Ahsoka recap: An offscreen cameo tries to save this uneventful episode
Threepio shows up, but not much else happens in the stalling “Dreams And Madness”
TV Reviews Ahsoka
Ahsoka has been a frustrating show to follow, not because any of it is ever particularly bad (save for one line in last week’s episode that still makes me want to scream), but because it seems to have a pathological desire to give its audience as little to grasp onto as possible. If you didn’t go into this series with at least some interest in simply seeing cartoon characters recreated in live-action, then there are moments every week that make me think there can’t possibly be anything to appeal to you here. To me, Ahsoka’s relationship to Star Wars often feels like Moon Knight’s relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is to say that I’m not entirely sure why any of this is supposed to matter beyond the fact that it says the name of a big franchise I like at the beginning of each episode.
Maybe that’s why it felt so huge when Hera’s testimony to the senate oversight committee (a concept that George Lucas is probably furious he never got to write himself, and I mean that sincerely) was interrupted by the endlessly polite chirp of Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO. Finally, a guy we all know, whose motivations and backstory are not needlessly obfuscated or changed from the last time we saw him! He’s even there as an emissary for Senator Leia Organa with “proof” that she had actually approved Hera and Ahsoka’s mission to go find the map to the new galaxy, and everybody just “forgot” to mention it.
It was a little easy, considering that “the senate will be mad about this” has been Hera’s only real plot point so far, but this is at least probably the right way to handle the introduction of a key canon character like Leia without resorting to the kind of CG bullshit that happened on The Book Of Boba Fett with Luke Skywalker. We know Leia still exists in this universe (this is all taking place not too long after Return Of The Jedi), and she’s still impacting major events, but the creators have the good sense and good taste not to show her.
So, with Hera’s storyline completely wrapped up (apparently), let’s go back to the New Galaxy where all of the more important stuff is happening…at least in theory, because I’m not sure any important stuff happened there this week. Ahsoka and Huyang arrive at the planet in the space-whale’s mouth and immediately hear things exploding, because Thrawn has surrounded the planet with mines in order to stop Ahsoka from approaching. It doesn’t work, though, and as the whales fly back into hyperspace to escape, Ahsoka and Huyang hide in the rings of whale bones surrounding the planet.
Thrawn, given a chance to showcase his penchant for brilliant strategy, orders his fighters to just let her hide, knowing that she’ll try to contact Sabine and Ezra anyway. She does this almost immediately, reaching out to Sabine using the Force, which Sabine picks up, even though everyone is always criticizing her inability to do Jedi stuff (including Ezra, who correctly scoffs at the idea of Ahsoka making Sabine her apprentice). But the Great Mothers are able to pick up on this Force connection and the Bad Guys send a squad of Thrawn’s Night Troopers to hunt them down just as Baylan, Shin, and their team of raiders track down Ezra and Sabine on their own.
Curiously, Baylan chooses not to join the fight. Instead, he tells Shin to go on without him, to help kill Sabine and Ezra, and to then join Thrawn in his new Empire. He says his path lies in another direction, but he still won’t say what that is. For the rest of the episode, all he does his fight Ahsoka when she jumps out of her ship onto the planet surface. She tricks him and gets away, knowing she couldn’t beat him before and can’t beat him now, and then he just stands there looking…worried? Contemplative? It would help if we had any clue what he was up to.
But at least Thrawn has picked up on the fact that he’s up to something. I guessed last week that he may have gone mad while trapped on this planet for a decade or so, or that he’s being manipulated by the Great Mothers, but even if that’s true, he still seems to be on top of the ball more than he seemed to be last week. When Ahsoka joins her friends and easily fights off the Night Troopers (with Ezra refusing to take his lightsaber back and just using Force moves instead like he’s some kind of Avatar: The Last Airbender), Thrawn tells Morgan Elsbeth that he considers the little battle a success even though a bunch of his weird soldiers died. See, he doesn’t care about any of them; he’s just stalling until his Night Troopers have finished loading whatever they’re loading into his Star Destroyer, and then he can leave. That was already his plan last week, but here he is…saying it again.
Finally, despite the fact that nobody seems to have a real plan to get home, Ezra happily hugs his friends and says, “I think I might be going home after all,” and the episode ends. Okay, buddy. Sure you will.
So we don’t know what Thrawn is planning. We don’t know what Baylan is planning. We don’t know what the Good Guys intend to do next. And, while I enjoyed seeing it happen, one of the few plot points that isn’t a big question mark was just resolved by an offscreen cameo. I’m not saying every episode needs a big exciting cliffhanger, or for the characters to openly say their every goal, but anything would be nice—any reason to be excited to tune in next week beyond “well, you’ve seen the other episodes, might as well stick with it.”
Stray observations
- Mean Senator Xiono made a racist comment about droids during the senate hearing. What a jerk. He also dismisses the recent events on Madalore—in the last season of The Mandalorian—as one nutty ex-Imperial throwing a fit rather than a sign of the Empire’s potential return. He’s probably right.
