the first few minutes of this episode were the low point of the series IMO.
I’m surprised you say that as the opening bacta tank scene was my favourite scene in the episode.
Personally I thought it was a weak way to have them connect, but I’m mostly talking about the new gang we meet. Severely underdeveloped characters, that one guy at first hesitates to help only to have an inexplicable change of heart… then there’s Wade who dies at the end and… we’re supposed to feel for him, I guess? Like, the issue isn’t that they’re there, it’s that we’re supposed to care. They’re obviously representing the fight against oppression and the cost of the mission to the point that it shouldn’t matter who they are, but not even the symbolic nature of the role helps that brief storyline to succeed, like it does for me in Rogue One, and it really drags the whole thing. Doesn’t help that the rest of the episode was mostly boring…
I didn’t think we were supposed to care about Wade at all. He’s like Porkins or the other pilots in the original Death Star battle. Sure we care that they die, but there is no connection. The only death there that there was a connection or that were were supposed to care about was Biggs. And even then, only because Luke so obviously did.