Skeleton Crew Episode 6 brought back a classic Star Wars vow

This article contains spoiler 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 a thrilling pirate space adventure that’s part Treasure Island and part The Goonies. The show follows a group of children lost in space and trying to return home – only their home is not an ordinary world, but a legendary planet with eternal treasures. Along the way, the kids met a scheming pirate who can use the Force, a droid whose name sounds like Smee from Peter Pan, and lots of wonderfully strange little guys.

In the series’ latest episode, “Zero Friends Again,” the children – having just been abandoned by their pirate “buddy” Jod (Jude Law) – must work together to escape fate Pirate Bay became a chic vacation spot where they are stranded. Meanwhile, Jod is captured by his old private crew and brought to justice. As he tries to defend himself by evoking the old pirate tradition of bargaining, Jod drops a rant in which he convincingly promises 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, At Attin.

Now, you don’t have to be familiar with every Star Wars comic or video game ever released to understand that “kriffing” is a clear substitute for “f***ing.” That the kid-friendly “Skeleton Crew” would be the first “Star Wars” movie or TV show to use the word only makes the inclusion here even funnier. But as random or improvised as the word may sound, it actually has a long history in a galaxy far, far away.

The word “kriffing” first appeared in 1997 “Star Wars” Expanded Universe (or, as it is now officially called, Legends) Novel “Vision of the Future” by author Timothy Zahn, itself the second book in Zahn’s “Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn” duology (a sequel to the author’s original Thrawn novel trilogy, also known as “Heir to the Empire”) Trilogy). Technically, this is actually the second time we hear the word in “Skeleton Crew,” as we also heard it in the second episode when two of the series’ young heroes, Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) and Wim (Ravi Cabot) , featured -Conyers), order some food in the pirate paradise of Port Borgo and the short-tempered chef uses the swear word when the children don’t immediately come up with the idea of ​​paying him.

Now, swear words have been used in Star Wars since the first film, particularly “damn” and “hell.” However, it is the EU that has introduced many naughty words and phrases that sound more like science fiction – apart from foreign languages ​​that use swear words like “bantha poodoo” – like “sculag” or “farkled”. In the live-action realm, Star Wars brought a new expression to the zeitgeist with The Mandalorian featuring “Dank Farrik,” a term often used in the series inspired by Samuel L. Jackson’s own potty mouth. With Star Wars Rebels already introducing “Karabast” and now “Skeleton Crew” bringing kriffing back into the game, the question is, what swear word should Star Wars use next? My money depends on either “Kark” or “Crink”.

New episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew arrive Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m. PST on Disney+.