Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra march on Thrawn as the season concludes in Ahsoka part eight, “The Jedi, the Witch and the Warlord” written by Dave Filoni and directed by Rick Famuyiwa.
Austin Gorton: Sean! Welcome to the Ahsoka finale review. I assume you’ve watched all the previous episodes and are deeply versed in all the series lore?
Sean Dillon: Perhaps tellingly, one of the ads I got before the show began was for the Air Force. I donât know what it says, but it certainly says it. Anyways, my god, this is boring as sin. As with my time served on the Obi-Wan Kenobi reviews, I did not watch a single episode of Ahsoka prior to this one, the last one. And nothing about it made me want to watch this show.
Austin: There’s been a discussion amongst fans as to how much a working knowledge of Rebels is required viewing to fully enjoy this series. Now, we get to explore the question of how much a working knowledge of the previous seven episodes of the series is required!
The Voyage of the T-6 One-Nine-Seven-Four
Austin: The episode begins with a bit of inexplicably meandering place setting: Thrawn’s cargo loading is complete so he’s ready to beat feet, which prompts the Nightwitches to give Morgan a promotion and a new magical (sorry, magickal) weapon, the Blade of Talzin. Meanwhile, Ahsoksa, Sabine, and Ezra are lackadaisical cruising in the sky above the slow moving caravan of crab Hobbits while Ezra builds himself a new lightsaber. For all the talk of urgency in stopping Thrawn and/or getting the hell of Peridia, nobody is moving terribly fast at this point.
Sean: In some regards, the opening sequence highlights my main issue of the episode: Itâs boring as sin. I wasnât too confused about what was going on in the episode, the lore stuff seemed a bit straight forward. But the episodeâs direction just⌠isnât interesting.
I mean, you have a scene where one of your characters is being converted to a cult of space witches, one that will transform the characterâs body, and all you can come up with in terms of cinematography is static mediums? Even the images within those mediums are boring, with gray backgrounds and the character only being shifted with green sparks. Itâs just so⌠lifeless.
Austin: Pacing has been an ongoing issue with this series. The first three episodes were almost inexplicably slow moving, just in terms of the speed at which dialogue was delivered and scenes cut (which retroactively ultimately seemed like an effort to build up the tension which breaks in episode 4). Episodes 5 and 6 were much more normally-paced, but then it was like the creators realized they only had two more episodes left and rushed through a bunch of stuff in this and the previous episode.
Morgan’s transformation is an example of that. In addition to being cinematically inert, it’s unclear what impact this is having on her. Is this something she wanted? Something to which she feels she can’t say ‘no'”? Does she understand the stakes, is she making this choice out of hubris, etc. We really have no idea. It just reads like an effort to power-up the character and give her a signature weapon ahead of the climactic showdown (which, of course, it is, but usually we like to have those plot mechanics cloaked in a bit more character work).
From there, we get the first of several action scenes in the episode, as Thrawn dispatches a pair of TIE fighters to take down Ahsoka’s ship, which they pretty much accomplish, forcing Ahsoka, Sabine and Ezra to mount up and continue their journey back to Thrawn’s ship via Howler.
Sean: In-between those is a scene involving Doctor Who himself, David Tennent, and as such I couldnât help but make a comparison to another episode of Doctor Who: “The Battle of Risky Business”. Much like “The Battle of Running And Kicking,” this is a unit of television that canât bring itself to be the least bit interesting. It doesnât really discohere like “The Battle of Rupert Murdoch,” but it does nevertheless refuse to be about anything.
Notable among this is the scene where David Tennet appears as a robot who was probably in the cartoon (I didnât watch Rebels, bar clips of Darth Maul and Tom Baker), where itâs established that Purple Haired Girl and Title Character are on the outs due to the former wanting to be a Jedi for âthe wrong reasons.â And the episode then doesnât do anything with that. Thereâs no moment where you might think that Femme Boba Fett is going to do something reckless that hurts the characters, even if the episode ultimately decides that she doesnât actually do that.
The closest is maybe deciding to stay with Ahsoka at the end, but even thatâs not framed as a choice between âGet Revengeâ or âSave Masterâ as much as one of those moments in a story where you think the hero is off on their own, only to be saved at the last minute by an ally and itâs all triumphs and glory. But it’s not, as weâll talk about later.
Austin: The impact there is, essentially, Sabine choosing Ahsoka over Ezra. The central conflict of the series has been Sabine making decisions based on her desire to reunite with Ezra, a decision Ahsoka ultimately came to terms with. But by choosing to stay behind, she at least shows that she was genuinely motivated to save Ezra for his own good, and not just hers (ie she felt guilty/missed). Essentially turning a selfish act into a selfless one.
Sean: Well, it wouldâve been nice for them to share an actual scene together in this episode where they engage with one another in more than just off-hand mumbling to highlight that. Like, for example, instead of Robot David Tennant being the one to explain why the two leads are on the outs, she explains it.
