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.

Star Wars: Rebels - 'Jedi Night', 'DUME', 'Wolves and a Door' and 'A World Between Worlds'

This is going to hurt, isn't it.

Having finished The Librarians, we're now winding up to the series finale of Star Wars: Rebels, although in this case it's not due to a cancellation, but the natural conclusion of the series in time for Rogue One to pick up the story.

'Jedi Night' follows from 'Rebel Assault', with Hera in Imperial custody and facing off against Grand Admiral Thrawn before being handed off to Governor Pryce for torture. Kanan, Ezra and Sabine infiltrate the Imperial compound using gliders, the younger Rebels securing transport while Kanan - sporting a severe new do - rescues Hera and steals back her kalikori. For the first time, if not ever then certainly in a while, they declare their feelings for one another, and the audience start to get sinking feelings. It's all looking pretty slick, but they reckon without Pryce, who opts to order her AT-AT to fire into an Imperial fuel depot rather than allow them to get away. As the tanks rupture and the fuel ignites, Kanan draws on the Force to hold back the flames, and to push the others into the transport and away from the blast. Kanan, however, is consumed by the blast, leaving the rest of the team bereft.

"You're very tall."

In 'DUME', the Rebels are basically in shock. Hera retreats into herself and Ezra is eaten up by guilt and despair, while Sabine and Zeb decide to head into the city when they realise that the Imperials are throwing a parade. Ezra is contacted by the Loth-wolves, in particular a gigantic wolf that speaks, calling itself Dume, which tells him to return to the Jedi temple. Hera, meanwhile, beats back her own grief by adding to the kalikori, symbolically bringing Kanan into her family. At the city, Zeb and Sabine encounter Rukh, and after a bad start are able to knock him out and send him into the city tied to his own speeder. They also realise that the destruction of the fuel depot has shut down the TIE Defender plant; they have lost many comrades and a dear friend, but their mission succeeded (and indeed, Thrawn angrily contacts Pryce to make it clear that the death of Kanan does not make up for delaying his programme, which may lead to his funding being reallocated to 'Project Stardust'.)

Apparently early Jedi art had some sort of Eastern Orthodox influences.

In 'Wolves and a Door', the team return to the temple, with the aid of the Loth-wolves, and find the site being excavated by Imperial engineers. The doors of the temple are long gone, but a great mural of the Mortis Gods(1) - the Father, the Son and the Daughter - stands on the wall, and Ezra recognises an owl that was often present when Ahsoka was around. Sabine works out that the hand gestures and star patterns in the mural form a kind of lock, which Ezra is able to manipulate using the Force. Sabine is captured but the Imperial Minister in charge of the dig, while Ezra is able to escape through a portal made of art, because that's the sort of thing you expect in Star Wars if your awareness of fantasy culture is such that you think it's fundamentally indistinguishable from Harry Potter.

Huh.

Which leads us to 'A World Between Worlds', in which Ezra finds himself in a strange, extra-dimensional space full of paths and portals, in which he can hear the voices of Master Yoda, Obi-Wan, and also Rey and Kylo. Shit has officially got weird, and I mean weirder than when giant wolves started talking to people and running through hyperspace. While Hera and Zeb rescue Sabine from a heated academic debate with the Minister, Ezra follows an owl and finds a portal which opens onto the climactic fight between Vader and Ahsoka, allowing him to pull Ahsoka away from the fight. Ezra at once sets out to try to save Kanan, but Ahsoka helps him to see that if he does so, all of the Rebels will have died in the fuel dump.

Or Force flames.

The Emperor starts throwing Force lightning into the void after Ahsoka and Ezra, but with an effort they are able to escape; Ahsoka to the aftermath of her duel(2), promising to come and find Ezra, and Ezra to the temple, where Sabine is able to guide him in sealing the void once more. The temple itself collapses into nothing, and the Rebels, their sense of purpose reaffirmed, determine to continue their fight on Lothal.

