The following story is going to get into spoilers for the latest episode of The Mandalorian, episode five. If you haven’t yet caught up with the episode, and you want to remain unspoiled, then stop reading and bounce back over to another story on the site.
Star Wars television shows do an excellent job of reminding us they are part of the larger Star Wars galaxy. Moreso than the films do (or did, since there hasn’t been a film in four years now). The Mandalorian will casually return to Jabba the Hutt’s palace to show Boba Fett taking over where the crime lord once sat. Or Luke Skywalker, in the post Return of the Jedi era, will appear in an episode so he can train Grogu. But the shows are going the extra mile to also include characters who we have only seen in animation before, be it Cade Bane from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or Rosario Dawson’s amazing transformation into Ahsoka Tano.
Well, the fun continued on the new episode of The Mandalorian, and it’s getting me very excited for the possibility of a Star Wars Rebels reunion on the upcoming Ahsoka television show, once it lands on Disney+ later this year.
After pirates return to the planet Nevarro and start chaos, Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) sends a distress signal that’s picked up by X-Wing pilot Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). As the New Republic soldier contemplates action, he’s joined by Garazb Orrelios, better known as Zeb, from the animated Star Wars Rebels series. I WANT TO DRINK AND HANG OUT IN THE X-WING PILOT BAR!
Zeb has a long history of contributing to the Rebellion, having witnessed the destruction of his home world of Lasan. During Star Wars Rebels, he piloted the ship Ghost, and teamed with Jedi-in-training Ezra Briger (after the young man poached goods that Zeb, Kanan Jarrus, and Sabine Wren themselves were trying to steal). Seeing Zeb in live action was a very pleasant shock, though I suppose one I should have expected… because his colleagues Ezra and Sabine are about to make their live-action debuts in Ahsoka.
We think, at this point, that the upcoming Ahsoka show is going to be running concurrent to Season 3 of The Mandalorian, giving us an opportunity for a Star Wars Rebels reunion in live-action. Star Wars is getting the band back together! Probably. Why else would The Mandalorian bring Zeb back to be a small supporting role in an episode that had so much going on, if not to remind the audience that Zeb’s out there… right before two of his closest collaborators, Ezra and Sabine, are about to get their live-action debut?
It has been thrilling to see Rosario Dawson breathe life into Ahsoka for her upcoming show, and episodes of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. I think it will be equally thrilling to see our Star Wars Rebels friends together again, and this time in live-action. At least, that’s why I think we saw Zeb on screen again in The Mandalorian. I’m excited to be proven right, sometime soon.
