SPOILER ALERT: This recap contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of Disney+/Lucasfilm’s Ahsoka, directed by Rick Famuyiwa and written by Dave Filoni.
Heading into tonight’s Season 1 finale of Ahsoka, fans knew we were flying to a cliffhanger; that Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) would make the jump to hyperspace via the space loop while some portion of Ahsoka and friends would be left behind without a prayer in the midst of the green tundra tumbleweeds of Peridea in a galaxy far, far away.
What didn’t happen in this episode were any major cameos from Star Wars canon dramatis personae of yore, i.e., Princess Leia or Luke Skywalker or Boba Fett or Baby Yoda. No, we got our fill of that with C-3PO in the last episode, when he appeared to defend Hera’s rogue mission before the snarky Galactic council.
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Where do we go from here? Thrawn’s intent is to get the gang, meaning the Empire, back together aka “The Thrawn campaign,” which was a series of military and political maneuvers by the blue man to not only restore the Empire but also to implode the New Republic. This is all so pre-Kylo Ren. Some fans have speculated that Dave Filoni’s stand-alone feature film — a culmination of his Disney+/Lucasfilm universe of The Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, etc. — centers around Thrawn, and that is poised to be next. However, we hear that Ahsoka Season 2 is more of a reality in the conversation, though nothing is locked yet. Tonight there were no placards teasing that Ahsoka would return in the immediate future. Natch, the ending WGA strike and the ongoing actors strike has put off production for some time.
That said, instead of Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Sabine (Natasha Liu) and Ezra (Eman Esfandi) all getting marooned in the middle of nowhere, the latter jumps (with some Force push help from g.f. Sabine) and boards Thrawn’s Imperial Cruiser from the edge of cliff launchpad. In one of the final moments of tonight’s episode, we see an Imperial shuttle fly into the bay of a Rebel starfleet ship. Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and a group of peers draw their guns on the stormtrooper who disembarks. Chopper the droid, the good hound that he is, sniffs and learns that the guy is friend, not foe. The stormtrooper unmasks, and ta-da, it’s Ezra. It’s the first time that General Hera and Ezra have been united since his disappearance at the end of Rebels.
However, it’s not only Ahsoka and Sabine who are stranded; the duo reuniting with Ezra’s pod pals, the Noti. However, Shin Hati and Baylan Skoll are lurking around the planet. It will be interesting with the unfortunate passing of actor Ray Stevenson how Baylan moves forward in the Star Wars timeline. Does the production recast? Also, there’s been some chatter out there in the fan-verse that Shin Hati is really taking the place of Luke Skywalker’s wife Mara Jade, who was first introduced in the original Star Wars canon. Mara Jade was a Force-sensitive female and ultimate Jedi Master who worked for Emperor Palpatine until his “death” at the end of Return of the Jedi. She did some bad things. Got mixed up with Thrawn (which we saw this season) and then ultimately worked with Luke, and the rest is kissy kissy. However, we have yet to see if Shin Hati’s timeline plays out like Mara Jade’s. We can see in her eyes, there’s a lot of good in her. The last we see of Shin Hati is reuniting with the planet’s version of sand people: the rogue, red-clad Samurai-looking warriors. Baylan is out there breathing heavily in the overcast sky plains of Peridea.
The one casualty tonight was Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto). And it really didn’t look like at the onset she we would wind up a loser. She’s immediately inducted into the Great Mothers who take her in, because she always sensed them. They convert Morgan into something of a zombie witch, her face now riddled with Alice Cooper mascara. Morgan is gifted with the Blade of Talzin, which is one of the few weapons that can resist a lightsaber. This all creates for an intriguing gun, err, lightsaber fight in the climax between Morgan, Ahsoka and Sabine. It appears that Morgan is the stronger over Ahsoka, but alas, she’s not, as the latter ultimately takes the blade in a fight and slices Morgan’s torso. Anyway, that’s a good weapon for Ahsoka to have in her pocket down the road. Am thinking the Blade of Talzin is no match for the Black Sabre.
If anything, The Jedi, the Witch and the Warlord‘s arc belongs to Sabine. The doubting Thomas of a wannabe Jedi actually achieves her Force in the height of crisis, Force-pulling her saber to kill a dark trooper in a fight (literally igniting the saber in his head as he grips her) and giving Ezra an extra Force push from behind as he barrels in the air off a launchpad into Thrawn’s spaceship. Droid Huyang (David Tennant) tells Ezra that Ahsoka had her concerns about Sabine, for she was a Mandalore, with the thirst of revenge since the Empire ransacked her home planet. Hence, to Ashoka, Sabine has the potential to become dangerous. And we know what happens to angry Jedis: They go to the dark side.
While Ahsoka was always loose-lipped when she was getting trained by Anakin, she’s as wise as Ben Kenobi in the series. Despite the setback that she has to wait for her ride to get off the planet with Sabine, the master complimented the padawan by saying “You did well.”
“Did I?” answered Sabine, “Thrawn got away…”
“And thanks to you, Ezra got home,” responded Ahsoka.
“I hope” says Sabine.
“He did,” Ahsoka says with confidence.
“Ezra is where he needs to be, and so are we,” says Ahsoka. “It’s time to move on.”
The last parting shot we get is of Anakin Skywalker, still watching over Ahsoka.
Next up in the Disney+ live-action Star Wars series universe is Skeleton Crew, Season 2 of Andor and The Acolyte.