In a galaxy far, far, FAR away, our crew of villains and the captive Sabine arrive on Peridia in search of their respective old friends in Ahsoka Part Six, “Far Far Away,” written by Dave Filoni and directed by Jennifer Getzinger. 

Austin Gorton: Last week’s episode was fun and fan service-y and had tons of great moments. Coming out of it, it sure seemed like it’d be a tough episode to top. Then Part Six started, and OH MY GOD he’s here! 

It’s been over 30 years since we first met him. Since then, he’s been de-canonized, re-canonized and animated. Now, after five episodes of additional buildup in this series, here he is, in live-action. The man himself, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Matt Lazorwitz: This is what I’ve been waiting for! I read Heir to the Empire in 1996, and I immediately fell in love with Thrawn. I have his action figure, his Funko Pop and all the books and comics. I was giddy when he first appeared on Rebels, and I’m just as excited now.

Thrawn Th-Thrawn, Thrawn, Thrawn

Matt: While Canon Thrawn is different from Legends Thrawn in a lot of ways, the core of the character is still there: cold, ruthless logic. And what we get here is a Thrawn who is exactly that. Every person is a chess piece to be moved: use Sabine to find Ezra and then wipe them both out. If Baylan and Shin need to be sacrificed? You sacrifice a pawn to save a rook. That’s the way it goes.

Austin: In many ways, Thrawn is an avatar for my (and many, many other people’s) modern Star Wars fandom. I can still remember picking up Heir to the Empire in the book department of my local Target in 1992 and having my mind blown. I’d grown up a Star Wars fan, had a decent handful of the action figures (but not enough, darn it!) with which to create my own adventures, but the idea that there were MORE Star Wars stories to tell, ones that took place after the events of Return of the Jedi, was almost more than my 11-year-old mind could handle. And the enigmatic, cunning and even a little charming Thrawn who was the book’s central antagonist was also clearly its breakout character. I find myself saying this more and more often lately, but that 11-year-old never would have believed he’d see that character in live action, on his TV screen, one day. 

Matt: With Canon Thrawn being so much more ruthless, we have really lost one of the archetypes pioneered and expanded on in the EU: the noble Imperial, the ones not in it for the abuse of power or the Dark Side, but because they thought a firmer hand in galactic politics would safeguard the galaxy. Legends Thrawn, Gilad Pellaeon, Janek “Tank” Sunber, Baron Fel as well as Thrawn’s various underlings and much of the Empire from Legacy all fit this archetype, but it’s a shade of gray we really aren’t seeing in the new canon, at least in the TV stuff. I’m behind on the novels, so we might see it more there.

Austin: I struggle with this, honestly. On the one hand, these days I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the idea of presenting a certain assortment of Space Nazis as “the good Space Nazis” or at least “the less bad Space Nazis.” On the other hand, characters — even (especially) villains — need depth and nuance, and the idea that Thrawn is both really good at his job and more than just a power-mad Sith Lord or petty tyrant is, to your point, baked into his DNA.  

I will say, while the Thrawn of this episode hews closer to Machiavellian villain than noble adversary, what I’ve read of Canonical Book Thrawn — someone who has allied himself with the Empire not out of power lust or a belief in its authoritarian ideals, but out of recognition of them as the power most likely to help him defeat an extragalactic threat his own people exiled him for trying to preemptively strike — lands closer to the “noble Imperial” archetype. Given the way Ahsoka has made “extragalactic” a key part of its story, there remains plenty of room to add some shading to Thrawn’s live-action portrayal. 

Matt: You make a very valid point about the difference between now and the ’90s, when Nazis were unequivocally bad guys pretty much everywhere. And Timothy Zahn’s new Thrawn trilogy does give him more nuance than Rebels did, where he was much more the villain (and Eli Vanto, his number one in those books, is the closest to a new character in that archetype that we’ve seen since the reboot).

But Thrawn isn’t the only EU/animated concept to make its debut in this episode. We also got the first live action appearance of the Force Witches of Dathomir in their full regalia, who also date to the early days of the EU, with The Courtship of Princess Leia. They popped up a bunch in the Clone Wars, but here they are in live action, and they look pretty good. 