With three more episodes to go, Rebels has hit us hard in the feels and just got so... goddamn weird. I mean, Star Wars can be a little floaty-mistic sometime, and the Force clearly transcends space-time with its instantaneous communication and prophecies, but damn this was some next level shit. I don't know how well it meshes with stuff from The Clone Wars, but it's pretty left field for a primarily movie fan. I think I like it, but I confess I'm not entirely sure. In the more mundane arena, however, Rebels continues to excel. The team emerge from a tragic loss bloodied but unbowed, while the Imperials are undone once more by their reliance on an absolute command structure and the personal failings of their leadership, in this case Pryce's viciousness and tunnel vision.

I'm going to be so sad to see this series go. I wonder what, if anything, will follow it? I may also try to catch up on The Clone Wars after all this time.

(1) Deistic religion in Star Wars; who knew?

(2) Which explains her seeming appearance after the duel back in Season 2.

Star Wars: Rebels - The First Half of Season 4

I had it in mind to review this final season of Rebels episode by episode, but the Sky box had other plans and I barely managed to grab the first half - the nine episodes prior to the mid-season break - before the early episodes would have been vanishing from the On Demand lists.

Who wears Stormtrooper armour by choice?

We open with 'Heroes of Mandalore', which is the traditional two-part 'event' opener, for what that means in a season which turns out to have a lot of serial storytelling. Ezra, Kanan and Chopper are helping Clan Wren in their struggle to free the Mandalorians from Imperial rule, which is currently administered by Tiber Saxon. The brother of Gar Saxon, who was killed in a duel with Sabine last season, Tiber is a douchebag of the first water, determined to suck up to the Empire and abandon the distinctive Mandalorian customs. Representative of this, he has swapped his Mandalorian armour for that of a stormtrooper, and when Clan Wren come to rescue Sabine's father, Alrich Wren(1), he deploys 'the Duchess', the weapon whose creation caused Sabine to turn from the Empire and which she thought she had destroyed.

Accused of treachery by many of her allies, including the near-legendary Lady Bo-Katan Kryze(2), Sabine leads a perilous mission to take out the Duchess once and for all. The opportunity to do so turns out to be a trap, intended to force her to perfect the design which Tiber had to reconstruct from the wreck of the prototype. She seems to capitulate, but instead recalibrates the weapon to home on stormtrooper armour, and is only persuaded to refrain from killing the entire garrison by Kryze, who reminds her that she destroyed the weapon not just because it would be used against her people, but because it was a cowardly way to fight: The Imperial way.

 

"Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

Sabine sabotages the Duchess, which explodes with enough force to scuttle the Star Destroyer it is sitting in. She then hands off the Darksaber to Kryze, effectively making her the leader of traditional Mandalore, before returning with her new family to the Rebellion.

As Ezra last season, it's Sabine's turn for a follicular upgrade, swapping out the punky yellow and pink hair of past seasons for a more sober magenta in recognition of her ascension to a true leadership role. There's also a shift in the relationship between Sabine and Ezra, with the latter frequently protesting - protesting, one might say, too much - that he isn't 'with' Sabine. Kryze has a conversation with Fenn Rau about Sabine's growing confidence and ability, and of course the resurrection of her own horror weapon knocks that a bit, but overall the growth in these characters is impressive for any show, let alone an animated series.

Ezra's hat collection has long been a thing in this series, and I respect that
kind of continuity.

'In the Name of the Rebellion' - another two-parter - takes our heroes home to the Rebel base on Yavin-4. Soon after their arrival, Hera leads the remains of a squad of Y-wings home, critically damaged after a failed supply mission. Mon Mothma and General Dodonna are forced to accept that Saw Gerrera's intel was right: The Imperials have a new relay station which allows them to react too fast to Rebel activity. The crew of the Ghost are thus tasked with hacking the relay to allow the Rebels to listen in on Imperial comms, although Ezra is disappointed to neither be sticking it to the Imperials more directly by blowing up the relay, or better yet going back to liberate Lothal.

The relay mission goes tits up, however, when first an Imperial cruiser and then Gerrera turn up halfway through. Saw shoots up the cruiser in his U-wing and drops explosives onto the relay dish, while the rest of the crew dogfight with TIE Defenders. Ezra - impressed by Saw's 'get shit done' attitude - and Sabine agree to accompany him to try to find out why the cruiser is making deliveries to deep space. Saw turns out to be on the trail of the same thing that was hinted at on Genosis, and believes that the key to unlocking the mystery lies aboard the cruiser. They board, and find a bunch of prisoners and a huge kyber crystal. Saw wants to learn what the Empire are doing with the crystal, and failing that to use it to destroy the ship, but Ezra and Sabine are more focused on saving the prisoners, causing a break between them.

