Star Wars Rebels Season 4 Finale Review - A Fool's Hope/Family Reunion and Farewell

And so we come to the end of a journey. Back in August 2014 I started Star Wars Month, a month dedicated to Star Wars Material: movies, tv shows and cr*ppy lego shorts. Just as I did, Star Wars was preparing for its big return with the Force Awakens. But before then, a little kids’ show in Disney XD cropped up. I decided to review it, episode by episode, and whilst other shows failed to meet the standard I require to be invested, this show never dropped that far, at least not consistently. Sure the quality varied from episode to episode, I’d argue this season gave us some of the most consistent quality I’ve seen, not a single episode scoring below a 7, and I’ll tell you right now, that’s not changing with these final ones. This show had 2 purposes, the first was to the show the foundations of the Rebel Alliance, an arc that basically concluded in the last series and secondly to see a rag-tag group of rebels fighting the good fight with the end goal of liberating Lothal, and here we are, let’s take a look at the final episodes of the show. Spoilers will be covered, so here we go

A fool’s hope

So, it’s time to bring the family together, bring in everyone we’ve met, except the rebel pilots (but I have trouble telling these kids apart so it’s hard to tell.) They may have scored a victory but the battle isn’t over.

Governor Pryce is now desperate to end the rebels, her failure with the fuelling Depot means that Thrawn is likely to kill her upon his return if she doesn’t have the rebels, this combined with her failings in the season 3 finale that allowed the rebels to destroy the Interdictor and escape their old base alive.

At the core of the show is Ezra Bridger, we’ve been watching the journey largely from his perspective, it’s him we’ve been watching grow and I know he’s not liked by everyone but there’s no denying that he is not the same person he was in the opening episodes. The finale is his plan, and it goes almost entirely his way, even against an adversary like Thrawn.

But back to Pryce, her failings make her desperate so when she gets contacted by Ryder who offers their location in exchange for amnesty she takes it as genuine and rushes in without mind for the idea it might be a trap. She’s still cocky, believing the Empire has the Rebels outgunned, and it proves to be for most of the episode as every time a stormtrooper is defeated, 10 more seem to show up and none of the heavy weapons seem to work past an initial burst.

Hera somehow got out of the blockade again and is summoning everyone she can get hold of for reinforcements. They say the battle for the Death Star plans on Scariff was the first major victory for the Rebel Alliance, so for the group to pull through without disrupting this major bit of continuity, they have to procure a rag-tag team who aren’t technically the Rebel Alliance.

That means the return of Rex, Gregor and Wolfe, two of whom haven’t been seen since the episode that introduced them, Kallus of course and in an interesting twist, Hondo, who’s greed was switched off for the entire finale. I didn’t know you could do that with Hondo but it works. Along with Hondo is Melch and… are they kind of implying a romantic relationship between the two? Also Mart, who's you might remember was related to Commander Sato, who died in the last season finale... yeah, he seems to have forgotten also.

They use some interesting means to slip past the blockade back to Lothal and provide the rebels with some air support. Even then though, it’s not over, the stormtroopers still have them outnumbered and are tearing through their ranks but the Lothwolves arrive to help and good grief the Lothwolves are powerful, tearing through the stormtroopers like they were nothing. I guess they built Ezra’s connection with animals as a literal all-purpose deus-ex machina, we’ll get back to that in the next episode.

With the rebels having fought off the assault, and now with Commander Pryce as their prisoner, the rebels look to capital in the hopes of freeing it from the Empire once and for all.

I LOVE IT, sure the ending is a little anti-climactic but the Lothwolves have been a big part of the season, so it’s good to see them get some action finally.

Rating 8.5/10

Family Reunion and Farewell

So, it’s finally come, a two part conclusion to the whole series that wraps up all its major plot beats, explains why Ezra was unavailable during the original trilogy, and gets rid of Thrawn, even if not permanently.

What’s the betting Lothal would’ve been a Death Star target if the Death Stars ever survived longer than 5 minutes? Just putting that out there.

Because the episode is basically non-stop action from beginning to near the end, there’s not a massive amount to say about it. I’m totally shipping Hondo and Melch though. Thrawn finally comes back and he’s back to being ruthless as all hell, bombing the city to force a surrender from Ezra and Ezra alone.

I’ll give it this, the reactions from Hera, Sabine and Chopper were really touching. It’s a shame Zeb didn’t get a moment but I really liked how it went down. The same can’t be said for what happens after the surrender and how they ultimately involve the Emporer.

From one hand, it provides final closure to Ezra’s arc as he is faced with the temptation of his parents and finally rejects it and puts an end to the Emperor’s plans on the other, I think we already dealt with this well enough in the last episode, and the idea that part of the temple was moved onto Thrawn’s ship is a bit silly, as is the stupid red ninjas with force-sticks.

I also, feel like there should’ve been a few more causalities, only one of the clones dies in the entire thing. Maybe they should’ve stuck with the death of Melch, and how did Ezra just shrug off a blaster to the shoulder?

Sabine shines in this finale too, she puts her absolute trust in Ezra and he does the same with her. Hera seems to be standing down more as a leader, maybe it’s still the death of Kanan weighing on her. Anyway, Sabine’s plan saves the people of Lothal from another bombardment ordered by Thrawn.

Rukh, he was barely worth mentioning in the last episode and he’s barely worth mentioning in this one. Cool that he went out fighting Zeb but he never shone in quite the way I think they wanted him to in the show. He went out fighting but I never considered him a threat the same way I did the inquisitors back in the earlier seasons.

So, the ending itself, you remember the Purrgil from an old episode in season 2, the one I described as a glorified filler episode. Well, they’re back and serve basically the same purpose as the Lothwolves do, smashing their way through Star Destroyers left and right. It was a nice callback and had a tiny bit of buildup but even so… The victory does have a cost, Ezra and Thrawn are taken to regions unknown and that’s why they don’t partake in the original trilogy.

So, we end with an epilogue set after the defeat of the Empire and Sabine getting yet another haircut. She remarks how the Empire never attacked Lothal again, I suppose it was kind of pointless seeing as they have no use for it now except for as target practice. And she joins up with a returned Ahsoka to seek out Ezra wherever he may be. Also, Hera had a child, good for her.

It’s a touching little send-off to the show, whilst not perfect by any means, it’s perfectly in line with the series overall. The show didn’t deliver everything I wanted this season but as a conclusion it’s satisfying enough.

Rating 8/10