- Ahsoka is introduced doing some lightsaber training with a hologram of Anakin. I liked this scene, both because it lets Hayden Christensen just kind of be there without it having to be some kind of holy shit epic moment, and it lets them show that Ahsoka is now calmed by his presence.
- On a similar note, I liked how excited Thrawn was to learn that her Jedi Master was Anakin. Would he know that Anakin is Darth Vader? I feel like he would, and I think it would be interesting if he tries to play Anakin’s fall against Ahsoka, only for her to turn it back around on him and be like “Nah, we’re cool now.”
- Ezra, catching up on what he missed with Sabine: “The Emperor died?” “That what they say.” I see what you’re doing, Star Wars.
- The episode was called “Dreams And Madness,” but I don’t believe a single dream or madness happened, barring whatever’s up with Thrawn (if anything).
- Next week is already the finale, and there’s a lot to deal with still. Why do I get the horrible feeling that very little is going to be resolved and Disney’s going to bump all of it to Dave Filoni’s big crossover movie?
169 Comments
‘”To me, Ahsoka’s relationship to Star Wars often feels like Moon Knight’s relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is to say that I’m not entirely sure why any of this is supposed to matter beyond the fact that it says the name of a big franchise I like at the beginning of each episode.”’You’ll have to oblige me my ignorance but extended canonically Ahsoka was supposed to be Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, right? But for that to be true that would mean she’d have to be taken under his wing between the Star Wars prequels Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith. Yet I don’t recall her showing up in those movies.However in the former(Attack Of The Clones) I do recall seeing someone of her race fighting side by side with the Jedi. Was that supposed to be her? For anyone curious about the scene in question it’s been a while since I’ve watched the movie but it’s the scene where Anakin and Princess Padme Amidala are both in the desert I believe before the council with this hairy riding beast.
Are you just not familiar with Star Wars at all? Ahsoka did not materialize from thin air. She was on television for over 12 years. And all of that was canon.
And all of that was canon
All of that was also cartoons. Some people don’t like to watch cartoons and it really shouldn’t be mandatory to watch them… especially as you were told by the show’s creator before it started that you didn’t need to watch the cartoons to understand and appreciate the show.
Not everyone watched every single Star Wars vehicle ever made, so you don’t have to be an a-hole about answering a well-intentioned request for information. If you want to be a super-fan, fine. Not everyone does.
How was I an “a-hole”? I stated a fact. You’re going that far, use the whole word. Your entire post makes you sound like a sensitive child. You are way more insulting than anything I said.
There, that’s being an “a-hole”.
Nope, having read both comments you were worse. You acted shitty out of the blue for no reason. The fact that someone called you out on it doesn’t make them somehow the bad guy. People are allowed to notice you behaving badly and respond in kind, this you are worse for being mean to me about me being mean to begin with argument is utter nonsense. If you don’t want to get called an a-hole (and I am explicitly using that term because of your odd aversion to it now), don’t act like one. Easy fix.
Your response sounded slightly a-holish, because the original question politely said, “pardon my ignorance about Star Wars, but…” and your response was like, “are you completely ignorant about Star Wars?!?” as if that were a surprise.I’m not the person who called you an a-hole, but I also felt your tone came across as a little rude considering the way the question was set up. Maybe that was unintentional on your part; it’s hard to read tone on the Internet. But yes, there are people who only know about the movies (and recent live-action Disney shows), and not the older cartoon spin-offs.
His response was fine. Its certainly fair to complain that this show has not adequately filled in viewers on Ahsoka’s backstory, but to act all confused that a character made up after the movies doesn’t appear in said movies is a bit much.
At this point if you’re watching the show and know this little about the character then you’re seriously not paying attention at all.
No. In the old SW, *nothing* was cannon but the movies. Not even the Clone Wars show.
There’s no need to be snarky. There are many levels of Star Wars fan out there. Zeroine apparently is just a movie fan. He, therefore, is unlikely to be familiar with Ahsoka and her history.
The real-world explanation is that the character wasn’t created until 2008, so her existence is a retcon of sorts. The in-universe explanation is that (spoiler) she had already left the Order by the events of Revenge of the Sith (though we do get to see what she’s up to during that time).The other character you’re thinking of is Shaak Ti.
That’s Shaak Ti. She dies like 7 different ways in the Revenge of the Sith deleted scenes.
“Oh my God, they killed Shaak Ti!”“You bastards!”
Well, and the thing about Moon Knight is that it was kept as distinct from the MCU as the writers were allowed. I don’t remember what the plans were to maybe have him meet up with Blade/etc. in the future, but Moon Knight functions as a story of Steven/Marc/Jake learning to live with each other in a way that Ahsoka doesn’t even try to do.
also Oscar Isaac put on a fucking masterclass in that show. I liked it.