 

Death Troopers.

Saw blows the crystal and Ezra and Sabine flee with the prisoners. Unable to escape into hyperspace, Sabine puts their shuttle on the far side of a star destroyer, which is itself destroyed by the blast from the destabilised crystal(3). The shuttle's engines are blown, but fortunately the Ghost turns up to get them, and Ezra has an object lesson in the perils of direct action.

An interesting side-note on this episode is DT-F16, a female Death Trooper Commander who leads the boots on the ground opposition in the story. She's tough and competent, and I honestly expected her to become a recurring enemy moving forward. It was only after she was killed in the denouement that I realised that I had parsed her as more relevant than she was purely because she was a woman, and female voices tend only to be cast in specific, rather than generic roles. This brought home the realisation that it's been a strength of the series that it has not only had far more than the average number of female roles of substance, it is also willing to kill off both these characters, and female generics, as easily as their male counterparts.

Funny hat day was a mixed success.

The remaining five episodes of this half of the season are essentially five parts of a single story, beginning with 'The Occupation'. The crew finally return to Lothal in response to a distress signal, aboard a freighter owned by dodgy 'entrepreneur' Visago. The planet is in near-total lockdown, but Visago swears he can get them in. Despite his promises, they are almost picked up in a customs scan, and Visago is arrested going back for his cargo. 

They try to contact the local rebels at the formerly-friendly tavern Old Jho's, only to find that Jho has been executed for aiding rebel fugitives. The bar has been given to Valen Rudor, Imperial ace pilot and comedy foe from the original animated shorts and first season. They are, however, contacted by a resistance member; one of Ezra's classmates from Stormtrooper School in Season 1. Say what you will about this season, it's doing a lot to pay off series-long set ups regarding the Rebels' ties to Lothal.

Loth-cats.

Escaping into the sewers, the Rebels are led to former Governor-turned-Rebel cell leader Ryder Azadi(4), who in turn take them to witness a test of a new, more advanced TIE Defender prototype in - surprisingly - 'Flight of the Defender', in which they watch a test flight from a ridge, despite the attentions of the local Porg-equivalents: Loth-cats. Determined to get their money's worth from the high-risk insertion onto Lothal, Sabine decides to steal the Defender's flight recorder as well as providing eye witness accounts of its speed and manoeuvrability. Unfortunately, this is when Thrawn and Pryce arrive for a test flight, forcing the Rebels to improvise by blowing shit up and stealing the Defender itself. They strafe the landing ground before leaving, and Ezra takes down three pursuing Interceptors(5) before Sabine recognises a kill-switch and they are able to ditch before all the wings fall off. 

I'm really worried bad things are going to happen.

Trapped in the desert, they hide the Defender's hyperdrive, intending to come back and use it to allow Azadi's clapped out old U-wing to fly them home. They hide themselves in a cave which Ezra finds by following a white Loth-cat. Ezra has been seeing a Loth-wolf - thought to be extinct - all day, and finally it approaches them and puts Sabine to sleep by breathing on her and saying 'sleep', because things are about to get trippy, yo. It carries them to the Rebel camp and drops them off with a cryptic message 'Dume'(6).

And then we have 'Kindred'.

This guy.

Fleeing from Governor Pryce and - far more importantly for EU fans(7) - a gangly master hunter and assassin named Rukh, the Ghosts split up. It's is a major burn for Pryce, for so long the 'competent one' in Thrawn's inner circle, to be shuffled off pursuit duty in favour of an assassin, and that will likely come back to bite the Empire later. It's increasingly apparent - in last Season's finale, here, and in 'Rebel Assault', that one of Thrawn's greatest weaknesses is a failure to take account of his underlings egos. Thus, while Rukh is able to track his quarry across the desert, but not capture Ezra and a resistance fighter single-handed, Pryce dismisses him and takes over herself. The concept of 'horses for courses' is apparently lost on her.

