The first two episodes of Ahsoka feel more Star Wars than The Mandalorian does, and we both like The Mandalorian. During some of the transitions Mrs. Know-It-All would lean over and say, this feels very Star Wars, and I’d say, it does. It really does.
It’s a Tuesday night, the series just dropped on Disney Plus, and it’s late here, so if we yawn, that’s why. I’m excited anyway. This was so much fun.
I’ll say it up front. I watched the first two seasons of Rebels, right up to where Ahsoka jumped in and came in real big, and then life and everything else took over and I never got a chance to catch up. When I was doing the seven things to know video, I was writing it as part of my own research, learning more about these characters myself. Mrs. Know-It-All is a Star Wars fan, but she’s a fan of the movies. She didn’t do any of the animated series. So we’re doing something a little different with this one, which is learning along with you. Those of you who know Rebels and Clone Wars cold, don’t hesitate to jump in the comments and tell us what we’re missing. We’d love that.
Master and Apprentice, On Screen and Off
This is Dave Filoni’s first solo mission, no pun intended. He’s the one in control and in the driver’s seat.
Disney Plus released a video on YouTube, a behind the scenes piece with Filoni, and we put it on around 8:30 while we were waiting for the episode to drop. In it he talks about how George Lucas came to the set of The Mandalorian when Dave was directing his episode. And it clicked. I looked over at Mrs. Know-It-All and said, Master and Apprentice. That’s the premise of all of this. George Lucas was the master. Dave Filoni’s the apprentice.
Lucas has no stake in this anymore, other than his name being on the original. He’s the creator. So for him to see Filoni come into his own, and see this character they created together come to life in such a great way, that’s the whole thing right there.
Rosario Dawson does an amazing job. I’ve heard a few reviewers say you’ve got to be familiar with this, you’ve got to be familiar with that. It probably would help if I knew Rebels and Clone Wars better, but it doesn’t take away from any of this. I’ve seen plenty of movies and shows that start as if you already know what’s going on, and I consider that the height of trusting your audience.
Mrs. Know-It-All agreed. We were both at a deficit coming in, and to her it felt like the thing she gets from the movies, the thing that made her a Star Wars fan in the first place.
I feel Ahsoka’s backstory. I feel the weight of the character without knowing a whole lot of it. We got her in The Mandalorian when Rosario Dawson first played her, and briefly in that one scene from The Book of Boba Fett with Luke. And there’s a big, epic scene between her and Darth Vader from the animation that you can find online. I showed that one to Mrs. Know-It-All a while ago, so she wasn’t coming in completely blind.
A Crawl, a Starship, and Ray Stevenson
We got a crawl. Our first crawl in the serialized stuff, in red, very ominous, and it tells us exactly where we are in the story. I’m so happy to have seen a crawl.
Then I’m sitting there going, Dave, can you nod any more to George Lucas than you did? Because right after it a starship just comes into frame, and that’s it, I’m watching a Star Wars movie.
It’s a New Republic ship, and it’s being followed by another ship that looks very reminiscent of those Imperial ones, the tri-wings. The other ship calls over and says a couple of Jedi want to come aboard to see the prisoner. The prisoner is Morgan Elsbeth, played by Diana Lee Inosanto. If you remember The Mandalorian season two, that’s the person Ahsoka went to take out of that village. She’s got the giant beskar spear, Ahsoka’s got the lightsabers, and it’s a great scene. She’d been captured and was being taken back to the Republic.
So this captain, Mr. Big Balls, says yeah, totally, let’s see what they think they are. He figures it’s people faking. They come off the ship with the hoods and the whole bit, and God love him, it’s Ray Stevenson, who left us. The first episode is dedicated to him, which is great. What an amazing actor, and he really carries the gravitas of this role. He plays a character named Baylan Skoll, who you later find out was a former Jedi student.
You find that out from Huyang, the Jedi droid. I know from my research he’s a character from Clone Wars, this ancient professor droid who taught generations of Jedi, even Yoda, how to build their lightsabers. He’s the wand guy from Harry Potter, the one who’s been doing it forever and ever.
When Hera finds out about all this, she reaches out to Ahsoka with a holographic capture of what happened in the shuttle bay. No surprise, the Republic guys didn’t believe they were Jedi, and boom. Stevenson does a really good job in it too, Force pushing, doing everything, the fun stuff we haven’t gotten a lot of lately. If you’ve been missing Force users and lightsabers, this is the show for you.
We’d just finished watching the first three Star Wars movies at home, so starting Ahsoka right after felt perfect.
Sabine, the Space Cat, and a Show That Doesn’t Leave You Behind
Hera tells Ahsoka, you know who could help you with this, and we all know the answer. It’s Sabine.
Sabine’s cool. I knew her from Rebels, because she was in those first couple of seasons I saw, so seeing that character come to life was a treat. They’re dedicating a relief to the cause, I guess it’s something like ten years since the war ended, and she’s supposed to be there giving a speech. What’s awesome about the relief is it looks like the characters from the animated series. Mrs. Know-It-All asked me if that was on purpose. I said that’s exactly right, and she said, my word, they did good then. They did amazing.
