– Star Wars: Rebels fourth and last season aired its series finale tonight as the battle for Ezra's homeworld Lothal against Admiral Thrawn, the Emperor, and the Empire itself came to a a close.
– The last few weeks contained a number of revelations and farewells, and tonight was no different. Beware of spoilers:
Ezra and crew staged one last attempt to reclaim Lothal without the help of the Rebel Alliance. After a long battle, Thrawn presented Ezra with a choice – either continue to fight and he would destroy the city of Lothal, or completely surrender himself to him without a fight. Ezra surrended himself, but when it became clear Thrawn wasn't being truthful about his side of the bargain, he staged a back up plan. First, Hera, Sabine, Rex, Callus, Gregor, Zeb and others went further into the Imperial Base to activate the shields. Greg dies during the battle and Rex says farewell. Come face to face with the Emperor, Ezra is given the choice to use the Jedi temple to go back to his parents, but knows that he has to let them go and destorys the temple. Ezra then brought back the Purrgil, the space whales from earlier in the series, to destroy the Imperial blockade surrounding Lothal. With the Purrgil wrapping their tentacles tight around Thrawn, and Ezra commanding the Imperial ship on the bridge, they leapt to Hyperspace towards an unknown destination as he said goodbye to his new family, only explaining in a message left behind on the Ghost ship that "it's something Kanan taught me." Hera and crew destroy the Imperial base as Lothal takes back the rest of the planet.
– Tonight also contained hints stories that are to come and how Rebels connects to the original trilogy:The show flashes forward past
Rogue One, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and
Return of the Jedi. Lothal has been safe, and the Ghost crew's victory against the Empire caused them to never try to retake the planet. Some years have passed, and Sabine looks different with shorter hair. Zeb and Callus returned to Zeb's new homeworld with his people. Hera had a child of Kanan's named Jason, and fought in numerous battles, including the Battle of Endor. Rex did too. Sabine promised to not let Ezra down before he disappeared, watching over Lothal for him, but she didn't fully understand what he meant for a long time. Ezra has still not returned from his jump to Hyperspace. Sabine then decides that she has to go find him and turns to see an older Ahsoka greeting her. The two of them set off to bring back Ezra.
– This raises many questions, including some for the next animated series:
After years of questions about what would happen to these characters if they weren't around during the original trilogy... most of them were. Ezra has been missing the whole time, but Ahsoka, pupil of Darth Vader, father of heroes Luke and Leia Skywalker, has (apparently) been around this entire time. But where did Ezra disappear to? What trick did Kanan teach him? Where is Rex? Will Ahsoka ever meet the original trilogy characters, and what has she been up to this whole time? Will she and others be main characters in the next animated series? Or will this story be wrapped up somewhere else? Will any of this connect to the sequel trilogy? And most importantly... does this mean Ahsoka is finally in the clear to get her own movie?
– A very important character from the EU was namedropped in the finale by Thrawn: Gillad Pellaeon. Gillad is a close ally of Thrawn's and essentially his star commander and right hand man in some cases. After the Empire fell and became the Imperial Remnant in the far reaches of space in the EU, Gilad became its leader. It could just be a name drop that canonizes the character, but it could be hinting at a future appearance in something, series, book, or not.
– Fans got to go to Lucasfilm last week and see some of the last episodes of
Rebels.– Lucasfilm's next animated series is said to be set after Return of the Jedi.
ONTD, what did you think of the finale? What do you think the next series will be like?