Badass.

Hera and Chopper take a U-Wing loaded with the Defender's hyperdrive to get word to the Alliance of the threat posed by the new fighter, while the rest of the group buy time. Hera escapes the Imperial blockade by punching into hyperspace through a hangar, because she's awesome, but guided by Rukh's unerring nose, the Imperials close in on the remaining Rebels. At the last, a group of Loth-wolves appear and lead them to a tunnel. As Imperial bombs begin to pound the mountains above them, the wolves seem to lead their charges through what might be hyperspace, or something, because that is a thing that Loth-wolves can do. The Rebels emerge to realise they have travelled to the far side of the planet.

Dances with Loth-wolves.

Ezra helps Kanan to explore the cave they have emerged into, which shows visitors from space - possibly Jedi - and Loth-wolves working together. They speculate on the past of Lothal, and also that the Empire may be doing something far worse to Lothal than merely building factories. Kanan, having previously pondered with Hera the way in which the Ghost's crew seem repeatedly to be drawn back to Lothal - meeting Ezra, working with Azadi, escorting princesses and scoundrels, even adopting a Lothal design as the emblem of the Rebellion - feels that the Loth-wolves are strongly tied to the Force, and in particular to the larger energy system of Lothal. He is also surprised when the wolf repeats 'Dume, which it turns out is his real name: Caleb Dume.

Magic space wolves. Of course.

Kindred is a weird episode, I'm not going to say otherwise. There's a dramatic shift to the hardcore mystical which the show, indeed the franchise, has typically avoided. There has always been that element, except when someone tries to write it off as 'midichlorians', but it was always in the background. There's something about it that almost feels more in keeping with Avatar: The Last Airbender than with Star Wars, although it jibes surprisingly well with past developments on Rebels itself, in particular Kanan and Ezra's experiences in the Lothal Jedi temple. In addition, Kanan gets to be wise and intuitive, and Hera gets to be a total badass, which it turns out is a great division of labour for them.

"Nice piece of heavy plant you've got here. Shame is someone were to... set
fire to it."

We're on sounder footing with 'Crawler Commanders', in which the crew once more cross paths with the Galactic Mining Guild. Needing to get a message out to coordinate with Hera's attack on the TIE Defender factory, they hijack a mining crawler for its long-ranger transceiver. Unfortunately, the crawler's captain is a jobsworth on the scale of oft-dynamited railway employee Woodcock in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and chooses to make a fight of it. Kanan and Zeb free the crawler's slaves - including Visago - and defeat the captain and his foreman, as well as weathering an Imperial inspection.

Badass space battles.

This leads into 'Rebel Assault', in which the Alliance launches its doomed attack on Lothal(9). The ground team take out the air defence towers, and the X-Wings carve a path through the standard TIE Fighters. The Defender presents a bit more of a challenge, cutting down a pair of X-Wings, but despite the Defender Elite's greater agility and armament, Hera is able to deftly destroy her opponent after luring the enemy ace in front of a Star Destroyer's turbolasers. Unfortunately, on entering the atmosphere the strike force encounters a vast second wave of TIEs, leading to an unexpectedly harrowing scene in which the ground team watches the entire strike force plunge in flames from the sky. Thrawn sends Rukh to hunt down any surviving pilots, and especially Hera.

Big ass wolves.

Kanan sends the rest of the ground team on, while he turns back to help Hera, only to be blocked by a Loth wolf. Hera, meanwhile, joins up with Mart Mattin, the late Commander Sato's nephew and erstwhile leader of Iron Squadron. They are able to elude Rukh once - after Hera manages to actually go a few rounds with a Noghri, absorbing enough of his focus for Chopper to taser him - and destroy a scout walker guarding a sewer hatch, but the hunter attacks again and Hera is forced to send Chopper and Mart away before being captured. The midseason finale closes with Kanan swearing to rescue Hera.

Star Wars: Rebels goes from strength to strength, and looks set to go out on a high note, although I admit to some concern about the upcoming season finale. We know from Rogue One that at least Hera and the Ghost will make it to the Battle of Scarif, but I'm concerned that the series might go for a TPK to make way for the status quo of the original trilogy. While Rogue One established that you can kill all of your characters in a Star Wars movie and still turn up a good un(10), I am firmly set against an ending which kills the characters of this story in the service of someone else's.

