Today we conclude our rewatch (which started back in August) of Star Wars Rebels with episodes 71 through 75 of the popular Lucasfilm animated series.
Star Wars Rebels stars the vocal talents of Taylor Gray as Ezra Bridger, Vanessa Marshall as Hera Syndulla, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus, Steven Blum as Zeb Orrelios, Tiya Sircar as Sabine Wren, and series co-creator Dave Filoni as Chopper.
Episode 71: “Wolves and a Door” – Based on a clue provided by the Loth-wolves, Ezra and his friends travel to the location of Lothal’s ancient Jedi temple, the site of which they now find being excavated by the Empire. Ezra and Sabine work together to decode the message on a large door painted with cryptic images of the Father, Son, and Daughter from The Clone Wars’ fabled Mortis arc. Once they successfully solve the riddle, the painting comes to life and the depictions of the wolves create a traversable portal in the rock wall. Just as they are about to be captured by stormtroopers and an Imperial minister, Ezra escapes into the portal, though Sabine is taken into custody.
Episode 72: “A World Between Worlds” – Minister Veris Hydan (voiced by guest star Malcom McDowell from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange) interrogates Sabine about her knowledge of the door and its portal. Meanwhile in the titular mystical plane of existence, Ezra follows a convor through another portal to witness the battle between Ahsoka Tano and Darth Vader on the Sith planet of Malachor from the second-season finale. He manages to rescue Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) from her ultimate fate in that situation, and then tries to do the same for Kanan at the time of his death, but Ahsoka convinces him to take a different path. Ahsoka and Ezra are attacked by Emperor Palpatine and return through their respective portals, then Ezra uses information from Sabine (who was extracted by Hera and Zeb) to lock the door and collapse the temple for good.
Episode 73: “A Fool’s Hope” – The crew enlists some friends from the past, including Hondo Ohnaka (Jim Cummings), Vizago (Keith Szarabajka), Agent Kallus (David Oyelowo), and Ketsu Onyo (Gina Torres) to enact one last assault against the Imperial forces on Lothal. Ryder Azadi (Clancy Brown) draws Governor Pryce (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) into a trap by pretending to betray the rebels, and Hera brings her reinforcements to the surface once sneaking past the blockade the Empire has in orbit around the planet. After another assist by the Loth-wolves, Ezra and the gang have won a minor victory, but the climactic final confrontation is still yet to come.
Episodes 74/75: “Family Reunion – And Farewell (Parts 1 & 2)” – The crew forces Pryce to use her clearance codes to get them into Lothal’s Imperial headquarters. There, on Thrawn’s orders, the Noghri assassin Rukh (Warwick Davis) disables the planetary shield, allowing the Grand Admiral’s Star Destroyer to serve as a direct threat to the rebels’ survival. In order to save his friends, Ezra surrenders to the Empire, where he has an extended conversation with Thrawn and then with a hologram of Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, reprising his role from the Star Wars films), in disguise as he might look without his disfigurement. The Emperor shows Ezra a tempting vision of a world where his parents have survived, and tells him he can travel there if only he would open the door to the World Between Worlds again, using a section of the Jedi temple he had moved there from the planet’s surface. But Ezra rejects Palpatine’s offer and runs to the Star Destroyer’s bridge, where he confronts Thrawn. Meanwhile on the surface, the rebels are able to get the shield back up– killing Rukh in the process– and Ezra’s backup plan of calling for help from the purrgil is put into motion. The mobile Imperial headquarters is shot into the atmosphere and destroyed with Pryce aboard, and the purrgil attack Thrawn’s fleet, eventually fleeing into hyperspace toward an unknown location with both Ezra and the Grand Admiral still aboard the Star Destroyer.
In an epilogue, we discover that both Hera and Rex served the Rebel Alliance in the Battle of Endor, and that the Empire never managed to reclaim control over Lothal. Then we meet Hera and Kanan’s son Jacen Syndulla, while Sabine and Ahsoka prepare to launch a mission to find Ezra and bring him home. To be continued in Star Wars: Ahsoka from Lucasfilm, coming to Disney+ sometime in 2023.
Star Wars Rebels is available to stream in its entirety on Disney+.