Star Wars: Rebels - 'A Fool's Hope' and 'Family Reunion... and Farewell'

"Right. You and that army."

Wow. Here it; the end of the road for the Rebels.

With Kanan gone, Ezra puts into motion his plan to free Lothal. It's his plan, details by Sabine, with Hera and Zeb forced to allow that their kids have grown up. Unfortunately, time is tight to deal with Governor Pryce before Thrawn returns, so the crew pull in as many allies as they can, including Sabine's ex-partner Ketsu, dyed-in-the-wool scoundrels Hondo and Visago, Rex's fellow clone troopers Gregor and Wolfe, and the former-agent Kallus.

Ezra lays out his plan to hit the Imperial compound, but the odds against them are high and Rider Azadi contacts Pryce, offering to sell out the Rebel cause. Come the morning, Pryce brings a gunship strike force to the Rebel base, and a brutal firefight ensues, while Hera and her reinforcements sneak past Thrawn's blockade, painfully slowly. After a fierce resistance, the Rebels are subdued, but Ezra tells Pryce that Azadi's betrayal was a fake to draw her out. She is dismissive, but then the Ghost drops in, and when it looks like the ground fight might still go badly, Rukh and the stormtroopers find themselves outmatched by the Loth-wolf pack.

"You do remember that I saw what you really look like, right?"

'Family Reunion... and Farewell' then picks up with the mission itself. Using codes extracted from Pryce under threat of Loth-wolf, the crew infiltrates the Imperial dome. The plan is to issue a planetary evacuation order, drawing all of the Imperial troops into the dome, then launch it - because it does that - and set a self-destruct to take out all of the occupying troops and armour on the planet, which is pretty metal, and plays to the future Rebel strength of blowing up round things full of Imperials. Pryce is snide about their chances, but Kallus manages to bluff through the evacuation order and they prepare to launch. Unfortunately, things go south, as Thrawn's command ship, the Chimaera, pops up above them. Unable to launch without crashing into the Chimaera and raining flaming metal across the city, and with the dome's shield generators disabled by Rukh, Ezra has little choice but to surrender to Thrawn. Most of the crew try to talk him out of it, but Sabine lets him slip away.

Future cute.

Ezra goes aboard the ship, while Sabine coordinates a strike on the shield generators to get the defences back on line. Ezra is show a reconstructed chunk of the Lothal Jedi temple, and meets the Emperor, albeit in a prettified holographic form. The Emperor wants him to reopen the World Between Worlds, offering in exchange the chance to go back, save his parents and remake his life. Although tempted, Ezra ultimately refuses, while below, Zeb is able to trap Rukh on a power converter, and the rest of the crew get the shields working, even though their position in the command deck is now under fire.

Following a secret mission for Ezra, Mart brings the hyperspace whales to the fight, mashing the bejeebus out of Imperial blockade fleet, with one of them reaching its hyperspace whale tentacles(1) in to grab Thrawn and so fulfil the Bendu's prophecy. The whales jump to hyperspace, dragging the Chimaera - and Ezra - with them, while the Imperial dome detonates with Pryce aboard, having refused to switch sides.

Okay; this is my fantasy PI spin-off for the series.

In an epilogue, Sabine explains that with the increasing pace of the Rebellion, the Empire never came back to Lothal. Hera and Rex fought at the Battle of Endor, alongside Spectre 7, Jacen Syndulla, the son of Hera and Kanan. After, Zeb took Kallas to the new home of the Lasat to find his own peace. Sabine herself thought that Ezra had asked her to look after Lothal, but eventually realised that he wanted her to coms and find him, which - accompanied by Ahsoka Tano - she sets out to do.

So, that was Star Wars Rebels, and it's been one hell of a journey. The story of Lothal and its defenders has touched on many corners of the Star Wars universe, and brought us a family of memorable characters, engaged in thrilling shenanigans and some serious character growth.

(1) Full disclosure, I'd practically forgotten these things, but it was all set up back when.