(1) Voiced by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Alrich is an artist who adopted the surname of his more martially adept wife on marriage. I like this guy.

(2) Nerd favourite Katee Sackhoff, returning from The Clone Wars.

(3) Killing Cham Sindulla's nemesis, Slavin.

(4) Clancy Brown. Man, this voice cast...

(5) Thrawn notes that if Hera were flying the Defender, she would have made much shorter work of the Interceptors; the first, but by no means last time in this run of episodes that he reiterates his recognition of Hera's skills.

(6) Or, if you're watching and not reading, the altogether more pessimistic: 'Doom'.

(7) The ones who aren't too busy complaining that the Empire shouldn't have TIE Defenders, nor the Rebel Alliance(8) A-Wings this early on.

(8) I'm sorry; 'Alliance to Restore the Republic.'

(9) Doomed because that the events of the end of Rogue One constituted their first significant victory in the field is literally the first thing we ever learned about Star Wars.

(10) YMMV.

Star Wars Rebels – 'Zero Hour'

Thrawn leads from the front.

Season 3 of Rebels comes to a close with the event we've all been waiting for(1). As the Rebels of Chopper Base prepare their big push against the Imperial occupation of Lothal, Grand Admiral Thrawn brings the fight to them and demonstrates just why the Empire is as big a deal as it is.

Agent Jarrus is uncovered as Fulcrum when he tries to warn the Rebels that Thrawn is planning to ambush them when they hit the TIE Defender factory. He tries to take Thrawn on, but the Grand Admiral is surprisingly tasty in a hand-to-hand confrontation. Jarrus gets a warning out, but the signal direction and the course of a supporting Rebel fleet under General Dodonna (Rebel Santa from A New Hope) allow him to triangulate the location of Atollon, despite the absence of a planet on the Imperial charts.

Sato's sacrifice.

As Phoenix Squadron attempts to evacuate, with support from Dodonna's fleet, Thrawn brings in the big guns: A wedge of Star Destroyers and a pair of Interdictors to prevent anyone escaping to light speed. Hemmed in, the Rebels retreat to the shelter of Sabine's force field, while Commander Sato sacrifices himself and his ship to ram one of the Interdictors – killing Admiral Konstantine – and give Ezra a window to escape and find help.

Senator Mon Mothma is unable to send any more of the Rebel fleet, so Ezra goes to the only other place he can think of, asking for help from the Mandalorian badasses of Clan Wren. They have a lot of their own stuff going on, but agree to lend their aid in return for future assistance in punting Imperial influence out of Mandalorian politics. Meanwhile, Kanan looks for aid more locally, but finds the Bendu just as pissed at him for bringing violence to his home as it is at the Empire.

Hera stares down the bombardment.

The shield on Atollon, not a patch on the later Hoth job, barely holds against an Imperial bombardment. Under Hera's lead, Rex and Zeb take out a few scout walkers with heavy ordnance, but then the AT-ATs arrive and steadily push back to the base, despite Kanan taking one out with a lightsabre cut to the leg. Apparently Luke was overcomplicating. Once more, the Rebels are forced to take flight, hoping that help will arrive in time.

As Thrawn arrives on the surface, the Bendu attacks. As the balance of Light and Dark, it turns out it doesn't just have a great line in gnomic wisdom, it can also ride around in a storm cloud and decapitate AT-ATs with Force lightning, because FUCK YEAH, TOM BAKER JUST BLEW UP AN AT-AT! Even Thrawn is rattled, although not so much that he can't direct his troops to shoot at the heart of the storm, bringing the Bendu down.

Fuck yeah!

Meanwhile, in space, the Mandalorians attack(2), crippling the second Interdictor's gravity wells. Jarrus needles Governor Pryce until she orders him thrown out of an airlock, giving him a chance to escape (a ploy so obvious that basically all the show gives us is Jarrus smiling as he's led into the lift, then there's unconscious guards and five minutes later he's calling the Ghost from an escape pod.) 

The Rebels escape to light speed.