Austin: This is true. Also, it was a little bit of a weird beat simply because it seemed like the whole point of Ahsoka’s post-episode five transformation was that she was cool with Sabine wanting to save her friend already, so it feels like Sabine has learned a lesson Ahsoka no longer cares about teaching.
The Last Battle (Final Mix II)
Sean: So⌠Zombies.
The problem with the Zombie Stormtroopers is, once again, the lack that theyâre anything interesting. Thereâs nothing grotesque and horrifying about the image of Zombie Stormtroopers. No moment where, spitballing here, Ahsoka, Sidekick and Bearded Monk cut one of the Zombie Sormtrooperâs heads off and it keeps moving. It just feels like theyâre a bunch of Stormtroopers with really, really strong armor, not helped by the lightsabers never once cutting through the armor.
Even returning to the cinematography, we have a bunch of boring shots of a horde of Stormtroopers lumbering through boring hallways while shooting their guns as if theyâre regular Stormtroopers, but have zombie sounds in the soundtrack. And I know, I know this comes from some stupid book where Iâm sure it was really cool or whatever. But, you have to actually sell the idea. Is this what the show largely was? Just coasting on the memories of previous eras of Star Wars and acting like having Thrawn in it meant you were making something interesting. (Lars Mikkelsen seems like heâs phoning in here, which is a shame as he did brilliant work as Rupert Murdoch on Sherlock.)
Austin: To your point on the zombies, the part I struggled with was how they were different from regular Stormtroopers? Like, as plot devices? Sure, they got back up when lasered and kept coming, but how is that objectively different than anytime the Empire just floods the zone and sends more (living) troopers after the heroes? *We* know Thrawn sent a small contingent of willing-to-die, willing-to-be-zombified Stormtroopers as a sop to his limited resources, but it’s not like we’re counting. I’m not sure the difference between “We need to move because more Stormtroopers are coming!” and “We need to move because the Stormtroopers we just killed are getting back at us!” is all that different, aside from providing the opportunity, like you said, to throw in some zombie sounds and, I guess, do a little more genre mashing up.
As for the arc of the show itself, mostly yeah, you have the gist of it (though how much of that is a bug vs. a feature may vary, and likely informs much of one’s reactions to the series as whole). Moreso than arguably any one of the Disney streaming Star Wars series to date, Ahsoka is a series broadly concerned with advancing the overall narrative of the Star Wars story (in this era, at least) and specifically concerned with addressing lingering plotlines from Rebels. Whereas Andor is doing some fascinating stuff by using Star Wars as a lens through which to view the rise and fall of fascists movements, the power (and costs) of rebellion, and the personal impacts thereon, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was, for all its faults, at least trying to do some kind of character study of its title character, Ahsoka is, in this first season at least, mostly just about telling the tale of what happens next for these characters.
As a fan of both Star Wars and serialized narratives, I don’t mind that, though I certainly wouldn’t mind if it had greater ambitions or took more opportunities to tell that tale in a more visually engaging and cohesive fashion.
Sean: Thereâs a degree to which the instinct of âTell a story to see what happens next for the charactersâ often results in lesser stories. This can be forgivable in book lines or fan films where thereâs not really that much incentive to do more than that and itâs far away enough to not be considered the real thing. But when youâre making a high profile tv show with actors who have been in Hollywood movies, including one who was in the biggest movie of 2022, you have to give them more than just âwhat happens next.â
Especially in the season finale of a show, you have to give them something big to do. If your biggest moment is just a dull looking sequence of Maybe-Zombies attacking, youâre not doing enough. Serialized narratives, at their best, thrive in getting the audience to want to see what happens next. But that cannot be the driving force behind it because otherwise the story assumes the audience wants to see what happens next in and of itself. Without a push of intrigue. A mystery or a character or a theme or something that makes me want to care.
Andor is brilliant serialized media because it makes me care about whatâs happening. It makes me want to see what happens next with thrilling action, dynamic characters, and fascinating implications. If you watch the final episode of Andor without the rest of the show, you get a show stopping monologue about complacency, little character beats interspersed around a riot, and genuinely great direction from a former Sherlock director. It aspires to be more than just a lore plopping device that exists to fill in the Star Wars Quota at Disney.
Ahsoka, meanwhile, has nothing under the hood unless youâre already addicted to these specific characters. Why should I care about any of them? They just seem rather rote and stock.
The Magicianâs Fatherâs Brotherâs Nephewâs Cousinâs Former Roommate
Austin: In the end, we get a series of lightsaber fights, some more Stormtrooper dismemberment, and then plot resolution (which leaves several doors fairly wide open for a season 2/some other Star Wars show).
In a mild twist, Ezra does get back home in the end, despite all his Chekhov’s “I’m one case away from retirement!” dialogue in the previous two episodes, with that dialogue instead having been used to prime us for the idea of someone being left behind: both Ahsoka and Sabine. We also get Thrawn succeeding in his goal of making it back to The Star Wars Galaxy, a conclusion that is hardly surprising given the unlikelihood of debuting Thrawn in live-action only to kill him off or leave him stranded three episodes later, but which means we’ll need to have a Sequel Trilogy reckoning for the character at some point down the line. Morgan, a second tier boss to the end, goes out with her insides out, and I guess Captain Enoch and his cool gold mask are hanging around somewhere.
