REBELS REWATCH: Season 1, Episode 8: Empire Day

It’s Empire Day (isn’t every day basically Empire Day, I mean is the Empire just totes laid back about its tyranny all the other days of the year?). It’s also Ezra’s birthday, but nobody else knows that. Not that he doesn’t want them to know. He won’t say anything, but he is just dying for someone to ask him what’s wrong and why he’s so glum. Kanan is trying to teach him some Jedi stuff which apparently involves throwing rocks at cats. Ok, then I guess I really was training to be a Jedi when I was 8 years old. Ezra gets attacked by a feral house cat and then wants to kill it with a lightsaber; and he started it!



The gang gathers at a cantina where Ezra learns that the Empire is searching for the Rodian Tseebo, an old friend of Ezra’s family. We’ll get back to that, but first the Empire Day Parade!! Minister Tua is the M.C. while Commandant Aresko is also there; Baron Valen Rudor is going to demo the TIE Advanced v1. It’s a big deal, and it looks like the whole planet has turned out. Yep, all 30 of them are there!



The Rebels gonna blow that thing up, though! Kanan almost gets caught planting explosives, but he plays it off by acting like he’s stoned which then morphs into a Randy “Macho Man” Savage type voice. The TIE blows and Agent Kallus and the Grand Inquisitor come out of the woodwork to join the pursuit of the Rebels.



Ezra, Kanan, and Sabine end up hiding out at Ezra’s old house where they learn from Ezra that his parents were taken by the Empire 8 years ago. They also find Tseebo there. He has been fitted with cybernetic implants and has valuable intel about the Empire. They hi-jack an Imperial Troop Transport (SWEET!) and call Hera to rendezvous with them.



Kallus is in pursuit in another transport while the Inquisitor takes to the skies. What follows is actually a pretty good chase/fight sequence with the Imperials presenting themselves as a real threat. Of course, our heroes do manage to get away with Tseebo in tow. On board the Ghost, Tseebo manages to shake off his cybernetic brain fog long enough to tell Ezra he knows what happened to his parents; and then, the dreaded “to be continued”...



Rewatch? Oh yeah. This episode is actually way better than I remembered it being. It’s an Ezra episode, but it’s a good Ezra episode with some nice backstory. It explicitly states that season one occurs 15 years after ROTS and that Ezra is 15. You see the Inquisitor in his ship and wearing his helmet for what I believe is the first time. It picks back up with characters and stuff from previous episodes and sets up what’s to come. And, there is just so much hot Imperial Troop Transport action. Good stuff.

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

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