Thrawn tries to first interrogate and then – faced with a prophecy of his defeat – execute the Bendu, but it vanishes with a booming laugh. The Rebels retreat to Yavin 4 to lick their wounds, while Sabine returns to Clan Wren with the hope that Hera can bring help in their battle with Clan Saxon.

"I see your defeat. Like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace."
"Well, that's my afternoon knackered."

'Zero Hour' closes out Season 3 in epic style, with the largest battle we've seen to date on the show. When Rebels began, it was small scale, the Firefly of Star Wars, but now it's working on the same scale as one of the movies. Indeed, 'Zero Hour''s space-and-planetary battle puts the Battles of Yavin and Hoth to shame, with only the Battle of Endor and the climax of Rogue One really comparing. Back in my review of Season 1, I said: "Overall, Rebels is not a dead loss, but has more good parts than good episodes." I hold by that impression of Season 1, but the last two years have made such a difference. I liked The Force Awakens and Rogue One, but for my money, Rebels is the best Star Wars being made at present, and I really hope that the crew – especially those inconvenient Jedi who need to be got out of the way at some point so that Luke can be The Last Jedi(3) – get a proper send-off somewhere, rather than ending up reported dead in the background action of Rogue One.

Back to the here and now, pretty much everyone gets something in this finale. Wedge and Hobbie are there in the space battle. Thrawn is awesome. Hera, taking over from Sato, holds the whole thing together. Kanan continues his arc from reluctant teacher to primo mentor material and Ezra and Sabine's Mandalorians kick all kinds of jet trooper arse, despite Ezra not having a proper jetpack. Chopper and AP-5 bitch and snark. The Bendu is terrifying, but not so all-consumingly badass that he overshadows the main cast. Even Rex and Zeb get to blow shit up. It is all kinds of awesome.

(1) At least, those of us who weren't focused on last episode's showdown.

(2) In a ship that's built to drop flying badasses into space off a rack and then pick them up later. It's like the dropship in Edge of Tomorrow, but in space.

(3) My dream resolution on this would be for Luke to send Rey to study with Ezra to 'end the Jedi' by become a Bendu, thus finally fulfilling the prophecy of balance, but I accept that that's almost certainly not going to happen.

Star Wars Rebels - 'Twin Suns'

"If there's a bright centre to the universe, we're on the planet that is farthest
from it."

It's time to follow the Holocrons, as Ezra answers the call of Maul one last time.

As the Rebels of Phoenix Squadron make the final preparations for their mission to retake Lothal, Ezra is troubled by nightmares of Maul and his quest for vengeance against Obi-Wan Kenobi. He feels that he ought to go to Tatooine, but Hera insists that their mission must come first. Ultimately, Ezra chooses to ignore this advice, stealing a training A-wing to fly to the world of two suns in search of the means to defeat the Sith, accompanied somewhat against his will by Chopper. On Tatooine, the Jedi holocron leads Ezra to its Sith partner. Tusken raiders destroy his ship(1) and soon the desert overcomes him, as Maul planned, and Kenobi emerges from hiding to save the boy. Obi-Wan laughs off the suggestion that he might destroy the Sith, then sends Ezra away while he faces Maul.

Despite it's brevity, this duel has more references to The Phantom Menacethan one could shake a lightsabre at.

And you know what? That's pretty much it. That's all the plot there is in this episode. No sidelines, no B-plot; just Ezra, Kenobi, and Maul, and at the end of it, the rematch that fandom has been waiting for since Maul made his canon reappearance in The Clone Wars(2). The fight itself is classic samurai/western material; lots of build up as the two shift their positions, gauge each other's strength, and then an almost laughably(3) brief, utterly decisive exchange of blows. It's a thing of beauty.

Ezra returns to Chopper Base with a fresh focus, while Obi-Wan rides out to a moisture farm where a woman is calling her young nephew in for the night.

That final scene is a thing of beauty, using the so-familiar skyscape of Tatooine, the outline of the moisture farm, and recycled audio of Aunt Beru calling for Luke to perfectly evoke the memory of the first Star Wars, before playing out the episode with the slow, melancholy strings of Luke's Tatooine theme. It's telling of how obviously important this is that when the screen pulled out to the trailers for whatever was on next, as is the wont with modern TV, Disney XD kept the music playing and muted the trailers.

