On Rebels, We Finally Know Who Lives, Who Dies, And Who Tells Their Story

For the last time, this is not a full review. Instead we just look at a few things because … because … aw hell, I’m going to miss writing this little blurb. As always, SPOILERS and much, much blubbering from here on out.

This is the end. My only friend, the end. Sorry, actual friends, but you mean nothing to me now, for Rebels has ended, first with a bang in A Fool’s Hope, and then with a whimper (that is, my whimper) in Family Reunion, and Farewell. I’m sad, guys, sad and full of ennui. I knew I shouldn’t have had that extra cherry Coke.

Don’t look at me like that, you knew I was going to do a pee joke eventually.

Expectations

This last episode weighed heavy with expectations. Not just with ours but with the characters’, too. Or perhaps it should be the other way around. It weighed heavy with the character’s expectations, and ours, too. It seemed like no matter who I talked to, before this, everyone had their own idea of how it was going to end (and they were happy to share these without my asking them. Yes, Becky, I’m looking at you. I did not want to know about your Zeb/Mutton-chop Man shipping hypothesis. I really, really didn’t.*). And surprisingly, lots of people got the beats largely correct: they succeed, Ezra and Thrawn disappear (most said into the Unknown Regions, and though that seems likely it’s still not known … yet). Ezra’s animal connection would save the day. Some would die and they’d ultimately succeed. The fact that these broad strokes were accurate may be construed as a criticism of how the show tends to lean into well-trodden tropes. Though I tend to agree that this is a fair criticism of the show, I must state that it’s my firm belief that it’s not necessarily bad that a story is trope-y – as long as it’s written well.

*There were drawings. Good gods, the drawings.

For my money, it was well written because the episodes played heavily with our characters’ expectations. We see this in the beginning with Ryder, the ex-governor turned rebel, who seemingly betrayed his own side. It was almost painfully obvious that this was a ruse (okay not so painfully obvious to me; my notes are full of rantings of lazy writing before I finally figured it out. What? Even the best better than average generally average of us have stupid moments). But that was the point of the double and triple cross: though we can clearly see the wheels turning, Governor Pryce cannot. More than that, she is not able to. As we saw, Pryce was under significant pressure to deliver results, to end the rebel threat once and for all. Not only that, but her arrogance and contempt for the rebels and her misreading of others lead her to the (to her) sound conclusion that Ryder would, of course, want to return to the Imperial fold.

Reread that last sentence again. It was a fairly shallow reading of Governor Pryce, right? One could say that this is another example of just how unimaginative and trope-y the finale was. If we look closer at Pryce and her actions, though, we see that they were borne out of a strong enough foundation. Pryce was under pressure, but at the same time, Thrawn always believed that she would fail. I take this to mean that she was always destined to fail and that Thrawn deliberately withheld information and resources from her, knowing that, no matter what, she simply wouldn’t be up to the task of annihilating the last rebel remnants. This rings hollow for me as I can think of a number of ways that they could have completed their task. For example, Thrawn could have left Pryce with one of his own Star Destroyers and instructed her to use the same gambit as he later did to remove Ezra from the camp, and then, of course, destroy the base and the last of the rebels. Not even that, but he could simply have explicitly instructed Pryce to do nothing until his return. Indeed, if he had strong doubts about Pryce’s abilities, this would have been the best course of action.

As for Pryce’s arrogance and contempt for the rebels, well, I like to think that there was good reason and history for this. If we look at our own history, it is replete with military figures changing allegiances (the term ‘turncoat’ is derived from military history, as soldiers, when deserting, would often turn their coats inside out in order to hide their true colours from casual observers). The most famous turncoat in US history, Benedict Arnold, for example, turned coat for a number of reasons that had more to do with his disgust at how the rebels fought and his own lack of advancement, rather than the more base desire to be ‘on the winning side’, to paraphrase the fictional Ryder. And though Star Wars is a fictional universe, the Empire, and the Rebellion are completely fictitious and consequently I know full well that one writer could suddenly decide, tomorrow, to write a throwaway line about how ‘rebels never, not once, ever, ever rejoined the Empire in the history of the war’, I think it much more simpler and more likely that rebels did, in fact, turn their coats. So rather than say that this was a case of Pryce being arrogant and dim-witted enough to fall for Ezra’s plan, I tend to think of it as one small, everyday decision that added to the long list of small, everyday decisions that ultimately added to the much, much bigger balls-up of losing an entire planet. I can just see Robot Chicken’s Emperor ranting about it now. ‘What, another rebel joining us? Very well, give them the usual signing up package, maybe throw in a a spa day coupon – WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST ME LOTHAL’. Quite.

In this, Ryder presented the facade that Pryce, the quintessential Imperial, expected.

The Emperor’s Fancy Clothes

And yet the Emperor presented a facade that Ezra, and presumably we, the audience, did not expect.

One of my favorite scenes of the finale is the Emperor’s attempted seduction of … Ezra? Boy that sentence did not go where I wanted it to go. I get Ezra’s technically legal but come on, Emperor my dude, I know you’re evil, but try not to be a creep about it.