Oh sure, I just think the cast of this show’s getting a lot of blame for what’s mostly bad writing–for instance, this episode continuing to duck what’ll happen when Ezra finds out what getting home cost.
what’s mostly bad writing…Please, Star Wars has NEVER been well-written. Harrison Ford told Lucas during the filming of the first film ““George, you can type this shit, but you can’t say it.”
Certainly better used there than in the Sequels.
Which is funny since he demanded Poe not die in the first 15 minutes of TFA.
No Ragrets.
She didn’t show up in the movies because she was created after the fact. Which really causes a head-scratcher because in Revenge of the Sith, “the way the Jedi treated my apprentice after she was framed for a terrorist attack caused her to leave the Order” would seem to be more important than “they aren’t letting me on the Council despite me not displaying the emotional maturity or wisdom required to be on it”
I’ve just made this headcanon.
Yeah, the Clone Wars animated show actually made Anakin a character, with a story, and provided a lot of background and motivation for his turn to the dark side, as well as showing his deep relationships with other characters – for an Order that was so against attachment, the Master-Padawan relationship is built on attachment. And the prequel films, which ostensibly were supposed to be about the transformation of Anakin to Vader, were about a hundred other things.
I mean, Star Wars “canon” has always been an “in the moment” sort of thing. Hell, “Dune Canon,” makes slightly more sense (i.e. the introduction of books as an obvious cash-grab by Brian Herbert which undid a lot of what the Duniverse already was at that point!). Star Wars “canon” did not stay focused from Star Wars to Splinter of the Mind’s Eye to Empire Strikes Back. Every film has changed “canon” because – reasons.
I thought it was a great episode, kept me entertained.
Not much happens?! I thought this was the most exciting ep yet in terms of action.
The figth/action scenes are the worst (if Ray is not in it). All Sabine fights are laughble.
I thought the last third of the episode was pretty entertaining action-wise. But I was nodding off during the first half. And the pauses in Hera and Mon Mothma’s dialogue were ridiculous.
To those complaining about pacing – NONE OF YOU are Dark Shadows fans, I presume. I am fine with the pacing. This obviously is not a one-season story arc. Chill the fuck out.Yes – Dark Shadows is awesome, even when unintentionally funny!
It was a bummer when Ray Stevenson died. I’m even more bummed now watching this series play out. I want more Baylan. Him in this role is a glove in hand fit
Liev Schreiber and Clive Owen are currently calling their agents. That character can’t be stopped by a simple thing as an actor dying.
I’m bummed because this is his final role and he’s doing great with almost nothing to work with. Clearly, like so many aspects of this show, they were just doing set up for later and now we’ll never see that come to fruition.
Right? I was thinking that exact thing while watching this episode.
first name for recasting that popped into my head was Rory McCann
Vincent Regan, currently in the role of Vice Admiral Garp (the uncle) in One Piece, would make a good replacement for Ray.
Uneventful.Look, I said a lot of things about these reviews in the past, but there’s just no getting past it this time.Sam Barsani is a goddamn idiot.That, or he’s extremely confused and watching a completely different show.OR he’s a blatant troll who wants attention on Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregator.
Every review is the same. “Why haven’t they told us everything they are doing! I WANT MY FUCKING OOMPA LOOMPA!”
I mean, it’s possible that Barsanti’s reviews are terrible and that the show is also terrible.
So you’re saying it could be more than one thing? Possibly multiple things, but not as many as three?
*slowly counts on fingers* By Jove, I think you’re onto something!
Possible.But alas, that’s not the case here. It really is just Barsanti.
Was really a poor decision to have this clown review Ahsoka.
But what did happen? Two mediocre fights. Thrawn doing nothing. Shows can do filler but filler cannot be in the main plot itself. Ahsoka as a show so far has been 70% of nothing happening. If you’ve seen Rebels you’ll probably have a different opinion but if you’re a regular Star Wars watcher you haven’t got any pre-existing connection with any character and the show does a horrible job of establishing that connection for new viewers.
i don’t agree with all his reasoning, but i do agree this show stinks.i’m sorry that it’s been 46 years and Star Wars fans refuse to allow anyone to not think exactly what they do.
Look, I’m certainly no fan of Barsanti, but even he seems to appreciate that just because people are pew-pew!-ing and swoosh-swoosh!-ing at each other doesn’t mean the story is meaningfully advancing.
If the story meaningfully advanced without much pew-pewing, he’d be bitching about that. For reference, please see: Every other episode review he did.
LOL, what story? I’ve been reading all these recaps, and I don’t see much story being told. In seven episodes, two groups have skirmished a bit, to no real result, and traveled to another galaxy, where the bad guys have spent two episodes loading cargo. Also, the main character had a very long, weird dream, which inspired her to… keep doing the same thing she was already doing.The season’s only meaningful story point thus far seems to have been Sabine giving the map to the baddies rather than dooming Ezra to permanent exile. Everything else is apparently just shuffling around.
