I have been a decently harsh Ahsoka skeptic from the start, as even though I had a few seasons of Dave Filoni’s Clone Wars and Rebels under my belt, I don’t have the full history, and Ahsoka felt like it was made for “them” and not me, or more general audiences.
But the past few weeks, I’ve gone from cynic to seeing the light. Debates about the specific Anakin sequence aside, the last three weeks of Ahsoka have been very good, and episode 6, last night’s hop to a fully new galaxy, was easily the best episode of the series, and a stunning production worthy of anything we’ve seen on the big screen. And I’d argue it’s now better than at least the current iteration of The Mandalorian. Spoilers follow.
The details of this episode were stunning, start to finish. The whale bone graveyard as the ring of the planet. The twisted, haunting statues as they descended to the surface. The ancient witches and their magic balls. Thrawn’s ravaged, gold-infused Star Destroyer and his ravaged, gold-infused Night Troopers with their gold-faced leader. The bandit armor. The turtle guys. And a chainmail-wearing, beaming Ezra to top it all off.
Is it bad that the best episode of Ahsoka contained almost no Ahsoka at all? I have always been of the opinion that other elements of the show are stronger than Ahsoka herself. The most compelling Ahsoka content we’ve seen, I believe, is when it was young Ahsoka, played by Ariana Greenblatt in those Anakin flashbacks. Current, Rosario Dawson Ahsoka is a little too cool for my taste. But even she’s growing on me.
We continue to have an excellent, non-Clone Wars, non-Rebels pair of villains in the form of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, who thankfully returned after an absence last week. I am extremely intrigued as to what Baylan is trying to find in this galaxy, on this planet, if it’s not Thrawn or the witches. What power “stirs” that he’s referring to? Does he actually care about hunting down Ezra and Sabine? Why would he, if not to somehow have them aid him in finding this power? It doesn’t really make sense that killing them would get them anything, given his current objective. He’s not a Jedi hunter after all, per se, nor does he actually care about serving Thrawn himself.
It is of course also excellent to see Grand Admiral Thrawn himself in the flesh. Blue flesh, which does actually work on camera, surprisingly. Here, we have Lars Mikkelsen reprising his role from Rebels, but not just Rebels, as Thrawn is one of the singular most famous characters from Expanded Universe lore 30 years ago starting in 1991. I’d argue there probably is no more significant EU character, as his Heir to the Empire storyline is one of the most famous in series history, outside of the actual movies, of course, before anything in this new Disney era. But Disney has at least been picking and choosing which EU things to bring over, despite declaring the lot of it non-canon. And Thrawn was clearly top of the list.
I don’t quite understand what the plan is with Ahsoka from here. There are only two episodes left, obviously not enough time to get fully into Thrawn’s and Ezra’s actual return back in the home galaxy. We have heard nothing about a second season of Ahsoka yet, just that Dave Filoni is doing a big Ahsoka/Mando crossover movie eventually. But this show seems like it demands more ongoing seasons than waiting years and years for a movie, and I hope we get clarification on that soon. At this point, I certainly want more.
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