Skeleton Crew Episode 6 brought back a classic Star Wars vow

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

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a fantastic addition to the franchise. It's an all-ages show with a fantastic cast and an exciting space adventure with pirates that's part Treasure Island and part The Goonies. The show follows a group of children who are lost in space and are trying to return home, except their home is no ordinary world, but a legendary planet of eternal treasures. Along the way, the kids met a wily pirate who can use the Force, a droid whose name sounds like Smee from “Peter Pan,” and lots of wonderfully weird guys.

In the series' latest episode, Zero Friends Again, the kids, who have just been abandoned by their pirate “friend” Jod (Juda Lowe), must work together in hopes of escaping Pirate Bay became an imaginary vacation spot where they are stuck. Meanwhile, Jodh is captured by his old private crew and forced to stand trial. Attempting to defend himself by invoking the old tradition of pirate conversation, Jod refuses, confidently promising his old band of pirates that he will give them more than they ever wanted if they let him live. Specifically, he will give them “The entire 'Kriffing' galaxy” in the form of the children's fabled home planet Atin.

Now, you don't have to read every Star Wars comic book or video game ever made to realize that “cryffing” is an obvious part of “b***ing.” The fact that the kid-friendly “Skeleton Crew” is the first Star Wars movie or TV show to use the word makes its inclusion here all the more ridiculous. However, as random or improvised as this word may sound, it actually has a long history in a galaxy far, far away.

The word “kriffing” first appeared in 1997 The Star Wars Expanded Universe (or, as it is now officially known, Legends) author Timothy Zahn's Vision of the Future novel, itself the second book in Zahn's Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn duology (a sequel to the author's original Thrawn trilogy, or Heir to the Empire trilogy). Technically, this is the second time we've heard the word in “Skeleton Crew” as well, as we also heard it in episode two when two of the show's new characters, Neil (Robert Timothy Smith) and Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyer), order food in the pirate haven of Port Borgo, and a short cook uses an expression when the children don't immediately think to pay him.

Now, Star Wars has been using swear words since the first movie, especially “damn” and “hell”. However, it is the EU that has introduced a lot of naughty words and phrases that sound more like science fiction – except for foreign languages ​​that use expressions like “bantha poodoo” like “sculag” or “farkled”. Directly with “The Mandalorian,” Star Wars brought a new phrase to the era with “dank farrik,” a term often used on the show and inspired by Samuel L. Jackson's own potty mouth. With Star Wars Rebels already introducing the toads and now the Skeleton Crew reuniting the kryphing, what expression should Star Wars use next? My money is either “kark” or “crink”.

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