How every will they get back to their home galaxie….stay tuned until next week. OR Disney will MCU the hell out of it and we will need to wait 2 years.
Has anyone seen Mary Elizabeth Winstead in “Kate”? She’s legit the only action hero in this whole show and she’s being wasted talking bureaucracy with the star wars version of Ted Cruz on some kangaroo court where the points don’t matter and nobody really has anything better to do. Otherwise, love this show.
I’m simply expecting Xiono to wind up being an Imperial loyalist. Or is that too simplistic?
Anyway, I hope the end credits map sequence reveals something more. It told us of the space whales and now I expect something to tie into why there are 7 paths leading to Peridae. Or do they simply represent all the main characters coming to meet there?
There’s no way Star Wars Ted Cruz isn’t an Imperial agent.
The true mark is the one that thinks they are in on the con.
Are you called Cruz a mark-assed buster? Because kudos if so.
it reminds me of when they got Jennifer Beals for BOBF and did nothing with her. Danny Trejo too but i understand his appearance was more of a Robert Rodriguez-connection thing.
Didn’t Beals also play a Twi’lek? Really makes you think.
Just remember, everyone: even if, somehow, the season finale is really good, it will not retroactively make the rest of this unnecessary and boring show any better.Similarly, I am not in the camp that is somehow trying to say that the prequel trilogy was ‘ackshully really good’ in comparison to the sequel trilogy. New crap doesn’t change the old crap; the old crap is still crap.
On the bright side, we went from two to three actors who decided to show up and act this week; Baylan, Shin and Mon. Everyone else is just there, not to interested in being there at that, hiding their marks and reciting their lines to get it over with. I hate that this show feels like bad tumblr fan fic, most evident with the C3PO cameo. The whole appear before the council scene highlights how poorly this show as written. Just a mess of dialogue, interaction, blocking and staging. Baylan has no reason to fight Ahsoka. He is clearly on a different path and she is all about finding Sabine and Erza and stopping Thrawn. There is not even a hint of interest or concern with Baylan. He could just ignore her instead of provoking her into taking more of an interest. That interaction came off as “we want to see more light saver battles, yeah!” This episode with all its lore filling was the most evident that a movie was coming. Remember all those events from the movies, and all those events in the other tv series, we are clearly trying to tie together.
It’s the current problem with current Action movies and TV shows, the story is a vehicle to get from cool action scene to bonker action scenes instead of being used for character development and setting up great dialogues.I call it the John Wick disease.
I’m not against the occasional piece of art that’s just an excuse for cool action scenes, but honestly a little of that goes a very long way. The action scenes in John Wick 4 were all superbly executed (if twice as long as they needed to be), but I can’t think of any reason I’d ever want to watch it again. None of the characters in the movie are remotely interesting as characters.
I stopped after 45 min because I was completely bored. My girlfriend wanted to keep watching the next day but she gave up around the 1h30 mark. There was still 1h10 left and absolutely no plot or character development in sight.It was all “John wick travel, meet people, ask for help, get guns, fight”, the same as John wick 2 and 3 but fucking longer.The worst enemy of good storytelling is predictability, and this franchise has never been surprising after the first movie. Most boring action movies I ever watched. People should watch Bullet Train instead. It’s not the greatest movie ever, but here is an action movie that tries to have a story, dialogues, developments and doesn’t just rely on the action.
I didn’t actually watch JW2 or JW3, so I wasn’t quite yet oversaturated with the franchise’s silly excess, and didn’t mind sitting through JW4 (which I saw in the theater, so there wasn’t really any chance I would leave). But you’re right about Bullet Train; that movie’s fun as hell and has characters I actually came to care about. I’ll admit that BT did feel a little longer than it strictly needed to be, but it was a case of “too much of a good thing” rather than JW4’s “is this ever going to end?”
My issue is they’re trying too hard to set up something without actually doing a good job of it. The Mando Season 1 & 2 were fun and season 2 was actually good but the show didn’t need to go on after that. Season 3 was horrible, TBOBF is something I couldn’t even be bothered with watching after the first episode. They’re clearly trying to make the Star Wars TV Universe a thing but they’re face planting badly.
“the creators have the good sense and good taste not to show her.”Nah, if they’re gonna keep doing stories in this era and alluding to these old characters (and occasionally showing them like Luke), it’s time to bite the bullet and recast those parts. I know Star Wars fans are like any other big nerd group and are highly resistant to change, but you can’t just keep going “no Leia’s around, she just won’t be appearing here”. Either don’t have them around at all, or actually show them when the plot demands it.
I want CG Carrie Fisher and I want it fucking now. Barsanti is not the judge of what is bullshit and what is not.
They should either recast or, if they want to mention anybody from the OT, it should be as inconsequential as possible. Having Leia be an offscreen plot device raises far more questions than it answers.Still think it’s a bit odd that two of the X-Wings that left the fleet with Hera were destroyed and nobody’s bothered to mention it. What if it’d been Captain Carson Teva?
