Warning: Spoilers follow for the Star Wars Rebels episode “Legacy of Mandalore.” This is your last chance to turn away if you’re not caught up on the series.

So, that happened. After sort of reconciling with her family and defeating Gar Saxon, Sabine Wren made a choice. She decided to remain with her family to work on freeing Mandalore from the Empire’s grasp rather than return to the Ghost with Kanan and Ezra. Given that the Ghost crew has been Sabine’s family for as long as we’ve known her, it’s a significant change. Nerdist talked to series executive producer Dave Filoni about Sabine’s decision, how it will affect the dynamic of the Ghost crew, and whether she’ll be back.

“It just feels right,” Filoni said about why Sabine stays. “Everything she’s learned and grown through, and everything that she’s overcome, especially in those two episodes, I think dictates that she has to continue to deal with this. It’s not something that she can just walk away from, and say, ‘Well I’m gonna go back with my rebel friends now. [laughs] Have fun! I opened up all of these things and Mandalore’s in a state of civil war now, but…'”

On the storytelling side, they felt like they had to pursue the bigger arc. The Mandalorian leader, Gar Saxon, is gone. It means the Empire is going to come for Mandalore, and they have to be ready. Sabine couldn’t walk away from that. Like Filoni pointed out, big things are happening. “It speaks to a bigger galaxy. It’s not like it [the Empire] is just a problem the crew of the Ghost has. Sabine has gotten involved and now she has to be accountable for some of these big problems that have occurred. And I have to tell you Mandalore has come up to be a part of Rebels in a way that I never thought it would. Mandalore has come up in my life in ways I never thought it would,” Filoni said.

While the issues on Mandalore can’t be resolved in a minute, fans are of course wondering whether Sabine will be back. She’s not a part of the core group on the Ghost anymore, so what does that mean? Filoni didn’t want to go too much into spoilers but also joked that he didn’t want to have another “nebulous journey that I have everyone on with Ahsoka.” He’s referring to the season two finale where Ahsoka’s fate after battling Darth Vader wasn’t clear. So, he gave us a bit of an answer.

“Sabine is such a beloved character, I would say both on the show and in the fandom. The risky part about it is that you lose that incredible dynamic. She has a great dynamic with Kanan and Ezra, the actors all love being around each other. It’s kind of fun to mess with them a little bit and say, “Okay, say goodbye to Tiya [Sircar].’ And then they don’t know what’s happening and I love doing that stuff. But I think we will have to have Sabine back in a bit because she’s just too fun,” Filoni said.

It’s true that Sabine adds a lot of life to the Ghost team and she brings color to the ship, literally and figuratively. Filoni feels strongly about the character: “I love writing her, I love the design of her character. One of the things I’m most proud of in this series is how that character has grown out of her first interactions on the show until now. She’s a lot of fun to write because she is so intelligent, and she’s so tough, and she’s willing to deal with emotions and get to places that I think are new.”

The Sabine of season one wouldn’t have been so mature about the encounter with her mother, and Filoni explained that’s one way in which she’s changed. “All the scenes with her mother are really important; you’re seeing these two women working these things out. It’s not something you get a lot of opportunity to do, especially in an action adventure. It really helps broaden things, I think.”

Filoni added, “So, I have to hopefully get her back here sooner, and I hope it could be to great effect. I don’t want to give anything away, but it could be very important in the end.”

The Ghost won’t be the same without Sabine; she can’t be replaced. After teasing they might get a dog, Filoni got serious and said it’s been weird to not have her around. “I think it will be interesting to see how it will impact the crew or not, that Sabine’s not around. And frankly sometimes it was hard to remember that she wasn’t there because we were like, ‘We need Sabine’ and then we’re like, ‘Oh wait a minute, she’s not with us anymore.’ It is kind of a downer moment and the writers are looking at me like, ‘Wait, why did we do that again? That was not smart.'”

With Sabine working to put Mandalore back together, there’s a chance she’ll run into a familiar face from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Katee Sackhoff portrayed Bo-Katan Kryze in the animated series and mentioned at a convention last fall that she’d recorded new lines for the character. Will she be back? In short, yes.

Filoni said, “I would say there’s a probability of her returning that’s rather high [laughs]. So, we’ll have to wait and see how that develops. I love that character, she was my one of my favorite characters that we got to do on Clone Wars. I actually had a lot planned with that character toward the end of that series, so it would be fun to bring her back. I really like her armor, that alone is a good reason to bring her back. And you know Katee Sackhoff was great playing her in Clone Wars, so it would be great to have her. Again, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Images: Disney XD/Lucasfilm