Let’s try this again. I loved that the Emperor put on this veneer of the kindly old man in order to trick Ezra into opening the Temple. Why? Because it is the perfect exploration of the hollowness of the Empire, all in one handy bite-sized scene.

The Empire, as we see in this show and other media, presents itself as being on the side of civilization, of being on the side of law and order, safety and other junk like that. It is a message that it conveys to its citizens energetically – often with the energy of a blaster shot, or stun ray, or those weird hovering sticks those guards had. My point is that the Empire conveys its own image across to its people, no matter what its people actually know as fact. Ezra and Palpatine are a case in point. The Emperor conveyed himself as this harmless old man, this kind man who only wants to give Ezra what he wants most. In this, in adhering resolutely to this image, in not assessing the situation and judging that it may not have been the best fit, he made a profoundly stupid error. Considering this is the guy that wiped out the Jedi and maintained his own supremacy for nigh on 19 years, you’d think he’d be better at that. For shame, Palpy. For shame.

And it was stupid because not only has Ezra dedicated the vast majority of his life fighting this villain, was acutely aware of the cruelty, the maliciousness and the sheer plain evil of the Emperor and his empire, but also because Palpatine had unmasked himself to Ezra in the world between worlds just a short time previously.

So why do it? Well, for a start he’s got to try something. He just wouldn’t be the Emperor if he didn’t try, would he? But it’s more than that: by presenting this veneer, one that is wholly separate from his acts, it creates a chasm of emptiness, with which Ezra and those like him fill with their own ideas, beliefs, and misconceptions, and it is those very things that enables the otherwise good to slip up, and it gives the Emperor a chance to pounce on them at their most vulnerable and confused.

I Like It When A Not Very Well Thought Out Plan Comes Together

How exactly did Ezra, an orphan dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean galaxy far, far away outsmart one of the finest minds of the Imperial fleet? Honestly? Buggered if I know; my attempt to plot out Ezra’s plan looks like a word cloud had a baby with a Rorschach test.

But it might have something to do with a power greater than himself. No, not the Force, and not the mighty space whales (or squid? Whale-squid?) either, but rather something that had already undermined one Imperial mind in this finale: that bugaboo again, expectation.

(Okay, the Force may have had a little bit to do with it; without those Force visions, Ezra would have had no clue that he Thrawn would outwit and outmatch them again. It’s not like he’s been watching the same series as we have – oh right, yeah, he should totally have seen this coming. They all should have. What were they thinking?)

Poetically, Thrawn fell victim to his own hubris; his own belief that he had the full measurement of his opponents. Or, to put it more accurately, he had the full measurement of his adversaries, but he failed to fully comprehend them. This complacency is quite shocking – more shocking than those freaking space whales showing up (which, to be fair to Thrawn, I wouldn’t in a million years to have expected to happen. Kudos to whoever thought that up!) and I confess to not being able to fully comprehend it myself. Our Spectres have made it their habit to pull something out of their hat at the last second and then using it to accomplish their goal and/or evade capture. Why did not Thrawn foresee this happening? Not necessarily the space whales, but something happening? It is, I fear, an example of the writers not having the tightest script, but still. It is going to keep me up at night wondering just what, precisely, they and Thrawn were thinking.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

I cheered when Ezra left.

That’s not me being anti-Ezra. Indeed, Ezra, in this last series, has been quite tolerable and much more consistently written than we have previously seen.

No, I cheered at one of the last things he said to Sabine: ‘it’s all up to you now’. It was a simple sentiment but one that has vast connotations, and it is a sentiment that speaks to the very heart of Star Wars.

Whenever someone talks of Star Wars, one of the main things they discuss is the Jedi. It is a story about the Jedi running about and saving the galaxy from evil, they often say. While this is true, it’s somewhat unfair and certainly a shallow reading of the series, because it’s not just the Jedi, the special people, who are saving the galaxy all on their own. Though it is Luke calling on the Force to destroy the Death Star, it is also Han and Chewie who fly alongside him. It is Leia (who’s technically a non-Force sensitive at this point) thumbing her nose at the Empire and ensuring the safety of the Death Star plans, who loses her planet and her people in doing so. It is the countless pilots and soldiers who died on Hoth, on and above Endor. It is Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antilles, Tycho Celchu and Nien Nunb – and now Rex! – and all those other regular people who put in the hard work, who sweat and bleed and die and love and hope and fight for the better tomorrow, who earn it one step at a time, one fight at a time. It is not just Rey who saves the day. It is Finn, and Rose, and Poe and his black squadron, it is Vice Admiral Holdo and lieutenant Connix who are there right alongside her (figuratively speaking, don’t @ me). It is Sabine, Rex (again. Hi Rex! Please @ me), Hera and Zeb who are right next to Kanan and Ezra and Ahsoka, fighting for the liberation of Lothal and everyone else.

That is what Star Wars is, to me. Sure, you get the mythology, the legends, the mysticism. But it’s also regular people standing up and fighting against injustice and malice. So when I hear Ezra say those words it is a validation and reaffirmation that this belief is still at the heart of Star Wars, and that’s what I’ll miss most.

Oh and Sabine. Damn it, Filoni, I need more Sabine.

• Michael Dare

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