No mention of the Star Destroyer sized Jump-Ring in the inquiry that Hera’s crew caught flying around for no-reason? At least they played like everyone in the room knows Xiono is corrupt too.
Interns
Well, considering that Kathleen Kennedy said the ONLY lesson she learned was NOT recasting the core star wars players, that will never ever happened. Yep, out of the sequels and these mediocre TV shows, the only thing she weirdly learned not to do is ironically the one thing they should have done ages ago. This is why people bang their heads against the wall with everything star wars.
One day she will be revealed to be an alien, and won’t YOU feel judgey. (and we thought the ALIENS had a lot to learn)
My take is you can’t recast Luke, Leia, and Han (at least for quite a long time still), but everyone else is fair game. Genevieve O’Reilly has been wonderful, Ewan McGregor was great.
They can recast, sure, but I’m maybe one of the few people who’s fine with the de-aging CGI thing. This franchise is practically a 50/50 split between animation and live action anyway and if the story is good, I don’t care if the effects look a bit wonky.
I get it too. Lucasfilm is a bunch of techies and they’re never going to stop trying to close the gap on the uncanny valley. Honestly, Luke looked pretty good on Mando last year. Indy was a just ok in the opening of Dial of Destiny. Like, rather than look bad, they chose in some spots to throw a shadow over his face and some blur. I feel like they thought if they made the opening action really hyper, people wouldn’t have time to notice the de-aging. I liked DoD too! It built and ended great. Old Indy acted his ass off. The opening was a mixed bag tho. Obvs, Leia in Rogue One sucked. But hey! Who has a track record of going back and tinkering with old special effects and re-editing? These guys!! Dudes should own it and go back and re-release the Prequel Trilogy with better effects. Turn the dial down on Jar Jar by 10%… add two Maul scenes. Clean up the field battle. Sneak live Ahsoka in there for a couple shots in Revenge of the Sith. Fuck it guys. Do it. Go fix Rogue One for crying out loud. People are already doing it on YouTube for their portfolios: “See? Hire me. I fixed Rogue One on my home computer.”
All this with the caveat that they structure something worthwhile with the actor’s strike. Do all the above, people, but don’t fuck over the actors, stunt people, body doubles, and extras. Watch the tech people don’t strike next.
Jar Jar dial can go down 100%. Topher Grace already has the cut and people LOVE it.
It has muppets so I’ll believe anything. Sesame Street taught me that.
Yup, I think Kathleen Kennedy learned the wrong lesson with Solo. I’m sure Producers around her all blamed the recasting. “You did everything perfectly KK! The audience rejected Nu Han!” No my dudes, the problem was the pacing of releases. The casts in all the recent movies isn’t/ wasn’t the problem – even the shows! The casts are just fine. The higher-ups are simply pulling these things out of the oven before they’re done cooking. Now, in the case of Ahsoka, I’ve been more forgiving because Filoni has had plenty of time to let this arc of his marinate good and long. Us not knowing everyone’s mysterious goals in this show is a choice. It seems like he’s banking on three or four big reveals will make the rest of the previous episodes pull into focus – in the hopes that word-of-mouth next week will be “Oh! I get it now. Wow future Ahsoka viewers: You really have to stick with it to the end.” Maybe he’s got the goods. Idk. Season One of Rebels revealed the Inquisitors were using (spoilers) as a trap to draw in Jedi that escaped Order 66 from across the galaxy – and that was a twist no one saw coming… and that was fucking dark for Disney. So, he’s played the surprise card in the past. Fingers crossed it’s something worthwhile.
To be fair, Mon Mothma was recast, and very successfully.
one of those characters had 2 minutes of screen time in the original trilogy, so a recast is no big deal. the other was Leia.but that said–if they insist on inhabiting the space between ROTJ and TFA, it’s absurd to act as though Luke, Han and Leia are on a target run during these events that we’re supposed to believe have cataclysmic stakes. it’s time to recast.
such a weird hodgepodge of digital characters, voice actors playing their live action counterparts, live action counterparts folding into the animated versions, outright recasts, and in the case of ahsoka herself a fancast made real.
“You have to stick with it to the end” is getting to be a really risky proposition for showrunners nowadays. There’s just too much stuff out there, and too much of it is too good, to do the kind of wheel spinning that SW shows tend towards.
It’s simple: replace Carrie Fisher with a chiropractor who covers her face with a cape the whole time.
“I want to hear her call Darth Vader a Limey cocksucker!”
Space battle, weaving and bobbing thru space whale bones. A chase while riding horse like rat creatures. Lightsaber battles. Getting to see Ezra fight and use the force. Fighting the local tribesmen and killing stormtroopers. Anakin hologram training Ahsoka. A touching moment where Ahsoka reunites with Ezra, but yes a very uneventful episode. Tell us more how you a have chip on your shoulder when it comes to Star Wars, Sam Barsanti.
