The Rebels attempt to deliver food supplies to the planet Ibaar which is currently being blockaded by the Empire. After their first attempt to break the blockade fails, the Rebel leadership sends Hera on a mission to acquire a new prototype starfighter that is powerful enough to help.
Tropes:
- Action Prologue: It starts with the Rebels trying (and failing) to break through an Imperial blockade.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When it's revealed that the multi-cannon firing drains so much energy that it disables the hyperdrive, Quarrie defends that it's only a prototype with a bunch of bugs that needs to be fixed... for instance the paintjob he doesn't like.
- Blatant Lies:
- As they're flying/crashing to their destination, Zeb spots a ship which impacted one of the mountains and freaks out. Hera insists he imagined it.
- Kanan tells Ezra that the Ghost's smaller profile and superior speed will allow it to slip by the blockade. When Ezra calls him on it, Kanan admits he only said it to make himself feel better.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Quarrie. Despite having absolutely zero piloting experience, using a lot of language that would discourage potential pilots from testing his inventions and acknowledging that he's putting his test-pilots at risk, he invented the prototype for what would become one of the most devastating assault fighters in the Rebel fleet.
- Coming in Hot: Hera's landing on Shantipole isn't exactly smooth, thanks to the planet's storms that tend to deactivate ships that attempt to land there.
- Continuity Nod: Hera mentions the Battle of Ryloth, which was shown in The Clone Wars.
- Converging-Stream Weapon: The prototype B-Wing has one with enough power to knock down a cruiser in a few hits.
- Death World: Shantipole is actually a pretty nice place. Landing there, on the other hand, is made difficult by the storms in the upper atmosphere which drain the power of any ships passing through. It's more like hoping you crash on something flat. According to Quarrie, this actually makes it ideal for testing his new ships as the Empire won't even set foot on Shantipole, and if a ship can survive there then it can survive anywhere.
- Didn't See That Coming: Invoked, as Kanan explains — La Résistance needs a new weapon that can take The Empire by surprise. In this case, a blockade-busting starfighter.
- Failure Is the Only Option: The run in the opening is doomed to fail, because there wouldn't be much of an episode if they made it through.
- Foreshadowing: Quarrie insisting that the pilot of his prototype come to him sounds like a Secret Test of Character (and it may well have been) but it's also because he can't fly himself.
- Got Volunteered: Kanan volunteers Hera to pick up the B-Wing, since no other pilot is willing to take the risk.
- Gunship Rescue: Hera flies the B-Wing into battle for the first time, saving the rebels during the blockade run.
- Hypocritical Humor: Quarrie refuses to let Sabine modify the prototype B-Wing's weapons system, then a minute later, reveals that he himself made heavy modifications to the Phantom without consulting anyone first.
- Irony: An expert spaceship designer who is afraid to fly.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: Quarrie sticks a hyperdrive and astromech socket on the Phantom, reasoning that it's not much of a ship if you can't fly it far.
- Mythology Gag:
- In the Legends continuity (first told in the West End Games RPG adventure, "Strikeforce: Shantipole"), the Shantipole Project was set up by Admiral Ackbar to create the B-Wing starfighter. However, that Shantipole was an asteroid that housed a Verpine research base. Though Ackbar is not directly named as being involved in the project, the developer is still a Mon Calamari, and indeed the old origin story still seems to be true in Broad Strokes fashion, since the Verpine are still responsible for the production run of B-Wings.
- The name "B-Wing" was simple alphabetics, with designers coming up with an "A-Wing" and a "B-Wing". Legends later retconned that with Shantipole, giving it the name Blade Wing, which is reintroduced to canon here.
- Quarrie is almost certainly named after Ralph McQuarrie, the chief concept artist for the original trilogy.
- The B-Wing's Converging-Stream Weapon makes the same sound as the Death Star superlaser.
- Naval Blockade: The premise of the episode is that the Empire has blockaded the planet Ibaar in order to starve its people into submission and the Rebels are trying to save them.
- Rank Up: After Phoenix Leader is killed in the doomed first run, and following the successful second run, Commander Sato promotes Hera to Phoenix Leader on Kanan's suggestion.
- Running the Blockade: The crew is trying to run past an Imperial blockade to deliver food supplies to Ibaar. Alas, they can't run it... so instead they opt to bust it.
- Race Against the Clock: Due to the Imperial Blockade, the people of Ibaar are on the verge of dying from starvation. Hera and the other Rebels have to deliver the food supplies within the next planetary rotation (i.e one day) or else it will be too late.
- Shout-Out:
- Quarrie is clearly named after the late Star Wars designer, Ralph McQuarrie.
- Hera buzzes Quarrie's design shop like Maverick buzzing the tower in Top Gun.
- Quarrie designs and builds a plane without having actually having flown it, which they only find out just before it takes off. This might have been inspired by The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
- Super Prototype: Deconstructed. Though the B-Wing prototype has a really powerful laser cannon that the final versions don't and a gunner turret that would be scrapped when the B-wing expanded years later, it's also noted to have a bunch of bugs that need to be ironed out, one of which almost causes it to be rendered useless. At some point, the designers eventually decided that a huge magazine of proton torpedoes and ion cannons were more practical than a bulky Converging-Stream Weapon.
- Teetering on the Edge: The Phantom, deactivated by the atmospheric storms, makes a rough landing at Quarrie's and nearly slides off the edge. As Hera, Sabine and Zeb edge towards the back of the shuttle, it nearly falls off the edge of the platform before Quarrie saves it with his forklift.
- This Cannot Be!: Kallus is flabbergasted when the B-Wing blows away his blockade's right flank.
- What a Piece of Junk: The prototype B-Wing may not be much to look at, but it packs a mean punch.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Kallus deliberately cut Ibaar's rations to an untenable extent, knowing the underground elements would contact the rebels for help. Then he stationed a blockade large enough to make sure that the rebels would be incapable of breaching it. The rebels can't just turn their backs, so they would throw themselves against the blockade until they had no strength left. True to the type of gambit this is, there is a fail state: unexpected new assets that the Rebels availed themselves to.
