Ezra Bridger’s association with Hera Syndulla’s Lothal rebel cell began as just another day stealing in Capital City’s market. Ezra found himself drawn to a man in the street, though he didn’t know why. Curious, he watched the man interact with a Lasat male and a Mandalorian girl – who used a detonator to destroy an Imperial speeder bike. In the confusion, Ezra commandeered an Imperial shipment and raced off, pursued by both the rebels and a flight of TIE fighters. The Ghost rescued him from the TIEs, and Ezra leapt aboard the ship with the stolen goods. He assumed the rebels were just another pack of thieves, but they surprised him by bringing food they’d stolen to destitute farmers pushed off their land by the Empire.

Ezra didn’t know quite what to make of these rebels, but old habits died hard: Left alone aboard the Ghost, he wandered the ship’s cabins and took a strange cube and hilt from Kanan’s quarters. Kanan caught him with the lightsaber and told him to get out, but Ezra still had that odd cube.

The rebels sought to free a ship filled with Wookiee slaves, but didn’t know they were walking into a trap set by Kallus, an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau. After hesitating at first, Ezra agreed to Hera’s request that he try and save the others. But he was caught by Kallus and left behind by Zeb. His new friends had apparently abandoned him too.

Kallus stashed Ezra in a cell aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer, hoping to use him as bait to catch the other rebels. While imprisoned, Ezra unwittingly used the Force to open the strange cube from Kanan’s quarters – and found himself looking at an old Jedi message. He managed to escape his cell and hid in the warship’s ventilation system, where he overheard that the Ghost was returning to save him. After a brief fight with Kallus and his troops, Ezra and the rebels managed to escape.

Ezra had heard something else while hiding aboard the Star Destroyer: The Empire was bringing Wookiees to the spice mines of Kessel as slave labor. Ezra and his fellow rebels freed the Wookiees and eluded Kallus again. Ezra then returned the cube he’d stolen to Kanan, who explained he’d been able to open it because he was strong with the Force. He offered to train Ezra as a Jedi, and the boy agreed.

On a mission to steal Imperial weapons on the planet Garel, Ezra used his Force-enhanced jumping ability to get into a docking bay. There, he discovered the weapons were T-Z ion disruptors, banned by the Senate after being used in ruthless Imperial crackdowns on rebellious planets.

Agent Kallus tracked the rebels and the disruptors back to Lothal, and dueled with Zeb. The Imperial agent was about to kill the Lasat, but Ezra instinctively called on the Force. In a startling display of raw power, he used the Force to shove Kallus away and save Zeb’s life.

Zeb was glad to be alive, but annoyed that he was now in Ezra’s debt. The two constantly got on each other’s nerves in the cabin they shared, with Chopper exacerbating their quarrels with relentless pranks. A disgusted Hera sent Zeb and Ezra to the market in Capital City, hoping to teach them to work together. The lesson proved effective, though Hera got more than she bargained for when the two stole a TIE fighter and wound up rescuing a band of farmers from their Imperial captors.

Ezra struggled with his Jedi training, quarreling with Kanan about focus and resolve. Hoping to teach Ezra discipline, Kanan tried to rescue the Jedi Master Luminara Unduli from a prison on Stygeon Prime. The prison was a trap, and Kanan and Ezra had to escape from the feared Inquisitor, using the Force to work together. When Kanan explained that he’d wanted a better teacher for Ezra, Ezra said he just wanted Kanan. Master and Padawan had reached a new understanding.

To discover the route taken by an Imperial convoy transporting a dangerous kyber crystal, Ezra infiltrated Lothal’s Imperial Academy, pretending to be a cadet named Dev Morgan. He befriended a cadet named Jai Kell, using the Force to win a variety of physical challenges.

Ezra sneaked into Agent Kallus’s office and stole an Imperial decoder, but another cadet – Zare Leonis – stopped him before he could leave the room, explaining that taking the decoder through the door would have triggered a security alert. Zare had his own reasons for needing the decoder, and the two agreed to work together.

With Zare creating a diversion, Ezra crawled through the ventilation system at Imperial headquarters and used the Force to levitate the decoder off Kallus’s desk. But on the way back, he heard Commandant Aresko talking to the Inquisitor, who said he was planning to test “Dev” and Jai Kell and take them into custody if they met his special criteria. Ezra realized the challenges were designed to test cadets’ Force abilities. He told his friends that he was staying in the Academy to rescue Jai, and asked them to attack the facility the next day. The plan worked, and Ezra and Jai escaped while Zare stayed behind, promising to help the rebels as a double agent.

