a way that alienates a chunk of audience. Inquisitorium characters. who will mean enormous amounts to people who’ve seen everything and little to nothing to everyone else, arrive with the ship and change the tone of the show to something far less nimble than it’s been. Far less interesting too.

There’s some smart choices made here to be sure, and the actual arrival of the Empire is one of them. The show continues to be one of the most beautiful things Star Wars has done in ages and the imagery of the Star Destroyer descending on the city is incredible. There’s one shot in particular of it hovering over the police station which is elegant and horrifying and tells you everything about the scale of the series and the story. There’s a nicely handled chase with the Jedi too, through a subway station that’s reassuringly familiar even as it’s definitively alien.

But this is an episode dependent on you finding the Inquisitorium frightening. So dependent that it doesn’t even bother explaining who they are. Marrok is visually impressive but as a character with no context he’s Darth Vader with a different helmet and much less nuance.

The rest of the episode does a lot to offset this and provide some desperately needed pathos and depth to Two-Boots. I’ve had no time whatsoever for Ayoade phoning in his performance for the last four episodes but here, at last, we see something different. The tragedy of Two-Boots is that he can’t see what he’s done, and can’t move outside his programming. Ayoade plays that well, and there’s some nicely handled moments with him and Rylee. The offhand brutality of the Empire is well played too, with Chief Klyce written off the show in an offhandedly chilling way.

But for all that, this is a story that’s changed focus to being about Jedi and Sith. Again. Right now it doesn’t seem to be especially interested in nuance either, and the franchise has done that well before now. Maybe that will change, and to be clear this isn’t a bad episode by any means.

Verdict: This isn’t the show it was in the first act, and for me, it’s now a much less interesting one. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart