Ezra, Ahsoka’s central mystery, is Star Wars’ most compelling baby Jedi

polygon.com:

Disney Plus’ Ahsoka series was destined to bring in fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the 2008 animated series that introduced Ahsoka Tano, Jedi apprentice to Anakin Skywalker. But even those fans might be mystified when it comes to the rest of Ahsoka, which is continuing the story of the rather more recent animated series Star Wars Rebels, and its starring Jedi apprentice, Ezra Bridger.

In Ahsoka, Ezra is missing and everybody is looking for him, good guys and bad guys alike. If you feel like you’re missing something, read on to find out exactly who Ezra is; how he got lost with the Empire’s second-most conniving evil genius, Grand Admiral Thrawn; and how Star Wars: Rebels gave Ezra one of the more satisfying Jedi-in-training arcs of on-screen Star Wars.

[Ed. note: This piece will contain… pretty big spoilers for Star Wars Rebels.]

The thing to know about Star Wars Rebels — which ran on Disney XD from 2014 through 2018 and is now available to stream on Disney Plus — is that it was very much a family show. The series centered itself on the close-knit Spectres, an isolated rebel cell local to the planet of Lothal. Most of the Spectres are around and kicking in Ahsoka — Mandalorian heiress Sabine Wren is teaming with Ahsoka in the search for Ezra, with pilot Hera Syndulla and the fussy droid Chopper on display in the show’s teasers. Zeb even got a cameo in The Mandalorian.

Ezra was the youngest member of the Spectres, an orphaned Lothalian street rat who ran into them a few years before the fall of the Empire and — well, you know this story. Cynical street kid meets idealistic freedom fighters and wham, bam, that’s a found family.

Ezra has his own special talent: He can essentially talk to animals. Rebels went deep on