Skeleton Crew Episode 6 pays homage to Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean

This article contains spoilers for “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” episode 6, “Zero Friends Again.”

The final day of 2024 brought us the sixth episode of Skeleton Crew, the Star Wars series that follows a group of kids who are lost in the galaxy and are trying to get home. On the way they meet Jodh Na Navud (Jude Law)a wily pirate with a dozen different names and identities, wanted by bounty hunters, his old crew, the New Republic, and many others. In the last episode, he betrayed the children, took control of their droid SM-33 (Nick Frost) and went to steal their ship, the fabled Onyx Cinder.. As this new episode of Zero Friends Again begins, the kids escape Jod's treacherous clutches and he's free to grab whatever treasure he can carry and go on his merry way. As such, the kids are forced to spend the episode trying to find their way back to their ship without the help of an adult companion (even as they increasingly get on each other's nerves).

Along the way, more information is also revealed about the show's new characters, especially KB (Kyriana Kratter) and her health condition, which prompts Vim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), the group's not-quite-leader, to help her with maintenance. her AI unit because she is too afraid to show this weakness to her friend Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). As for Jodh, he quickly learns that his past life has caught up with him. The crew he escaped from after they rebelled against him in the series premiere manage to recapture him and try to make him pay for his shenanigans. That's where the old pirate codes of the “Star Wars” universe take center stage in a turn of events that feels like it was pulled straight from another well-known Disney franchise.

After being captured by Jod's former crew, their current leader, Captain Brutus (voiced by Fred Tatasciore), sentences Captain Silvo—one of Jod's many aliases—to death by airlock. However, before that can happen, he is quickly granted “Equal Time” to plead his case. It seems to be something in their pirate code that allows Jod to speak for himself in defense. Although he gets a stay of execution and pirates you agree to go to Attina to search for treasure there after Jod cheers them up with a fun rendition of a tune about an old pirate myth and the planet itself, he ends up still their prisoner, thrown into an airlock and ready to be killed at a moment's notice.

It's a scene that immediately calls to mind the situation in the 2003 film “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” in which “Captain” Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) meets his treacherous former first mate, Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush). referring to the “parlay” right. The term parlay was in the Pirate Codex and allowed for a temporary truce between pirates that allowed them to talk without fear of harming each other, usually ending in them agreeing to satisfactory terms and being allowed to go their separate ways. Like Jod (or Captain Silvo, depending on who's talking to him), this particular parley doesn't go so well for Jack, and he ends up a prisoner of Barbossa after being thrown into the brig.

With “Skeleton Crew” bringing so much attention to the pirates of the “Star Wars” universe, it's no wonder that the Disney show now includes several homages to the company. another a mega-successful scumbag franchise. There was already a series tipped his hat to the original Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride.so it was clear that they would eventually pay homage to the “Pirates” movies as well. You can also trace the inspiration for the Skeleton Crew to an even earlier Disney work in the form of 1950's Treasure Island, the major film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1883 novel. It's a story where the rules of piracy also come into play, specifically the rules of the “black spot” (a way of officially signaling that a pirate has been sentenced to death by other pirates). In addition, there is also the influence of Long John Silver (his name is very similar to “Silvo”), the rogue “Treasure Island” wiseguy.

Skeleton Crew has been such a fun ride, combining the pastiche of older Star Wars projects and their serialized adventure style with a dash of hope and optimism, offset by the various dangers and cliffhangers presented along the way. It's been a lot of fun watching Law chase a bunch of kids through danger and traps (and inevitable betrayals) in a galaxy far, far away to retrieve them and their planet's treasures. The young actors behind the kids themselves, including Robert Timothy Smith as the affable peace preacher Neal, have similarly given strong, delightful performances against some truly outstanding talent, and all look like they're having the time of their lives battling the pirates, especially in this episode .

New episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew air on Disney+ Tuesdays at 6pm PST.