REBELS REWATCH: Season 1, Episode 5: Rise of the Old Masters

We open with Ezra trying to learn some Jedi stuff from Kanan. It’s not going well. For some reason Kanan has chosen to make him practice single handstands and blindly deflecting (juice cartons?) on top of the Ghost while it is very high above Lothal. Who are we kidding? We know why. Even if only subconsciously, Kanan is clearly anticipating a horrible “training accident”. Sure enough, with a little help from that psychopath Chopper, Ezra falls. Kanan, refusing to let the Force and nature take their course as they clearly want to, pulls him back up with the Force.



Back in the ship Kanan and Ezra are both quite frustrated with each other. Kanan feels he may be inadequate to the task of training Ezra. I don’t think that makes Special K a bad teacher or Jedi. Heck, you can have a PhD in quantum physics and be tenured at MIT, that doesn’t mean you have to be good at teaching chimps. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid because you can’t get the chimp to understand . Anyway, while listening to the Old Tyme Empire Radio Hour, dissident Senator Gall Trayvis cuts in and announces that Order 66 survivor Luminara Unduli is being held by the Empire at the Spire on Stygeon Prime.

Kanan sees a golden opportunity to pawn Ezra off on somebody else and they hatch a scheme to rescue her. Sabine seems to know a lot about the Spire; I don’t know, she was probably the architect of the thing or something. They infiltrate the Spire, with Hera waiting as getaway driver while the Ghost is attached to the prison wall. Despite Ezra’s best efforts to not follow Kanan’s orders, he and Kanan make it to Unduli’s cell while Sabine and Zeb hang back. They find Luminara but something seems a little off when she passes through a solid wall. Kanan didn’t know her too well back in the day, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t remember her ever doing that. In a really cool and pretty creepy reveal, Kanan and Ezra see that Unduli is actually long dead, her remains now staring back at them.

They must now fight their way past the Grand Inquisitor, he knew the siren call of rescuing a Jedi master would be too much to resist. A vicious lightsaber duel ensues, with GI continually trying to lure Ezra to the Daahhk Side. Ezra and Kanan eventually meet back up with Zeb and Sabine and make it back to the Ghost with some help from some creatures called Tibidee who were hanging around the ship because they want to make out with it. The crew return to Lothal where Ezra and Kanan decide to rededicate themselves to the master/student relationship. By the way, this episode was the first to mention that Kanan’s master was Depa Billaba.

Rewatch? Yes. This is actually a pretty cool and important season 1 episode. Worth it just for the Kanan/Inquisitor fight and the references to Luminara and Depa.

All four season of Rebels are currently streaming on the Disney+ service.

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