Austin: Forget Thrawn, tell my 13-year-old self something from the friggin’ Courtship of Princess Leia would have a prominent role in a live-action project and watch him burst out laughing. The Witches do look pretty cool, and they suited Filoni’s more fantasy-oriented tone of this series (and this episode in particular). They also are confirmed to be the ones communicating through the Force across vast distances with Morgan, putting to rest the assorted “Ezra is working with Thrawn/Thrawn has learned to use the Force” theories. But while the Witches of Dathomir date to the old EU, this notion that they were originally extragalactic (and may have played a role in the development of the known Star Wars galaxy) is, as far as I know, a new detail, made all the more intriguing given the way extragalactic threats play into Thrawn’s backstory.

For now though, Thrawn’s plan is pretty simple: get the hell out of dodge, once he offloads (onloads? I was a little confused) some stuff to the Witches. Any guesses as to what is inside the containers they were carting around? 

Matt: I can’t be sure, but if it’s offloading, I’d wager it has something to do with Palpatine and the Witches. The Dathomiri Witches were wiped out during the Clone Wars, so it would be well within his usual M.O. for Palpatine to take whatever treasures they had. That might be the payment for helping him, returning what is theirs.

Yub Nub! ToTo!

Austin: While Thrawn is busy loading the Imperial uHaul and packing snacks for the long ride back to the galaxy far away, Sabine sets off on her Wolf-Dog-Horse mount (called a howler) in search of Ezra, followed close behind by Baylan and Shin. As if all the witches and talk of threads of fate and crumbling ruins weren’t enough, this is when the episode really goes into full-on fantasy mode, with Sabine the lonely knight beset by bandits with only her trusted steed at her side. 

Matt: The desolate setting, the warg– sorry, howler–  that seems to be close to sentient, the little beings who are her last step to finding her lost friend: We might as well call the planet Middle Earth, huh?

But seriously, it’s a really gorgeous looking world, and the howler is a good addition to the canon of Star Wars creatures (although Star Trek: Lower Decks still wins the battle for best addition to sci-fi TV creature canon with this season’s breakout star, Moopsy). You said it above and I’m sure it will come up as this series continues, but this is science-fantasy far more than it’s science fiction. And the Noti seem like something out of The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth, which makes some sense as those are products of Jim Henson, which of course produced so many creatures for Star Wars over the years.

Austin: And, of course, like their spiritual forebears the Ewoks, they’re another example of the trope of the heroes, being in tune with their surroundings and not making snap judgments on other lifeforms, finding allies and success where their foes see only an obstacle to overcome. I mean, the impression seems to be that Thrawn has been after Ezra for a long time, and he’s consistently managed to evade him, whereas it seems like it took Sabine all of an afternoon to track him down, just because she befriended her howler, listened to its instincts and reached out a hand in friendship to the Noti when she met them. 

Which, to your earlier point, is somewhat difficult to square with Legends Thrawn (and even a little of Animated Thrawn), a character who is arguably defined by the way he appreciates the art of his foes and uses it to his advantage whereas his Imperial peers just try to steamroll their way over everything. 

Matt: I’m not disagreeing with you on that, as I definitely see this as Thrawn being played much more like any other Imperial warlord, a title he eschewed in the Legends canon. My only possible explanation, and this is stretching things, is that one of the Force abilities Ezra specifically uses is the ability to connect with other lifeforms; Ezra was able to commune with loth wolves and purgills. Maybe Ezra just was able to use this ability to better sync with the Noti?  

Austin: We also get an interesting sequence with Baylan and Shin here, as the pair have been sent out to follow Sabine and kill Ezra (thereby honoring the letter if not the intent of Baylan/Thrawn’s promise to Sabine, which certainly does seem in keeping with Thrawn’s M.O.). We get some more vague hints at the long game Baylan is playing, and his seeming pseudo-altruistic desire to build some kind of Jedi Order that functions better than the one that ended at the combined hands of Palpatine’s clone army, its Chosen One, and its own hubris.