 

Da-dah dah da-da-dah-dah da-da da-dah-dah da-da-dah-dah.

'Twin Suns' ultimately serves to highlight the futility of Maul's quest for revenge, and in a meta sense how little impact he has on the Star Wars universe, for all his iconic status. His quest was a distraction, for us and for Ezra, from where the real action of Rebels is taking place. Obi-Wan's story, Luke's story, are not divorced from Rebels, but neither are they intrinsically linked. Just because this is their show, they aren't suddenly at the heart of everything. Maul thought his quest was the stuff of legend, but of course it was always fated that it would fail and he would be forgotten.

(1) One review noted Ezra's failure to use his lightsabre against the Sand People, but Wookiepedia notes that, despite the visual effect, Tusken cycler rifles fire solid projectiles, which can not necessarily be deflected with a lightsabre.

(2) Full disclosure, I've not seen much of The Clone Wars, so I don't know how many rematches this makes.

(3) Almost; the actual laughs in this episode are pretty scant.

Star Wars Rebels - 'Double Agent Droid'

"You could not even draw a bow and arrow, let alone hit a small songbird."

Ah, the great battles of wits: Holmes vs. Moriarty, Aristotle vs. Mashy Spike Plate, and now Chopper vs. AP-5.

Our favourite antisocial grumblebots are on a mission. Chaperoned by Wedge, they are to infiltrate an Imperial data store and steal security codes for the Rebel assault on Lothal. Things get off to a rough start, however, as the two droids snipe at one another over who is in charge of the mission. On arrival, Chopper's presence is flagged by an ISB surveillance team operating from a listening ship. The team's controller identifies the droid and, in order to locate the Rebel base, launches an electronic counterattack when Chopper tries to slice(1) the base mainframe, seizing control of his systems.

AP-5 locates Chopper and is immediately struck by his sudden display of manners and protocol, especially of Imperial protocol. Unfortunately, no-one listens when he tries to tell them that something is wrong with the astromech, at least not until they are all sealed in the Ghost's airlock with the ISB using Chopper to try to extract the Rebel base location from the ship's computer. AP-5 is sent to manually override the internal locks and gets knocked into space by Chopper, but manages to let the others out of the airlock before the controller can space them. Zeb incapacitates Chopper with obvious glee, and Hera uses the connection to send a surge signal which nearly fries Chopper and causes the listening ship to explode(3).

"We did purchase the 'not explode' upgrade for the engines, right?"

'Double Agent Droid' is a rare showcase for the information war that is usually limited to 'astromech plugs into a wall, computer shows pictures', and it makes sense that this would be seen under Grand Admiral Thrawn's watch. The controller(4) is a meticulous, detail-oriented plotter; too meticulous, as it turns out, as his determination to secure complete information prevents him gaining even a partial win before his ship explodes because reasons(5). Also, a neat little visual extra is that he has the same sort of cyborg implant as Lando Calrissian's ADC, Lobot.

Also, AP-5 and Chopper do an 'anything you can do' bit, which is just adorable, as is AP-5's utter dejection when the crew rescue him from drifting in the perfect stillness of space and drag him back into their messy world.

(1) The Extended Universe term for hack; I don't know if it's still used in canon post Swexit(2).

(2) My own term for the separation of the main continuity from the EU.

(3) Another health and safety triumph for the Imperial Core of Engineers'.

(4) He and his ship have names, or at least serial numbers, but they aren't really used in the episode.

(5) My theory is that the server room cooling system sinks heat into the fuel tanks.

Star Wars Rebels - 'Secret Cargo'

In spaace!

The time has come for the galaxies rebels to unite. To… ally, perhaps, in some sort of 'Rebel Alliance' if you will.

The catalyst for this movement is Senator Mon Mothma, who has stood up and given a gloriously fuck you final speech before going into hiding. Hera, Zeb, Ezra and Chopper have been entrusted with a secret courier mission which one of Thrawn's probe droids stumbles on, and when their rendezvous with the Y-wings of Gold Squadron and their transporter is busted up by Imperial cruisers, they have to offload the cargo – former Senator Mon Mothma – onto the Ghost.

