Star Wars Rebels: 4 Things We Learned From The Season 4 Premiere

The latest (and last) season of Star Wars Rebels kicked off with an explosive confrontation between the Imperial Army and the Heroes of Mandalore in an episode called, uh, “Heroes of Mandalore.”

As the new season barrels toward a conclusion, approaching the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and A New Hope, there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied and a lot of setup that needs to be established.

Rebels mastermind Dave Filoni already promised the show would be moving at a quickened pace and will be a lot more serialized than the previous years, which mostly consisted of stand-alone adventures that fed into more hijinx.

There are still a lot of questions that fans what answered, such as if Ahsoka Tano is still alive, what happened to Bendu, who is flying the Ghost in Rogue One, and will Chopper ever truly be happy?

The two-part season premiere did not answer any of these questions directly, but it did offer a lot of teases for the future of the franchise and what it means in the greater Star Wars universe.

Here are some of the biggest moments and reveals that happened in “Heroes of Mandalore.”

Hera/Kanan

Will they or won’t they? Fans have been wanting an answer to the question for almost as long as Rebels has been on TV.

The “mom” and “dad” of the Ghost crew have offered their friends countless words of wisdom, guiding them all to become better people. They’ve also helped each other.

But fans have yet to see the two admit that they love each other, even if everyone else around them can see it.

This episode sees Kanan prod at Hera’s distance when she implores that she needs them back with the growing Rebellion. When Kanan asks if they’re going to talk about their relationship, Hera deflects.

We know there’s going to be SOME kind of resolution to this romantic subplot, but it’s hard to tell at this point if Hera and Kanan will get a happy ending. With Hera (possibly) fighting in the Battle of Scarif and the lack of Jedi’s in the future of the timeline, we might not see them together for long…

Lack of Mandalorians

Boba Fett is one of the few Mandalorians who appears in the original trilogy. While the easy explanation is “Mandalore wasn’t really a ‘thing’ when those movies came out,” it’s further complicated with the Mandalorian people, planet, and culture being fleshed out in both

 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Needless to say, they’ve become an important part of the canon over the last decade. So what happened to them all?

While there could be a simple explanation for it all, such as “they’re all hanging out on Mandalore,” the latest episode of Rebels posits the possibility of a terrible end for the planet of warriors.

The plot of the episode’s second part consists of the Rebels and Mandalorians attempting to destroy a weapon Sabine Wren invented while attending the Imperial Academy.

The weapon was an arc reactor that specifically targeted Mandalorian armor, which is hugely important in their culture. Dubbed “the Duchess,” (take that, Satine) the weapon would instantly vaporize any Mandalorian it came into contact with.

While they end up destroying the weapon and deleting the plans so it cannot be recreated, it could always pop back up again.

Did this episode foreshadow the end of Mandalore as we know it?

Sabine’s Role

When Sabine left the Ghost crew and the Rebellion in Season Three in order to help stabilize order and fight the Empire on Mandalore, fans were worried that she’d have a reduced role in the show’s future.


But after a few episodes away, Sabine and her family returned to help defend against Grand Admiral Thrawn’s assault Atollon.

An arc focused on her character and family kicked off Season Three, revealing that she’s still involved with the Ghost crew and the Rebellion while remaining committed to her duties on Mandalore.

But by the episode’s end, she relinquished the Darksaber to Bo-Katan, Satine’s sister and the rightful ruler of Mandalore. The people unite under her, kicking of a new era on the planet, and it seems like Sabine has recommitted herself to the Rebellion.

But will her loyalties divide her attention once again?

Thrawn

Each season before tended to focus on a new villain plaguing the heroes, but Season Four sticks with Thrawn.

The Grand Admiral delivered a devastating defeat to the Phoenix Squadron in the last Season Finale, and he’s out to finish the job. We know he’ll be aided by his bodyguard/assassin from the Extended Universe, with Rukh making his first appearance in the new canon.

And he’s also attempting to some new tactics in his fight against the Rebellion. He knows Sabine developed the superweapon capable of slaughtering Mandalorians, and he’ll likely want to capture her and force her to recreate it for the Imperial Army.

He has a goal and he’s cunning enough to achieve it, but we all know the show has to have something of a happy ending. What does this mean for Thrawn’s future? And will he survive to appear in the future?

Star Wars Rebels airs Mondays on Disney XD.

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