On Empire Day, Ezra found himself unable to maintain a connection with the Force. When a frustrated Kanan noted his lack of focus, Ezra apologized and explained that the anniversary of the Empire’s establishment was an especially bitter day for him -- because it was also his birthday.

Guided by the Force, Ezra visited his abandoned family home in Capital City, where he found Tseebo -- a Rodian wanted by the Empire – in a hideaway used by his parents while opposing the Empire. The rebels discovered that Tseebo’s implant contained the Empire’s five-year plan for Lothal and other worlds. But Tseebo had something of more personal interest to tell Ezra: He knew what happened to his parents. That angered Ezra, who accused Tseebo of having sold his parents out.

After the Inquisitor attached a tracker to the Phantom, Ezra and Kanan took the little craft to Fort Anaxes to throw off the Imperial agent. While there, Ezra managed to make a Force connection with the asteroid’s fearsome fyrnocks – an impressive display of both Force ability and maturity.

But Ezra immediately faced a greater test. The Inquisitor followed them, defeating Kanan in a lightsaber duel and threatening Ezra – who drove the Imperial agent back by summoning a massive fyrnock.

That was another impressive display of Ezra’s gifts, but also a dangerous one. The stress of the powerful Force connection knocked Ezra unconscious, and when he woke up Kanan explained to him that if his will wasn’t strong enough when he opened himself to the Force, he could be left vulnerable to the dark side. Ezra still had a lot to learn.

Hoping to advance Ezra’s training, Kanan brought him to a Jedi temple hidden on Lothal, There, both master and Padawan would be tested by the Force. Ezra endured visions of the Inquisitor killing his friends, and then communed with a mysterious guide about why he wished to become a Jedi.

Fear and anger had been Ezra’s constant companions since the death of his parents, but in the temple he rejected those dangerous emotions, speaking instead of his friends’ selflessness and kindness. He was rewarded with a kyber crystal, which he used to construct a lightsaber.

By building his own lightsaber, Ezra had reached an important milestone on the path to Jedi Knighthood. But the Jedi weapon he’d built was as unconventional as its wielder: Ezra’s lightsaber doubled as a blaster.

The Ghost’s crew prepared for a secret meeting with exiled Senator Gall Trayvis at Lothal’s Old Senate Building, but Ezra was haunted by grim visions – and hints that Trayvis was connected with his parents. Ezra visited Zare Leonis, who said Kallus was gathering troops for a massive operation at the Senate building, Ezra knew he had to warn the others.

The rebels launched a rescue mission, confronting Kallus and spiriting Trayvis away through Lothal’s sewers. But the former senator was actually a double agent seeking to uncover and destroy dissidents. Trayvis had indeed known Ezra’s parents, and dismissed them as brave but misguided people who’d thrown away their lives. Ezra was disgusted by these revelations about a man he admired.

Trayvis resurfaced in an Imperial broadcast, spreading lies about the rebels and offering a reward for their capture. To counter this message, the rebels seized Lothal’s Imperial communications tower and broadcast a message of their own – a heartfelt plea from Ezra to his fellow Lothalites to resist the Empire.

The raid on the communications tower turned disastrous when the Empire captured Kanan. Hera told Ezra that they couldn’t risk their entire mission just to save Kanan, and asked him to honor his master’s sacrifice. But Ezra couldn’t accept that, and cooked up a plan of his own in defiance of Hera’s orders.

A desperate Ezra demonstrated his Force powers for the crime boss Cikatro Vizago, reluctantly agreeing to help Vizago in any way he wished in exchange for information about Kanan. Vizago gave the rebels the idea of having Chopper pose as an Imperial courier droid to gain access to the Empire’s databanks.

The rebels discovered Kanan was being held aboard Governor Tarkin’s Star Destroyer in the Mustafar system, and infiltrated the ship to rescue him. Ezra crawled through ventilation shafts and helped his weakened master escape an interrogation chamber. Kanan wasn’t pleased that his Padawan had ignored his wishes, but was awfully glad to see him anyway.

In a three-way duel with the Inquisitor, Ezra was wounded and fell from a platform, narrowly escaping death. The attack on his Padawan left Kanan thinking he had nothing left to fear, and he attacked the Inquisitor with newfound confidence in the Force. The Inquisitor fell to his death and Kanan and Ezra escaped, their bond as master and Padawan strengthened by the trials they’d endured.