Meanwhile, two of the more fascinating characters of the season, Baylan and Shin, get brief epilogues. Both are still on Peridea. Shin, whom some predicted would break good, is presumably claiming leadership over the tribe of nomads she and Baylan briefly coerced into fighting Ezra and the Crab Hobbits. Baylan, meanwhile, is standing astride a massive Tolkien-esque statue of a figure who looks suspiciously like the Father, one of the Mortis gods, as he gazes off atâŚwhatever vague power to break the cycle of galactic conflict he’s been after all season.
The frustration caused by the brevity asides circles back to the larger issues that have loomed over the season. Neither of these are central characters, and thus, the pair getting short shrift in the finale, their narrative purpose as antagonists complicating the journey for the heroes having subsided, is, on paper, understandable. Yet both proved in their brief screen time to be fascinating characters, or at least, characters with fascinating potential, especially against, say, the often dour portrayal of Ahsoka. We may not need more from them, but we want more from them, and the fact that this episode has so much else to do means we don’t get more (to say nothing of how the passing of Ray Stevenson compounds this frustration).
Sean: So was there any reason at all for this episode to be named after a Narnia book? Because it doesnât feel like thereâs a reason other than it looks cool. Which, it doesnât.
Austin: Nah, it’s just another nod at the way Dave Filoni is playing up the fantasy elements of Star Wars in this series. (I guess if we’re being generous, Peridia is kind of like Narnia in that it’s an “other” realm with a higher level of magic magick and ties to the origins of the other Star Wars galaxy?). But really, I think they were just playing with the rhythm of the triptych.
Sean: Well, it wouldâve been really nice if he did that in this episode.
Austin: I think there’s tons of fantasy nods in this episode, but I’ll grant that they’re not doing much other than being there.
All in all, I think this season could have benefitted from a few more episodes, to give some of these plot beats room to breathe and to allow for the inclusion of more character moments or thematic development. It’s wild that we never see Ezra’s reaction to Sabine’s choice to risk unleashing Thrawn to save him, for example. Or that the full details of Ahsoka and Sabine’s earlier rift â that Ahsoka worried Sabine was only training as a Jedi out of a desire for revenge over the fate of her family on Mandalore, a revelation which represents a considerable recontextualization of both their characters and also adds deeper meaning to the lessons Anakin was trying to teach Ahsoka in episode 5 â came via a conversation between Ezra and Huyang, and that we never see Ahsoka and Sabine address it directly. I’m not sure what dictates the episode orders for these series, but it feels like there’s more than eight episode’s worth of story in this season.
Of course, this is hardly the end of Ahsoka’s (or Thrawn’s) story, whether their tales will be told in Ahsoka Season Two or a different series altogether or even one of the various Star Wars movies perpetually under development these days. But that doesn’t change the fact that for all of the highs of this season, it ends on an unsatisfying note of needing more.
Force Facts
- The Blade of Talzin is an ancestral weapon of sorts of the Nightsisters, having been previously wielded by Mother Talzin (the leader of the Nightsisters and Darth Maul’s mom) in The Clone Wars.
- Ezra suddenly building himself a lightsaber after insisting he didn’t need one last episode feels like a sop to genre conventions, that it was going to be too hard or they didn’t have enough space to work out action sequences that would allow for him to not have one, so it was just easier to give him the weapon and move on.
- Having his new lightsaber share an emitter w/Kanan’s is a nice touch, though.
- The zombie Stormtroopers are indeed a reference to a book, the 2010 (non-canonical) novel Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber.
- Ezra stealing Stormtrooper armor to survive aboard the Chimera and eventually return to the New Republic is a fun Rebels Easter Egg (where he stole uniforms and posed as an Imperial *all the time*).
- The bird with Unexplained Significance that pops up briefly at the end is Morai, one of the owl-like Convor with connections to both Ahsoka and the Daughter (another of the Gods of Mortis).
- Meanwhile, a statue of the Son can be seen next to the one of the Father that Baylan is perched on, meaning the entirety of the Mortis Trinity is represented in the finale.
- If you want me to do another one of these, $10,000 better be in my bank account.
-Sean Dillon
Elsewhere in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Darth Vader #39 does two notable things. For one, it appears to have finally ended the period in which Vader has minimal control over his Force abilities, and thus means we won’t have to see him shooting things with this shield anymore. For another, it appears to have brought Vader back to a point I thought he had reached earlier in the series, one in which he recognizes Palpatine as his true enemy. As a result, all the potential inherent in that idea (that seemed previously squandered as the series moved in a different direction) is back on the board. Taken together, both developments seem to have the book primed for an uptick.
This Week in Star Wars History
Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston is published on October 11, 2016.
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