This show sounds like, outside of being a sequel to Rebels, it’s just terrible and empty.
I was confused by the fight between Ahsoka and Baylan. She gets her lightsaber to his throat and then he drops his defenses and says that she can never defeat him. Instead of cutting his head off, she just agrees and runs away. Is he immune to lightsabers or something?
It’s incredibly fun watching the pathetic fanboys freaking out over Ezra not taking his lightsaber back and letting the icky GIRL keep it.
Not that it’s worth losing sleep over, but it did seem a bit silly for him not to accept it or a blaster considering I’ve seen hockey players take hits 10 times harder than his force push.
People are complaining about that? The dude is a force monk who’s not above shooting people, he doesn’t need the damn lightsaber.
How about that freaky lightsaber/blaster combo he had in the toon?
Vader destroyed that one.
Reminded me of May in the first season of Agents of SHIELD: “If I need a gun, I’ll take one.”
I thought it was unnecessary reckless and stupid for the character to do that but it had nothing to do with Sabine’s gender.
In that scene there were valid reasons for Ezra to take back his lightsaber that have nothing to do with genders.
The lightsaber he hasn’t touched in ten years and would probably cut his own beard off with by accident taking it into a fight right now? That lightsaber.Huh.
Then they should have written for him to say that, rather than expecting the audience to write the scene for them (again).
As it was it just looked like he thought he could Force-push the enemy into submission better/easier than he could cut them, which was.. a choice.
Why does everything have to be spelled out so a five year old can follow it?He has been fighting without a lightsaber for however long, he also knows that Sabine is a padawan and also he gave it to her. Why would he take it back? He hasn’t needed it and assumes she would make better use of it.Sure he could have said as much, but he seemed to be doing very well against the trooper with his “force push submissions” and didn’t get into trouble until he ran across another force user, which he likely hasn’t fought against since he disappeared.
Not to mention he had some martial arts going to augment his Force powers. Plus he was right to let her keep it, Sabine used it during the fight and he obviously didn’t need it.
Because this is a children’s show they can share with their nerds, I mean dads.
You’re about to fight, your partner has multiple weapons (lightsaber, blasters, flame thrower, etc.) and offers you the one you’ve used before and could use again even if only for this one fight, and you say “I’m good”?
Maybe you need to be a five year old not to find that just a bit silly.
Why would he use something he is out of practice with when he has been using non-lightsaber tactics to fight the troopers for literally years…It makes less sense that he would pick it back up to fulfil some fanboy fantasy, given that he hasn’t practiced or fought with it for like a decade.Only a five year old would think he could use it with the same skill as he did during Rebels
Lucky there’s no five year old around here that said that.
Sabine had lots of physical weapons. Ezra didn’t. Wouldn’t have hurt (and would’ve made sense) to have one at hand in case the Force wasn’t enough in a battle situation. Even the Jedi don’t just rely on the Force in battle.
Ezra had been using non-lightsaber tactics for years out of necessity. Now he had the option to supplement that. Nothing to do with “fanboy fantasy”.
Yes, Ezra has spent the last 5 (?) years using non-lightsaber tactics “out of necessity”. But you know what happens when you change your tactics out of necessity? That becomes your new norm. He hasn’t used a lightsaber for 5 years – it’s no longer normal for him. His default method of fighting now is to not use a lightsaber.
Force push doesn’t typically incapacitate your enemy. A lightsaber strike can. If Ezra didn’t want to hurt the enemy, then Force push makes sense. But I don’t remember that being the point of this scene. Then again it’s been a while since I watched it, or talked about it, and I have no desire to revisit, which is the biggest problem for anything with the Star Wars name.
“Then they should have written for him to say that, rather than expecting the audience to write the scene for them (again).”
He did say it: Ezra effectively explained it twice—both why Sabine should keep the saber AND why he didn’t want it. I’d have to rewatch the scene to be 100% sure, but my memory is that Ezra said something like, “I gave it to YOU, it’s yours—keep it.” And then he added (paraphrasing), “I don’t need it—the force is my ally.” How much more explicit does he need to be?
I love it when people like you try to create faux outrage. No one gives a shit about this series, especially Star Wars fanboys.
Are people complaining about that? Where?
On the assumption they’re using Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn lore, then yes Thrawn knows Anakin is Vader.
For not a lot happening — and cinching either a second season or the Rebels continuation being a big part of the crossover movie, or maybe its own standalone special — at least this episode zipped along. My own observations:
* Gotta give Baylan some credit; even if he’s (probably) half-daft in his quest for the Crystal Skull or whatever, he saw that Shin was (probably) going to ice him at the first opportunity and tried to make a way out.
* I think I get what Filoni is trying to do with Sen. Xiono (R-AL), but nobody on the committee standing up to him til Threepio makes the save still pushes the limits on that scene.
* I feel bad for Ezra being in the dark about this whole mishegas; Sabine really thinks she’s going to get away with this, doesn’t she?
