Episode 4 of Skeleton Crew was a little bit of a bizarre one if I’m being sincere. After discovering the map to At Attin in last week’s episode, the crew discover themselves on a planet, believing it to be their residence world, however discovering a complete completely different, but eerily related, planet as a substitute. However the episode, directed by Everything, Everywhere, All At Once administrators The Daniels, makes a important error in splitting Jod from the youngsters for a lot of the episode and introducing a brand new subplot for the episode.
The episode opens in what seems like the center of the motion, with the crew popping out of hyperspace at what they assume is At Attin. However regardless of trying much like their residence planet, this one is overrun by fauna, derelict buildings, and roaming tribes. Believing this to be residence, the youngsters break up from Jod and SM-33 and go exploring, solely to be captured by certainly one of these tribes. They insist that the 4 children ought to lead them into their subsequent battle, as a result of, causes? I’m undecided why they’d need 4 inexperienced kids main them. Neel is the one one who thinks that is silly and overtly yearns for the peace of his residence world, spending his time with one of many different youngster troopers named Hayna, who doesn’t perceive the idea of not combating however grows to understand Neel’s “weak point” as kindness.
In the meantime, Jod and 33 are taken by the opposite tribe, solely we get to see not one of the interactions that they had with their captors. The entire diversion with the tribes did really feel fairly pointless, not going to lie, regardless of all of it serving Neel and Fern’s arcs, the previous studying to be braver for his associates, the latter realizing that being a pirate captain has penalties that may very well be expensive. However I believe splitting the youngsters from Jod so quickly after becoming a member of him derailed the tempo and the vibe of the present, leading to a really uneven and rushed episode that felt like scenes had been lacking. The brief runtime of those episodes didn’t assist episode 4 both, as we needed to cram a lot into such a brief period of time. I really feel just like the crew ought to’ve simply discovered their technique to the tower organically, with out the tribal battle and questioned the state of the planet on their very own phrases, and Neel may’ve discovered to face his fears by going through the unknown, versus the detour with the warring tribes.
It did enhance in the direction of the top that stated, once they stated their goodbyes to the tribe and made their technique to the supervisor’s tower. It’s right here they discovered that there are a collection of different “At” planets (this one is At Achrann) with their coordinates conveniently carved into the rock columns; all however At Attin’s in fact. The rationale for that’s revealed that SM-33 destroyed the coordinates on directions of his former captain final time he was right here, with a view to maintain the obvious treasure secure. 33 was then ordered to overlook every little thing concerning the planet, which resulted in his fixed remark about by no means having heard of the planet (and thus the identify of this episode). Fern, realizing that he was instructed to say that, advised him to override that command by utilizing her authority as Captain, which labored. That, in flip, triggered his “kill everybody round him” mode (limb from limb!) in a reasonably intense sequence, with the digicam strapped to the puppet, just for Jod to set off the failsafe button on his again.
There are various questions on this episode, equivalent to when did SM-33 come right here final, who his captain was, and why are there a collection of duplicate planets on this system, and fortunately these questions save the episode and push the general thriller alongside. Couple that with the time spent with Neel and the episode wasn’t dangerous. But it surely did really feel like a slightly uneven detour that misplaced a variety of its Amblin-inspired appeal and was my least favorite of the season up to now.