Sabine, of course, isn’t going to this thing. She’s on a speeder heading out to her little communications tower, where she lives with her space cat. I know the character’s in the animation, or at least it was in the relief, for gosh sakes. I’m just saying it’s so cute. We’ve got a couple of cats here at home. There’s a really cool little moment on the way where she slides under a fighter that had been parked in the middle of the road to block her.
When she gets back she watches the last holographic message she got from Ezra. So we do get a version of Ezra, a hologram about this big, played by Eman Esfandi, and it’s fun to see the character realized this way. He gave his lightsaber to Sabine. You’d have to know the ending of Rebels for the rest, but essentially he sacrificed himself to save them from Thrawn, and so now the question is whether he’s gone or not.
What Mrs. Know-It-All liked is that she never watched Rebels and they let her know what was going on immediately. She didn’t have to turn to me, pause it, and ask for an explanation. They’re doing a really good job of not letting fans who haven’t seen the animated series feel isolated.
So don’t believe the hype when people tell you that you have to watch something else to understand it. No, you don’t. That’s a lie. Go enjoy the show. It’s a breath of fresh air, especially when Disney’s been putting out so many things that haven’t done great. Seeing this on the heels of Andor made me really happy, because there’s a lot of love put into it. The world feels lived in, and these are unique characters I’m enjoying learning about.
Ahsoka All the Way
The first place we see Ahsoka is a temple, and she does this move with her lightsabers where she throws them to the ground, uses the Force to spin them around and cut through the floor, and down she goes. After being introduced to her in The Mandalorian, Mrs. Know-It-All said this was Ahsoka all the way. She’s bad.
In the chamber she finds a star map. It’s a circular deal, and you have to unlock it almost like a fancy Rubik’s Cube. Mrs. Know-It-All and I went to the same place with it: Gallifreyan. For you Doctor Who fans out there, with the spirals and everything, it was the first thing we thought of, especially later when it gets unlocked.
As soon as she gets back up top there are assassin droids waiting, HK models, and there’s four of them. You’ve seen this in the trailers. She does a great job, obviously, and then they’re going to blow themselves up, because that’s what all good assassin droids do when they’re going to fail. So she’s got to book it.
What happened to Force running? They teased us with Force running in Episode I and we never got anybody Force running again. Anyway, she runs, Huyang brings the ship in, she makes the jump, and they get away with the map.
When the Student Is Ready
When Ahsoka arrives on Lothal, you can feel a tug of war between her and Sabine, and the second episode delves into it. It harkens back to that line from the old Zorro movie: when the student is ready, the master will appear. Everybody’s asking Ahsoka, why don’t you take her back, why don’t you train her. And at one point Ahsoka’s answer is essentially, if she wanted to, she would. Sabine’s doing the same thing when Huyang talks to her about it later. I’ll do what I want when I want, if she really wanted me. And he tells her, maybe she’s not the one who needs to want this.
Mrs. Know-It-All’s point was that Ahsoka doesn’t need to want to train anybody. She’s good doing her thing. And Sabine isn’t even that Force sensitive to begin with. But it goes beyond that, because she’s a Mandalorian, which already makes her special in its own right, and the lightsaber and the Jedi training would be another piece of her skill set. I know it’s deeper than that. I really do.
Ahsoka pretty much tells her, don’t leave with the map. So of course Sabine takes it and runs to her tower. She manages to unlock it, because Sabine is brilliant, she sees the map, and waiting outside her door are a couple of HK assassin droids and a little somebody named Shin Hati.
Shin Hati is the apprentice of Baylan Skoll. She looks vicious. Mrs. Know-It-All says she doesn’t have a nice facial feature about her.
There’s a distinction worth making about these two. Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati aren’t Jedi. They’re also not Sith. They have orange lightsabers, and the reason they’re orange is that they haven’t fully turned to the dark side. Baylan still holds a lot that’s very Jedi. In the old RPG and comic book days he would’ve been considered a fallen Jedi. This whole show is Jedi, not Jedi. You have Ahsoka with the white lightsabers, which implies she purified the old Inquisitor lightsabers she got, and she leans toward the light even though she doesn’t want to call herself a Jedi. On the other side, Baylan doesn’t consider himself evil or a Sith.
They’re the ones who released Morgan, and you find out Morgan’s true story: she’s one of the Witches of Dathomir. Mrs. Know-It-All didn’t know witches existed in Star Wars, so I had to explain. They’ve shown up in a few things, but they really come from Legends, and I mean hardcore Legends, all the old stuff Disney says is no longer canon and has been cherry picking from. Dave Filoni’s old school and comes from that world. The Witches of Dathomir were a big part of that old Legends through line, and her having that hardcore connection, I was totally here for.