Would he know that Anakin is Darth Vader?Yes, in one of the canon Thrawn books (Thrawn: Alliances if I remember correctly) he pretty much figures out the Vader is Anakin almost immediately after meeting him. The book also flashes back to the Clone Wars when Thrawn first encounters Anakin while on a mission for the Chiss Ascendancy. At that time he also pretty quickly figured out that Anakin and Padme were in a secret relationship and that Anakin was, for reasons unknown at the time, being gaslit by the Supreme Chancellor into seeing the galaxy the way he wanted him to see it.
Baylan is watching because he doesn’t have anywhere to be yet, but ultimately he’s gonna go activate the extra-galactic McGuffin that’s a bigger threat than Thrawn, which has been his actual reason for being involved in all this the whole time. I think it’s still split between, in decreasing order of likelihood: some crazy new monster thing, the Yuuzhan Vong, the Abominor, the True Sith, a different army of Dathomirians, etc.
I’ve heard Abeloth (from final years of the old EU) as a possibility, which is more or less a crazy new monster thing with freaky Force powers. It also ties into the Mortis arc from Clone Wars, which fits Filoni’s vibe, and is a logical option 3 for Baylan that doubles as an incredibly powerful McMuffin.
C’mon now, what manner of nerd crytpid would I be if I knew what the Abominor were but not Abeloth?Heck maybe it’s Waru!
Abeloth inhabiting Shin Hati (or Sabine???) was my guess; Abeloth in the EU was mortal first and might need a “host” to come “back” as it were.
Baylan’s not gonna do anything. Thrawn is going to succeed, he’s being set up as the baddie for a future project. Sadly, due to Ray Stevenson’s passing, we’ll never get closure on Baylan.
it was a very funny idea to make a show about the aliens with the tentacle heads! I can imagine the fun time the costumes and makeup people had trying to make this show look like anything except a fan convention with digital camera lighting.
I read the headline before watching the episode and was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the slog I expected and overall was pretty good. That said, why is Hera even in this show? She hasn’t actually done anything and her one storyline was pretty much just handwaved away.This episode really should have revealed what’s going on with Baylan though. He’s spent seven episodes now just staring into space and I don’t think they’re going to be able to wrap up whatever he’s up to in one episode satisfactorily.
Hera will get her own spinoff: Space Mom.
That said, why is Hera even in this show?Those pants…
Sam really doesn’t like Star Wars.
It’s not just him, none of the reviewers for any of the shows here appear to like any of the shows they review.
Yeah I think it’s to drive clicks for comments.
It’s perfectly reasonable for the review to wind up having a negative view of the thing being reviewed. I’ll point to Magnum, Podcast as a great example of the subject being roasted every damn time. The problem is when the reviewer has a negative view of reviewing, and can’t be bothered to base their review on what is actually happing in the show.
I strongly disagree with this review again. No disrespect intended to the review or the reviewer. It is well written, and no one is paying to read my words about Star Wars for good reason.I just think the criticisms, especially of the last two episodes are odd. “Uneventful”? We had some really strong action in this one-we had ship battles and lightsaber duels and blasters and even force push as main weapon. We got all the Star Wars things. We even got some Ewok type battle shennanigans that was more funny than annoying.There was story momentum too. Ezra and Sabine picking up their friendship, Ahsoka reuniting with Ezra, Ahsoka becoming more comfortable with her role, Baylon and his apprentice on divergent paths, Thrawn’s plan ticking closer to completion. Seemed like pretty typical table setting for a finale to me.The main problems cited by this review seem to be two-The Hera Court Martial scene and the fact that not everything is resolved yet. The Hera plot has absolutely been undercooked throughout. It has undoubtedly been the weakest part of the show. But the scene that resolves too quickly and takes up so much real estate in the review (including the headline) is 2-3 minutes in a 50 minute episode. Whoop de doo. And the complaint that we don’t know what Baylon or Thrawn etc. is planning, which was also made last week-yeah, and there is some series left. Maybe we should see what the conclusion is before we worry about it too much. Stories are allowed to build over time. Maybe it will be an excellent finale that will answer all our questions in a satisfactory way. Or maybe it will all be set up for the movie and that will annoy people (although I wouldn’t really mind because I plan to watch the movie). But could we let the series actually tell its story before concluding that they messed it up?The early episodes of this show were pretty uneven, but I think the last few have been really good Star Wars.
The review is not well written either. Kind of you to say so but untrue.
Just because people are pew-pew!-ing and swoosh-swoosh!-ing at each other doesn’t mean the story is meaningfully advancing.
Wow, what a response! And it took you a full week after I posted to come up with it. Just awesome. Gold star for you.
Prompt replies carry a surcharge. If you can’t be bothered to Venmo me for expedited opinions, that’s on you.
See that whole paragraph after the one where I discussed the action in the episode where I talk about how I think the story was also advanced? Did you just delete it in your head because it doesn’t fit the snarky response you wanted, or did you just not read what I posted?If this is your response that took a week to formulate, I would really hate to see your expedited opinions.
