4x10 Jedi Night

[8.7/10] I should have known. There was a somber, spiritual quality to this one even before the ending. It’s hard to put a finger on, but it’s something like the moment before the “storm” hits in a Spielberg film, just the notion that there’s something big on the horizon, and this isn’t your average mission.

There’s a delicacy and sense of preparation for an ending when Kanan cuts his hair and shaves his beard, as though he is purifying himself, returning himself to a different state. I think part of my sense for Spielbergian vibes comes from the moment when Zeb launches our heroes onto their glider-based rescue mission, with the orchestra swelling and the glow of the sky shining down, giving the adventure a different sort of feeling. And of course there’s that final moment of sacrifice, of love, made real with a cloud of fire and the sounds of personal rapture.

He knew. He had to know. Or at least suspect. Throughout the episode, Kanan carries himself with a sense of peace, a sense of acceptance, that suggest his meditations made him aware of what the Force was guiding him toward. There’s a reason he pushes Ezra to lead. There’s a reason he embraces Hera like it’s the last time he’ll ever see her. There’s a reason he has an odd calm about this mission -- because he knew how it would end, if only in broad strokes.

And yet for any episode with so much momentousness to it, so great a sense of stakes and electricity in the air, “Jedi Night” is an oddly funny, charming episode. It turns over much of the half-hour to the playful, fraught, but ultimately heartfelt dynamic between Kanan and Hera, and let’s the show revel in that one last time before it’s seemingly fated to be ripped away.

Part of that comes from the fact that Hera is hopped up on truth serum from the interrogation droid (of A New Hope Fame) which leaves her loopy and a little more upfront. The way that Kanan returns her family’s sacred idol to her, and she deadpans to the effect that it’s not much of a gift if it’s something that already belongs to her, is the right sort of interpersonal comedy that works for me. The way she slurs and sways, a little bit, but shows utter trust in Kanan, brings out the humor, but also the complete charm of the two of them together.

Ezra and Sabine’s part of the episode feels much more perfunctory, if necessary to set up the plot mechanics of the episode. Watching the two of them sneak around Governor Price’s compound, comandeer an imperial vessel, and plan the latest of their ramshackle getaways has its moments, but it’s the same stuff we’ve seen from Rebels for ages now. It’s all done well enough, but it’s become standard operating procedure in a way that makes it feel like mere connective tissue for the more important business between Kanan and Hera.

The same goes for Rukh (literally) sniffing out the rebels. Rukh’s a pretty dull hatchetman, who provides, at most, a temporary obstacle for our heroes in a way that makes him seem like filler absent his stature as another character reclaimed from the old Extended Universe. His fight with Kanan has some juice to it, but on the whole, he too feels like something thrown in to raise the stakes rather than something the narrative demanded.

Still, what separates “Jedi Night” from a standard episode is the way, despite that perfectly solid but less-than-overwhelming material, heightens both the atmosphere of the episode and the connection between Hera and Kanan. The show has played up the pair’s semi-forbidden romance for much of this season, with varying results, but here it turns over much of the episode’s runtime to just letting the two be with one another, converse with one another, fight with another, laugh with one another, and ultimately love one another.

It’s the kiss we (or at least I) didn’t know we wanted so badly. After years of keeping things ambiguous or actively teasing them, Hera professes her love for Kanan, and Kanan returns her affections. The Ghost crew is characteristically and sweetly unsurprised, and it’s a well done culmination of all that there’s been between the two of them over the course of the series. The show earns this moment, both from the years of partnership we’ve witnessed, and for the connection the show puts on display here.

But in heartbreaking, Whedonesque fashion, the show turns such a beautiful moment into a tragic one. Kanan and Hera’s kiss takes place on top of an imperial fuel tank, which Governor Pryce orders blown up as soon as they’re in range. That leaves Kanan using his force abilities to hold the fireball at bay just long enough for the rest of our heroes to get away. He uses the same abilities to force Hera onto their commandeered ship and out of the way of the blast. His compatriots are left to watch him be consumed in flame, like so many Jedi past and future.

And yet, it isn’t sad exactly. It is affecting, certainly, and powerful undoubtedly. But that sense of peace, of acceptance, from Kanan diffuses out through the television screen. He was prepared for this. He has embraced it. And as heartbreaking as it is that he gets but one moment to embrace his feels for Hera fully, he ends his life doing what he did best with the person he loved. He got that moment; they got that moment, and the episode pays tribute to all that led up to it before it has to end after such a fleeting existence.

It is a bold move to (at least seemingly) kill off one of your main characters with six episodes still to come in the series. Rebels was always going to have to deal with why Kanan’s Jedi abilities weren’t around to help Luke or the rebellion, and this answers the question in a satisfying fashion. But what make it satisfying is that the show doesn’t go for something over the top, or dramatic, or full of endless battles.

Instead, it goes for the somber and peaceful. The score does much of the work for the ending, but the imagery is one of a man who has accepted his fate, who loves his friends, and loves one of them in particular, but who is ready for what’s to come. “Jedi Night” feels different from other Rebels episodes from the very beginning, something that should have clued us into the series-shaking change in the offing, but which makes Kanan’s exit appropriately rich, meaningful, and spiritual, not just dramatic.