FULL SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 BELOW
Star Wars Rebels season 1 left viewers begging for more and, while the wait for season 2 will be infuriating, the wait will be more than worth it if every future episode can deliver like this one did.
After seeing the paint job Sabine had given a TIE Fighter, and an explosive scene to get the crew aboard Tarkin’s star destroyer, Kanan is freed and put face to face with The Inquisitor. It was one of those moments we had been waiting for all season – good vs evil, blue vs red, Jedi vs Sith. The Inquisitor’s double sided, spinning lightsaber has wowed us since its reveal, leaving us to wonder how someone so powerful with a lightsaber so intimidating can be defeated. Ezra has a brief appearance but is easily overpowered by his nemesis. After waking up from a nasty fall, he watches hopelessly as Kanan and The Inquisitor duel, a scene heavily reminiscent of The Phantom Menace’s climactic fight with Darth Maul. Kanan quickly utilised Ezra’s dropped lightsaber to give us a fight worth remembering. Using the blaster function of Ezra’s make shift lightsaber/gun, Kanan holds his own for the majority of the fight, despite having had to run from the deadly Sith in previous encounters. The fight included a lot of jumping and acrobatics, but was an absolute thrill ride from start to finish, until The Inquisitors surprising death.
I personally did not see it coming, I imagined him being the main villain for the entire series, dying in the final season finale after spectacular episode long battle. But it made a bit more sense once the we reached the end credits. He was never fully fleshed out, similar to Darth Maul, and I feel that because of this, he may in fact return in the future, where we will learn more about his back story and his motivations for keeping the empire at large. If he is acttually dead and will not be making a return, I think he still provided a terrifying antagonist for the season, and he will be missed.
But as scary as The Inquisitor was, he pales in comparison to the character revealed moment before the credits rolled. I sincerely wish I had not seen the Darth Vader reveal prior to watching this episode, but hearing his iconic breath, and watching him walk off his ship surrounded by armed soldiers (as we have seen him do so many times before) still sent chills knowing we have more Vader to look forward to. It makes me wonder if season two will go in a much darker direction, as we all know Vader shows no mercy, and will obviously survive the following few seasons until it potentially overtakes the original six films and run parallel to the new trilogy starting this December.
The final twist in the tale came with the reveal of Ahsoka being the Fulcrum, the mysterious voice contacting the rebels on and around Lothal. As a fan favourite from The Clone Wars series, she is a welcome addition to our team of rebels and it will be very interesting to see how she integrates into the group.
Season one of Star Wars Rebels delivered solid episode after solid episode. It stayed quite small in scale, something I hope the series improves on in the future, but always enticed viewers to come back for more. I really hope that it lasts long enough to coincide with the upcoming films (like Marvel is currently doing with it’s film and TV franchises), season two has already been confirmed, so we can only take it one step at a time, but I can’t wait to see what the Star Wars universe has to offer us next.