Warning: gigantic spoilers ahead for the three-part series finale of Star Wars Rebels. If you haven't watched the episodes yet, feel free to check out some of our non-spoilery articles until you get the chance to watch.
One of the longest-running mysteries of Star Wars Rebels has been of what happened to the crew of the Ghost and their allies that don't turn up in the original Star Wars trilogy. Over the years of Rebels, the extended Ghost family became veterans of countless battles and quite devoted to fighting the Empire, but none of them (with one possible exception) appeared in any of the original movies. The death of Kanan naturally had some fans concerned that more of the good guys would be killed off by the end of the series finale, and we only knew for sure that Hera and Chopper would survive. Now that the finale has aired, we know what happened and why Ezra and Co. didn't appear in the original trilogy.
The series finale ended on an epilogue that explained exactly what almost all of the characters ended up doing following the end of the war against the Empire. The one exception was Ezra. What happened to Ezra was probably one that no fan could have possibly predicted. Instead of killing him off a la Kanan to set the stage for Luke to be "the last of the Jedi" known in the galaxy as of Return in the Jedi, Star Wars Rebels saw Ezra embrace his destiny in a very Ezra way. As part of a secret plan to destroy the blockade over Lothal, Ezra asked Mart to send a broadcast through space that would draw the whale-like hyperspace-traveling purgill to the planet to take out the Imperial ships. The purgill grabbed the ship containing both Thrawn and Ezra, then jumped through hyperspace to an unknown location. Who knows? Maybe they zoomed off to the Unknown Regions. Ezra hadn't returned by the end of the epilogue.
As for Sabine, she didn't return to the Rebellion or return to Mandalore to help with her people's war there, as some theorized. Instead, she chose to stay on Lothal and prepare for the Empire to strike back at the planet following their victory over the Imperial forces. After all, despite the losses of a few characters, the Ghost crew and their pals did manage to liberate the planet in what had to be an embarrassing fiasco for the Empire. The odds were that the Empire would return with greater numbers to try and retake the planet and punish the people who lived there. The epilogue did reveal that the attack on Lothal never happened, but it was clear that Sabine stayed on Lothal for the duration of the war.
Sabine was still on Lothal after the war ended and when the time came for her to go and find Ezra. Luckily, she'll have some help on this quest by a certain somebody who was recently revealed to be very much alive: Ahsoka. She arrived on Lothal, cloaked and looking as mysterious ever, apparently for the purpose of joining Sabine and finding Ezra. Also, Sabine cut off almost all of her hair.
As was established by Rogue One and the Forces of Destiny web series, Hera did return to the larger rebellion and fought in both the Battle of Scarif and the Battle of Endor. Her survival to at least the end of Return of the Jed\_i_ was something we already knew, but Star Wars Rebels managed to throw in a huge twist for Hera that few of us could have seen coming: Hera had become a mom. Rebels wasn't explicit about the fact that the little boy named Jacen Syndulla was Hera's biological son, but the show went about as far to establish Jacen as Hera and Kanan's child as could be expected of a Disney XD series. After all, Hera and Kanan weren't exactly married. Sabine's narration had this to say about young Jacen circa Return of the Jedi:
By that time, there had been a new member added to the crew of the Ghost: Spectre 7, Jacen Syndulla. Born to fly, just like his mother. And we all know what his father was like.
Sure, young Jacen looked like a human with green hair rather than a half-Twi'lek, but there's no conceivable way Hera could have had a child who looked no more than three or four years old with anybody except for Kanan. Apparently they had more alone time in Season 4 than any of us knew!
Like Sabine, Zeb seemed quite determined to stay the course on Lothal in case the Empire returned. He went so far as to dismiss the suggestion that perhaps the Rebel Alliance could help them hold the planet, arguing that since they liberated Lothal on their own, they could hold Lothal on their own with no help from the Alliance. His determination not to involve the Alliance allows Rebels to end on a high note with the liberation of Lothal without contradicting the A New Hope opening crawl that established the theft of the Death Star plans as the Rebellion's first real victory against the Empire. The victory on Lothal belonged to Ezra and the Ghost crew, not the Alliance.
After the war, Zeb took Kallus through the hidden hyperspace lane to the planet Lira San to show Kallus that he wasn't responsible for destroying all the Lasat aside from a few survivors back when he was still an agent for the ISB. It was a surprising happily-ever-after for two characters who never should have even gotten along given how they started back in Season 1, especially since they were both high on many fans' lists of likely characters to die.
For more on the Star Wars Rebels series finale, take a look at our rundown of 7 big questions the finale finally answered. The end of Star Wars Rebels doesn't mean the end of Star Wars content for the foreseeable future. Another movie is on the way in the not-too-distant future, and a live-action TV show will finally happen as well. For what you can watch sooner rather than later, be sure to take a look at our midseason TV premiere guide. Don't forget to swing by our picks for Star Wars` shows that should rise up now that Rebels is done.
