On Skeleton Crew, what’s a little near-death trauma between friends?

The skeleton crewThe children had their first taste of a Star Wars staple last week when they discover that not everyone around them is exactly out for their interests. So naturally this week is about a few of them looking a little closer to the links to do have, and put through the final test. Who’s that way that involves a giant garbage crab?

“Zero Friends Again” sees Fern, KB, Neel, and Wim literally crash on the scrapheap after narrowly escaping that Jod is going to add “doing an Anakin Skywalker on some young people” to his list of pirate crimes—and of course, being children, the first thing they have to do is argue about what to do next. But there is something different here than the usual little spits that this quartet has come up with The skeleton crew so far: Jod’s betrayal of them, as well as the invasive reality of the situation in which they are when they find themselves really abandoned while Brutus and his team drag “Silvo” out of the world for judgment, it begins to show the parade between their connection. This is especially so for Fern and KB, when the latter fights to articulate to the former simply because he cannot agree with a risky plan to climb a huge cliff face to return to his ship.

Why it may not be clear when KB decides to follow Wim – who immediately decided that a nearby consortium of garbage crabs will be for sure lead someone who can help – in one direction, as Fern and Neel go towards the rocks. The increases of KB have been corroded by their time in such a humid environment, slowly closing their motor function. Star Wars has long had an interesting history with its portrayal of cyborgs and the parallel disability in it, and more often that history. she was afflictedfrom the very moment Darth Vader is called “more machine than man”, to how inconsequential cutting the limbs of a Skywalker often seems to be. But in an incredibly tender scene – played by Kyriana Kratter and Ravi Cabot-Conyers – as a drained KB guides Wim through the process of replacing his corroded fuses, we probably get what it is Star Warsthe best insight into disability and chronic illness.

Not only do we get to see the reality of KB’s lived experience with his augmentations – not only the immediate threat that the alternative without them is death – but his frustrations around the people in his life, Fern especially, who tries to treat her as capable. to do something even when she clearly needs accommodation and to understand her abilities as a disabled person. It walks a fine line that all disability narratives have to tread on, and avoids many of the pitfalls that narratives are prone to. It has not become the case that KB is bitter about his augs, or that others tell him what he should and should not be able to do: it is about communicating these terms, and having people listen. Fern’s desire to accommodate her best friend by telling her she can do anything any other child can do (including climbing a precarious cliff face!) doesn’t match the reality that KB needs help and space to establish their boundaries and their own struggle. to communicate that she’s a perfect match for Wim’s empathetic nature, letting her come to this realization herself while he goes about fixing his augmentations.

Not a supposedly “very special episode” moment, but a real bit of bonding between KB and Wim, one that is interestingly paralleled in the other team groups between the kids. It’s very telling that we cut from this frank conversation about KB setting his limits to Fern and Neel, with the former deciding that the only answer to Neel’s complaints that he can’t go up as fast as she is to find a rope and a tie. together so that she can practically drag him along at her own pace. And there is also a parallel to the plot of Jod in the episode too – landed to face the judgment of Brutus and given the time sent by the pirate code to appeal for a stay of execution, what Jod offers instead is a sales pitch on At Attinrather than any serious or meaningful connection with their former crew, they lie with promises of loot and the dreams they’ve always dreamed of. The “zero friends” of the title could be a line of KB, afraid that if he was honest with Fern, he would lose his best friend, but really it is Jod: a solitary artist playing one last joke after another, while the children he abandoned on the street find themselves more united than ever.

Is it, later they are almost eaten by a giant crab and a giant droid of garbage slag. It’s a little weird pacing to go from one big piece to another right at the end of the episode, but it’s the crucible of fire that allows these kids to really shine together as a unit (especially after KB and Fern get a nice little meeting). ). Together, and understanding each other’s strengths, they can achieve the impossible – and not only when Fern and Neel save KB and Wim from the trash crabs, but when they all climb aboard the Onyx Cinder and succeed to release from the clutch. of the junkyard droid. Maybe it wouldn’t be Star Wars if her reward for galvanizing these bonds was simply a better understanding of each other, of course: to escape the droid, everyone has to trust that Fern knows what she’s doing when she hits a button on Cinder’s controls SM-33 never told him. to touch, detonating the ship’s enameled hull to reveal a sleek and shiny version of the vessel hiding beneath its ugly exterior.

They now have their chance to return home (thanks to the coordinates stored in KB’s well, of course), even with Jod and the pirates approaching on the horizon. But they can face it with a better knowledge of others, one that will encourage them to feel like they can take the whole galaxy… that they could have by the end of all this.

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