The 10 Most Essential Episodes Of 'Star Wars Rebels'

Now that Disney+ is available, the entire series of Star Wars Rebels is streaming there. When it premiered in 2014 on the Disney Channel, Rebels offered brand new Star Wars stories during a slightly fraught period: Disney had acquired the galaxy far, far away and The Clone Wars series was cancelled (a cancelation that lasted six years before its final season was announced for February 2020).

Set five years before the Original Trilogy, Rebels focuses on a family of ragtag rebels: Hera Syndulla (Vanessa Marshall), the Twi'lek pilot who runs the freighter known as The Ghost, a Jedi in hiding who goes by Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Zeb (Steven Blum), an ape-like alien guard, Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar), a Mandalorian who an affinity for colorful graffiti, and later a young orphan who becomes the Jedi's apprentice, Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray). 

Here are essential episodes, some that yield larger implications of the Star Wars universe...and some that are just really, really good.

But first, here are the Honorable Mentions that were considered but didn't quite make the final list:

• "Out of Darkness"

• "Gathering Forces"

• "The Protector of Concord Dawn"

• "Zero Hour"

• "Homecoming"

• "The Honorable Ones"

• "The Mystery of Chopper Base"

• "The Holocrons of Fate"

• "Secret Cargo"

• "Family Reunion and Farewell"

And now, let's move on to the list.

The Ghost crew finds three retired clones living on the outskirts of life. And Clone Wars veteran, Rex (Dee Bradley Baker), will end up becoming a worthy addition to the Rebellion. Fans of the clones could breathe a sigh of relief that some clones did manage to bypass their programming and not betray their fellow Jedi during the Great Jedi Purge.

After the reveal of Ahsoka Tano and their rescue from the wider rebellion, the Ghost crew is transitioning into the militaristic scale of the Rebel Alliance. This season two opener hammers in that nothing is the same anymore. Darth Vader has arrived on Lothal and Ezra's old house is permanently destroyed.

Kanan, Ahsoka, and Ezra head to the Lothal temple for some answers–and tests. Kanan ascends to Jedi knighthood, Ahsoka Tano faces a terrible version of her master berating the abandonment of her Jedi life, and Ezra converses with Master Yoda.

"Legends of Lasat" is an outlier in terms of what we learn about the Force—or in Zeb's Lasat culture, the "Ashla." Zeb comes to terms with his past as an Honor Guard and guides his lost people to their homeworld. It also spins a prophecy cliche into something refreshingly flexible that serves Zeb's conflict. To the swelling composition of Kevin Kiner, a Force-spirituality echoes throughout this episode.

When Sabine Wren ends up with the Darksaber, a Jedi-Mandalorian lightsaber with a fraught history, she faces a torrent of thoughts, her past in the Imperial Academy, the family who has abandoned her, the found family she cannot let down, and her dual heritage. Kanan weights out how to teach a non-Force-sensitive Mandalorian the ways of the lightsaber, in some ways trying to subvert his experience with Ezra, but her Mandalorian steeliness and cockiness clash with Kanan's Jedi ways. The multilayers do not stop at this episode.

It also blows the Chosen-One or "Girl With a Great Calling" trope out of the water, refuting the notion that Sabine is obligated to enact a burdensome grand destiny by holding an invaluable Darksaber. While Sabine is willing to take the emotional burdens, her family reassures her that she can back out. When they engage in a traditional Mandalorian bow to her, they respect her right to say "no."