Star Wars is ringing in the new year with an old favorite. Tuesday’s Skeleton Crew episode 6 is directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, who made her television directorial debut on 2019’s The Mandalorian (“Chapter 4: Sanctuary”). Howard went on to helm the season 2 episode “Chapter 11: The Heiress” — which marked the live-action debut of Katee Sackhoff’s fan-favorite Mandalorian, Bo-Katan Kryze — and season 3’s “Chapter 22: Guns for Hire,” the episode that featured superstar cameos (Jack Black and Lizzo as Captain Bombardier and the Duchess) and ended with Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) relinquishing the Darksaber to Bo-Katan.
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The Howard-directed episode of The Book of Boba Fett, 2022’s “Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian,” was the only chapter of the season to receive 100% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes (from 22 reviews). The episode followed the lone bounty hunter after Din left Grogu with the Jedi Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian‘s season 2 finale, and notably depicted the Great Purge of Mandalore in live-action for the first time.
[RELATED: All the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Easter Eggs and References You Might’ve Missed, From Captain EO to Pirates of the Caribbean]
For her third Star Wars series, Howard is a veteran among newcomers to the galaxy far, far away: Skeleton Crew‘s two-episode premiere was directed by series co-creator Jon Watts (the MCU Spider-Man movies), followed by back-to-back episodes from David Lowery, the director of The Green Knight and Disney remakes Pete’s Dragon and Peter Pan & Wendy.
Oscar-winning directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the Swiss Army Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once filmmakers collectively known as the Daniels, helmed the “Can’t Say I Remember No At Attin” episode, and Jake Schreier (Beef and Marvel’s Thunderbolts*) directed the “You Have a Lot to Learn About Pirates” episode that aired on Dec. 24. Still to come is an episode from Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung, who helmed a season 3 episode of The Mandalorian, and the Watts-directed finale.
“I remember when I was working on season 3 of Mandalorian and doing the pre-viz, the Third Floor team — who animates and creates all of the [pre-visualization] — they were working on Skeleton Crew,” Howard recalled during a filmmaker round table. “And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, how is it?’ [They said], ‘It’s so good!’ And so there was already buzz on campus about it.”
Critics would agree: Skeleton Crew went on to score 93 percent approval from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, higher than almost every Star Wars movie and TV show so far. Set in the timeline of The Mandalorian, the series follows four kids — Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter), and Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) — as they search for their home planet, the mysterious At Attin, with the Force-using scoundrel Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law), a.k.a. Captain Silvo, a.k.a. Crimson Jack, a.k.a. Dash Zentin, a.k.a. Professor Umiam Gorlox, a.k.a. Jodwick Zank…
Skeleton Crew episode 6 premieres Dec. 31 on Disney+, followed by the penultimate episode on Jan. 7 and the finale on Jan. 14.
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Image courtesy of Disney+