There was a point when Sabine set out to explore Peridea when i thought – ok this is something really exciting. A character has traveled to another galaxy. That rarely occurs in sci-fi so it had the potential of something truly alien and exotic – thus more exciting than any of the blatant fan service. And then Sabine meets the hermit craboids…
The way some people are talking about Ray Stevenson on this show reminds me of how a lot of people talked about Chadwick Boseman on What If, where I just want to scream at them “You realize no one had ANY FUCKING IDEA he was going to die, right? Making this role some kind of super great epitaph for his career was never part of the process.”
No reason was given for his cause of death. I’m betting it was auto-erotic asphyxiation So it was completely unknown in advance.
Why send troops to distract Ahsoka and crew when they had no idea about your mysterious loading plan and had no apparent way to? Totally nonsensical.
The show isn’t perfect, but it isn’t nearly as frustrating as your crap recaps.
Only thing wrong with this episode is how logic and common sense is missing. They have pretty much just gotten past the Empire and the Emperor, which everyone there should know tricked the senate/senators to get into power. So if there would be even the smallest hint of that repeating the New Republic should be all over it….. But no, the senators are just repeating their predecessors mistakes. That or the angry senator in this episode is the most obvious imperial spy ever.. And why no one even bothers to investigate him is beyond me…
Who the fuck is even still watching this limp dick of a show?
So this is all basically leading up to an Avengers style movie, right? with the casts of Ahsoka, Mando, BOBF all teaming up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the force ghosts of Ewan McGregor and Anakin show up to lend a hand somehow, too. Maybe some time shenanigans can rope in kid Leia and Luke somehow, or the Andor crew.
it is, and i’ve haven’t been this unexcited for a Star Wars project since Solo.
Who else thinks they should can Barsanti? I’m so sick of his hate-filled reviews. Remember downgrading Secret Invasion by a letter grade each week due to the AI opening sequence? That show was bad but still. These are such annoying articles to read. We get it you didn’t wanna like this show from the jump.
They need to reign Barsanti in or kick him to the curb these articles are ridiculous.
Also I’m doing poorly in my Communications college class rn and I blame this website. I guess I’m just desensitized to run-on sentences now, sigh.
My favorite part of this episode was how badly the little droid in the background wanted to throw hands with the mean senator after he made his droidist remark.
“To me, Ahsoka’s relationship to Star Wars often feels like Moon Knight’s
relationship to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is to say that I’m
not entirely sure why any of this is supposed to matter beyond the fact
that it says the name of a big franchise I like at the beginning of
each episode.”That’s because you’re not good at paying attention.
Shows like this make you appreciate things like One Piece even more: Story-telling, scriptwriting, good pacing, characterisation, hell even basic levels of logic. These are things this show desperately needs.
And you can’t be “racist” towards droids. They’re machines. They’re not people. They are programmed objects.
“Finally, a guy we all know, whose motivations and backstory are not needlessly obfuscated or changed from the last time we saw him!”Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader?
“I guessed last week that he may have gone mad while trapped on this planet for a decade or so”Why would he be trapped on the planet?
“He also dismisses the recent events on Madalore”Should it be “Mandalore”?
That wasn’t just one of the worst Ahsoka episodes, that was one of the worst episodes of TV I’ve seen in a long, long time. From the obnoxious fan-service orchestral swelling when C3Po walked in, to the multiple plot armor, we know nothing will happen, ship to ship fights, to letting the bad apprentice walk away for absolutely no reason, I could barely go five minutes wuthout rolling my eyes. After last week’s episode, I had hopes that the series was turning around ang getting better, but it fell off a cliff this week.
LOL
“not much else happens”Um did you miss all the action sequences?
My kid and I have watched every episode. We want to like the show – and there are parts that are cool in live action. But my 12 yr old and I are completely lost on the whole save Thrawn plot point. I’ve read Zahn’s books – explaining Thrawn’s reasons to assist the Empire. But this series hasn’t offered a single detail as to why a former Jedi, his apprentice, and a witch believe Thrawn is the guy to raise the Empire from the dead. The witches don’t know about Palpatine? And what’s up with Balen? Any reason he switched sides (if he really did)? Have Thrawn and Ezra known there are literal neighbors this whole time? Where did Thrawn’s troopers come from? And why did they wrap red duct tape on their armor? But for the droids – the series has been meandering and frankly . . . disappointing (but not as disappointing as the Book of Boba Fett).
“The witches don’t know about Palpatine?”The Palpatine that sent General Grievous to wipe out the Nightsisters? That Palpatine?“Have Thrawn and Ezra known there are literal neighbors this whole time?”Considering that Thrawn was able to suggest to Sabine where to go, I’d say yes.
This show is absolutely stunningly boring. I’m legitimately shocked how little I give a damn about what is happening every week.