With Ezra joining the escort wing, Hera leads the small convoy away from the danger, but Grand Admiral Thrawn discerns their likely course and dispatches Governor Pryce and Admiral Konstantine to intercept them, along with a special surprise in the form of 'the prototype.' This prototype turns out to be the first TIE Defender, which along with a pair of TIE Interceptors is more than a match for the Ghost and three aging Y-wings. In a desperate gambit, Hera heads into a nebula and loses the Interceptors by scraping across a forming star, but Ezra and Gold Leader are forced to stay behind to delay the Defender, while two Star Destroyers ambush the Ghost.

Ezra leads the Defender into Gold Leader's sights, and with his shields stripped by the Y-wing's ion cannon the pilot is forced to pull out of the nebula(1). Hera then directs Gold Squadron to fire into the edge of the nebula with proton torpedoes, causing an eruption which seriously damages the two Star Destroyers, allowing the badly mauled rebels to escape to a first mustering of rebel forces in orbit around the remote planet of Dantooine.

 

Alliance Assemble!

'Secret Cargo' is, to borrow a phrase from the world of sportball, liquid Star Wars. It brings the Rebels crew to the forefront of formation of the Alliance and delivers the first round of the clash of commanders between Hera and Thrawn that I've been looking for since they first exchanged the stink eye in 'Hera's Heroes'. It makes it clear that our rag-tag band - even including Commander Sato and Phoenix Squadron - is just one among many, and that their differing styles can lead to a certain friction(2). It cements the series' place as both canonical and integral to the greater story of the Empire and the Rebellion. It has proper, gripping space battles and an intellectual cat and mouse conducted with neither participant coming within sensor range of the other. I adore it.

(1) Yes, even the straight dogfight is resolved by clever use of available resources.

(2) Gold Squadron remark on their tactics and suggest that blowing up Tarkin's Star Destroyer has just raised security for everyone else.

Star Wars Rebels - 'Legacy of Mandalore'

"Leave it, Ezra; it's fam'ly!"

Okay, folks; brace yourselves. Things are gonna change around here.

Armed with the Darksaber and accompanied by Fenn Rau, Kanan and Ezra, Sabine returns home to persuade her mother, Countess Ursa Wren, to help her bring the Mandalorians into the rebellion, hinting that they have something big planned. Things go reasonably well at first, with Ursa explaining that, far from rejecting her daughter as a traitor, she never wanted her to come home because away from the rest of the clan she was safe. Unfortunately, Mandalorian Meanie Governor Saxon has Sabine's father hostage and Ursa is persuaded to cut a deal: The two Jedi in exchange for Sabine's safety.

Naturally, Saxon decides to alter the deal, as it were, accusing Ursa of consorting with Rebels and intending to take down the entire Wren Clan. Rau breaks the standoff, and the Rebels and Clan Wren throw down with Saxon's supercommandos. Ultimately, Saxon faces off again Sabine, he wielding the Darksaber and she Ezra's lightsabre, just in case there was any doubt that non-Jedi could use a regular lightsabre. Sabine defeats Saxon, Clan Wren turns against the Empire and Sabine… Sabine opts to remain with her clan; to help them defeat the Imperial Mandalorians and reclaim their own world, before – hopefully – coming to stand with the Rebellion.

 

Not the duel you might have been expecting.

This, obviously, is huge. Sabine is the first main crew member to depart the series, although if it's true that they are wrapping up Rebels in preparation for a new show, not such a big thing I guess. Maybe we'll see her again(1) in the series, however. I hope so. All-in-all, it's a good move for the character, although some of her character arc feels it has been a little rushed or erratic due to the early seasons' focus on Ezra. It's been good to see her get serious screen time lately, and this season has really impressed me with its commitment to the narratives of the non-Jedi characters.

(1) I admit, I was rather hopeful about references to Laura Dern playing a pink-haired Resistance leader in The Last Jedi, but the elegant dresses seem a little out of character and, in retrospect, I'm glad. As much as I'd like to see Rebels characters show up in the new movies – either main series or Stories – I'm pretty sure that all of the Wrens have been voiced by actors of Indian heritage, and I'd like to see that continued in live action.