To coincide with the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, last Friday the Disney Youtube channel uploaded a Forces of Destiny episode starring Qi’ra!
Lucasfilm had already released the episodes from the second half of season two earlier this month, but only seven episodes were released, with one being withheld until the release of Solo. That meant that it had something to do with the film, and we see now that it stars one of the film’s main characters and contains a (relatively minor) spoiler for the movie.
It’s far from the best Forces of Destiny episode, but the really cool thing is that Lucasfilm gave us more of Qi’ra almost immediately after the release of Solo, which is a great way to tie things in and to generate more excitement.
With that said, let’s review this episode:
S2E16: Triplecross
Qi’ra is being pursued by the bounty hunter IG-88 on an unknown planet, and as she’s trying to make her escape Hondo Ohnaka appears. He explains that Qi’ra, as a Crimson Dawn lieutenant, will fetch a big enough bounty that he teamed up with IG-88. Qi’ra counters that the droid fetches a bigger bounty than her, to which Hondo brags that he has the largest bounty of the trio. That causes IG-88 to try to double-cross Hondo, but after Hondo subdues him Qi’ra subdues Hondo. She takes the three captive, leading them out of the city as Hondo tries to talk his way out of it.
It’s cool to see two beloved bounty hunters like Hondo and IG-88 teaming up in a short like this, and additionally it’s the first time (I believe) that we’ve heard IG-88 speak basic. And Hondo is, of course, as charming as ever. The one thing that didn’t really work for me in this episode was Qi’ra’s voice, which just seems a bit off from Emilia Clarke’s character in the Solo film. But this episode does contain a minor spoiler for the film in that Qi’ra is a lieutenant of Crimson Dawn. That’s all we have to place this short, as it likely happens sometime in the three year jump that Solo makes. During that time Qi’ra got caught up in the Crimson Dawn syndicate – and we know that at the end of Solo she gains a much higher rank. Ultimately, this short is a nice little encounter between some cool bounty hunters and a new character we just met, which is a really cool thing that a show like this is able to do.
My grade: 7/10
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