Matt: And I got the impression Shin was less keen on the whole letter of the law vs. its intent. She was throwing some serious side-eye at Thrawn during his speech about what he’s doing here. She’s also asking some pretty pointed questions of her master at the site of the ambush Sabine took care of. For someone who seemed pretty dedicated to her master, I’m beginning to see some cracks forming in that relationship.

Austin: Also, not gonna lie, a little tension/chemistry between Sabine and Shin. There’s a definitely a vibe there that while Baylan may be a little blinded by being so close to whatever his still mostly-amorphous goal is, Shin has a little bit better read of the situation, and at least suspects that Thrawn is setting them up, or at least operating at cross purposes. 

Matt: And while Sabine and Ezra’s reunion is heartwarming, things aren’t all as they appear. Or maybe they are, but only from a certain point of view. Sabine is very evasive about how she got here. She definitely knows Ezra would not approve of her working with, or at least in parallel with, Thrawn, and she must know it’s going to have to come out eventually. As far as she knows, there’s no other way off this planet, and the look on her face when Ezra says he’s excited to go back home … The next episode is probably going to be much less friendly between the old friends.

Force Facts

• After dominating the previous episode, the series’ titular character appears only in the cold open, and while that scene was quite enjoyable for the way it played with the importance of stories and its textual use of the “long time ago…” epigraph, it really called into question just what, exactly, Ahsoka learned as a result of her experiences with Anakin, as she sounded an awful lot like her pre-”World Between Worlds” self, still calling Morgan and company “the enemy” and wringing her hands over the fact that Sabine chose finding Ezra over stopping Thrawn.
• It doesn’t come up here, but both the Timothy Zahn novels and Rebels previously established that Legends Thrawn’s appreciation for art and his ability to use it to gain insight into his foes carried over to Canon Thrawn, as well as the fact that he has a particular eye for Sabine’s art.  
• The shot of Thrawn’s star destroyer approaching and enveloping the Nightsister plinth was absolutely gorgeous. 
• I hope our golden trooper, Captain Enoch, meets a less ignominious fate than the sequel trilogy’s chrome one, Captain Phasma. The underuse of Gwendoline Christie is one of my few complaints about The Last Jedi.     
• Cool Roman-esque mask on that guy, too. I’m kind of surprised no one thought to do the “let’s make this one Stormtrooper stand out by giving them a different facemask” thing before. 
• Baylan has talked a couple times about sensing a great power. I wonder if this has anything to do with the Bendu, the powerful Force entity that Thrawn attempted to kill and prophesied his defeat. Or maybe I’m just hoping to hear Tom Baker’s voice again.
• Baylan coins a new term for a particular type of Jedi, “Bokken,” or fake Jedi (so named for the wooden Japanese training sword of the same name, used by Sabine during her training sequence in episode 3). In Baylan’s eyes, these are Jedi who were trained outside the confines/supervision/traditions of the Jedi temple (like Ezra and Sabine, but also Luke), though he assures Shin (whom he trained under those exact circumstances) that he has trained her to be something different than a Jedi. 

Elsewhere in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Dark Droids: D-Squad #1 is built around a premise that, on paper, isn’t a bad idea. With the droid Scourge running rampant across the galaxy and R2-D2 already booted out of an airlock by a possessed C-3PO, having the plucky little droid go about assembling a team of droids to fight back is certainly a fun idea. Unfortunately, in execution, the limitations of both Artoo’s mode of communication and the comic book form mean we end up with a lot of largely dialogue- or caption-less pages of Artoo floating in space or “speaking” only in sound effects, which doesn’t make for the most riveting of reading experiences. The final-page twist — that Artoo and his droid squad are going after Threepio only for readers to learn they’re actually heading into a confrontation with the murderous protocol droid Triple Zero — is a clever one. Hopefully now that the team is assembled, the rest of the series will have a little more narrative meat on its bones. 

This Week in Star Wars History 

Ashley Eckstein, the voice actor of the animated Ahsoka, was born Sept. 22, 1981.

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Austin Gorton

Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton

Matthew Lazorwitz

Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.