I initially dreaded last week's episode. I wouldn't count Zeb among my favorite characters in the series, even if Steve Blum has had a pretty illustrious career in voice over. I think a lot of it has to do with the character design. But I have to say that he grew on me a little bit. Having Zeb working with Chopper and AP-5 made for a fun dynamic, and helped develop Zeb's character a bit more.
Every time I hear AP-5, I have flashbacks to the depressed robot in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". I hope the showrunners can pair AP-5 and Chopper more frequently.
The Imperial Recon droid was interesting. When the Star Destroyer was launching the probe ships I definitely saw that as a callback to the beginning of TESB. And the Recon droid's protocol mode was an almost direct callback to the original McQuarrie illustration of C-3PO. I appreciate how much that sort of thing keeps popping up in the post-George era of Star Wars.
As for sending the droid back to the Imperials? A smart move, but Thrawn does seem to be playing chess while the Rebels are playing checkers. Thrawn was initially looking at thousands of star systems for the Rebel base. And now he's narrowed that down to 94 systems (Ahem, "Docking Bay 94" anyone?). And I think he's also working at flushing out Fulcrum/Kallus. I get the sense that by season's end Thrawn will probably attack the Rebels at Chopper base. And I think Kallus may need to work towards some sort of exit from the Imperial Security Bureau. So do the Rebels eventually end up at the base on Dantooine? That one gets referenced by Leia when she was trying to save Alderaan, but was deserted according to Officer Cass when he reported to Tarkin.
This week's episode had a lot more depth. I think we finally got a sense why Sabine has been so closed off about her past. And her character went through some major development. Fenn Rau certainly helped things along in terms of being able to give some of the backstory about the Mandalorians and the Dark Saber. But seeing Sabine go through training with Kanan and Ezra was really enlightening. I'm looking forward to seeing how this part of the Rebels story continues to unfold, because I think there's a good amount to come.