Skeleton Crew Episode 8 Reveals A Connection To Palpatine

This article contains spoilers for “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” episode 8, “The Real Good Guys.”

The final episode of “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” season 1 (there’s no definitive word yet on whether season 2 will happen) brings this story to a close. The pirates have reached At Attin and Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) is able to meet the Supervisor (voiced by Stephen Fry) in the main tower over At Attin. With Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her mother Fara (Kerry Condon) as hostages, Jod is able to bring down the barrier and grant access to At Attin to Vane and the other pirates, who round up the civilians to use as workers to load up all of their Republic credits. 

Fortunately, each of the show’s young heroes brings their special talent to the table and are able to work together to turn the tables against Jod. Thanks to his empathy on At Achrann, Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) knows about the turbolaser batteries on the school roof, which he uses to shoot at the pirate ships just in time to allow the Onyx Cinder to escape and call for aid. KB (Kyriana Kratter) and her ability to memorize information, coupled with her sangfroid, is then able to pilot the ship out beyond the barrier and get a message to Kh’ymm (Alia Shawkat). Meanwhile, Fern was able to use her powers of persuasion to help convince her strong headed mother to join the cause, and Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is able to overcome his idealism to become a hero.

Together, the kids are able to stop Jod, though not without learning quite a few things along the way. In fact, after Jod introduces himself as a Jedi to the Supervisor, there’s a major revelation that changes our understanding of At Attin and unveils a major connection to Sheev Palpatine.

After Jod brandishes his lightsaber and declares himself both a Republic Emissary and Jedi Knight, the Supervisor is instantly suspicious. That’s because, as he tells them, the last transmission he received from the Republic declared the Jedi traitors. Though it doesn’t seem as though this is common knowledge to the people of At Attin, the Supervisor definitely knows this and it was transmitted to the planet. That means Sheev Palpatine, who was Supreme Chancellor turned Emperor at that time, was the one who declared the Jedi enemies and would have been responsible for sending this missive across the galaxy. 

Since getting messages through the barrier to At Attin is no easy feat, that implies the Republic and Palpatine himself would have needed to know how to get those messages into the mythical planet as well. Leaving At Attin a deep secret for only the most important elements of the Republic makes sense. But it also means that Palpatine had even more secrets than we knew about, which should come as no surprise to anyone. His plans have always been complicated and contain secrets within secrets, extending into places that people might not expect. After all, who could’ve guessed the opening move in his grand plan to eliminate the Jedi would involve the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems and a blockade of his home planet? Perhaps he had other plans for At Attin had he survived (or could have used it to bankroll further operations).

Seeing “Skeleton Crew” fit into the events of the larger tapestry of the “Star Wars” universe was a much-needed tie for the show. Although some have felt a great strength of this series is how divorced it is from the rest of the galaxy, it really needed something more to feel anchored to the broader events of the rest of the franchise. There were mentions in season 1 about how disconnected the kids are from galactic events, even going so far as to mention that they hadn’t even heard of the destruction of Alderaan and missed that news about a galactic civil war (to say nothing of the fall of the Old Republic). Seeing this one small thread get tugged at in such an oblique way and in a blink-and-you’ll-miss it fashion was exactly the right way to go. We didn’t need to actually see the connection, just a little bit of dialogue to help us conjure up images and spin stories in our head about how it fit and why it might work out.

Still, the season 1 finale leaves us wondering: what will happen to the planet now that the barrier is down and At Attin is exposed to the galaxy at large? Will more pirates come? Will At Attin join the New Republic? Will they bankroll the war to come against Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) in “Ahsoka” season 2 or some other future “Star Wars” title? As Master Yoda says, “Always in motion is the future.”

“Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” is now available in its entirety on Disney+.