'Star Wars Rebels' Shocking Death Could Mean Someone Else Is Next

A major character death finally happened on Star Wars Rebels, but this wasn’t one of the bad guys. It looks like the final season of the animated pre- A New Hope series is cleaning house a little bit. Which means, after this, someone else is probably next.

Spoilers ahead for Star Wars Rebels season 4, “Jedi Night” and “Dume.”

On Monday, Star Wars Rebels aired two episodes back-to-back, kicking off the beginning of the end of its final season. And at the end of the episode “Jedi Night,” Kanan sacrificed himself to save his fellow Rebels, including his true love, Hera Syndulla. And in doing so, Rebels fixed one of its looming continuity problems.

Despite all the new Star Wars media since 2014, the vast majority of what fans have been getting are still prequels. From Rogue One, to Solo, and of course, Rebels, all the events of these stories have to reasonably match up with the classic trilogy. Which partially explains why Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight had to die on Rebels. The existence of a fully competent Jedi Knight assisting the Rebellion just a few years prior to A New Hope meant that Kanan was in trouble pretty much from the start of the series in 2014. We know Luke is the last of the Jedi after Yoda dies in Return of the Jedi, which could only mean Kanan (and Ezra) are not around by that time.

Now that Kanan is dead, does that mean Ezra is next? During the run of The Clone Wars, fans speculated for years that Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano would die, but the show side-stepped all that by simply having Ahsoka quit the Jedi Order instead. Something similar could happen with Kanan’s Jedi apprentice, Ezra Bridger. If Ezra doesn’t die in season 4 of Rebels, then the only way for continuity to be satisfied is for him to…stop being a Jedi.

The trailers for the last batch of Rebels episodes featured the return of the Emperor Palpatine, and strongly suggest that the Emperor will try to turn Ezra to the Dark Side of the Force. Will Palpatine be successful? It would be pretty weird for a popular children’s series to end with its teenage protagonist becoming evil, or dying. But then again, Star Wars has gone to darker places before.

The final episodes of Rebels will air on Sundays on Disney XD at 9 p.m. Eastern. The last episode will air on March 5 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern and will be an hour and a half long.