So you have two apprentices, Shin Hati against Sabine. Sabine gets her lightsaber out, and it’s a good fight. You can tell it’s two apprentices. Mrs. Know-It-All put it right: it wasn’t an Anakin and Obi-Wan fight, but you can tell they know what they’re doing.
Then the craziest thing happens. Sabine is seemingly killed. Obviously she’s not, but I’m sitting there going, what the crap. I couldn’t believe it when a lightsaber goes right through her, because I’m sorry, the last time we saw that happen to somebody, it was Qui-Gon going down for the count. To be fair, Mrs. Know-It-All pointed out that medically speaking it was to her side, and as we all know a lightsaber would cauterize almost instantly.
That’s the end of the first episode.
Toil and Trouble
The second episode is called Toil and Trouble, playing with that name because it’s about the witches.
Baylan, Shin and now Morgan have arrived at this very particular place. I call it a translation stone. Baylan’s walking around looking at the thing, asking what it is, and she tells him it was built by an ancient race from another galaxy.
Where does Star Wars take place? A galaxy far, far away. For the longest time there’s been a group of the fandom asking whether Thrawn could have been exiled over here, in our galaxy, causing trouble. Or is it another galaxy entirely? In Legends, the Yuuzhan Vong came from a different galaxy, but it wasn’t ours. I love the notion that they might one day connect the two. I also don’t think you need that headache. Battlestar Galactica tried something like that in its early days, and I think they tried it in the reboot too. I don’t need Star Wars connected to Earth. Some people might. Mrs. Know-It-All’s answer: our galaxy is big, it doesn’t have to be Earth.
Meanwhile Sabine is dreaming, and Ahsoka’s sitting in the window nearby and can hear what’s going on in her head. Mrs. Know-It-All wanted it clear that this isn’t Jedi sitting around reading your mind. It’s more sensing, tuning in and hearing that something’s wrong. Sabine’s having roughly a nightmare, and Ahsoka wakes her up.
Ahsoka asks her questions and then says, you rest, I’m going to go to your place and look around. Sabine says let me get up and help, and Ahsoka says, you’ve done enough.
We split on that line. One read in this house is that Ahsoka’s taking the stance of you’re not ready to be trained, so you’ve done enough, because this is before Sabine asks to be trained again. The other read is that she was being catty and petty.
So Ahsoka goes back to Sabine’s place, sees the little space cat, and while she’s investigating, an assassin droid slowly creeps down. She’s ready for it. She cuts the thing up and they bring the head back to Sabine, Sabine hacks it, and all signs point to Corellia.
Mrs. Know-It-All had to ask me, why do I know that name? From Solo. One of our first dates was to see Solo, and the whole opening act takes place on Corellia, so we’re very familiar with that planet.
Corellia
Ahsoka’s first question is, didn’t Morgan have Imperial operations on Corellia? And Hera says well, yeah, but everybody there turned over and became New Republic. Ahsoka says, we need to go look for ourselves.
Before they go, Hera talks to Sabine. Work on getting well, and you need to ask her to train you again. And Sabine is very mopey about it. I tell you what, if Dave Filoni learned any lesson, it’s how to make a mopey, whiny character. Sabine is definitely the Luke Skywalker of this moment, because Luke was super whiny.
On Corellia they meet a really hoity-toity exec, and the actor plays a good slimy character. I can’t think of his name right now. He’s the gentleman who played the teacher in Transformers. My research was the main characters, I’m sorry, not the side guys.
Hera’s having to flex on everybody. He tells her authorization’s classified, and she’s like, I’m a general, bro, let’s go. She’s constantly having to throw her weight around.
And the droid that told on them. The red C-3PO. She asks what kind of droids they have, he lists the loaders and whatever, she asks about HKs, and he says, assassin droids? You never repurposed any? And the red C-3PO says, I saw one of those recently. That was so cool.
What’s going on is there’s a giant hyperdrive, and I say giant because it belongs to a Super Star Destroyer. Hera properly points out that the New Republic isn’t building anything that big right now, so what’s it for? That’s what starts all the drama. Everybody starts shooting, and Ahsoka says, I’ve got to put a stop to this, and jumps out through the window in style. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hera’s in her ship with Chopper, going after the transport, and it starts shooting at them. Ahsoka gets down to the factory floor and faces a couple of assassin droids and a dude in a mask carrying what I call an Inquisitor lightsaber, the circular one, like the Inquisitor in Obi-Wan had, the one who ended up taking on Vader. So apparently Baylan isn’t the only one. And mind you, this lightsaber was red, so whoever homeboy is, he’s clearly not somebody who’s worried all that much about killing people or doing dark side stuff. Shin is there backing him up.
Hera and Chopper manage to get a locator beacon on the transport as it goes. And down on the floor, dude throws his lightsaber, it spins off, he jumps on the ship, and Ahsoka comes through the smoke to see Shin and the guy on the thing. Then the lightsaber comes back. He boomeranged it. Ahsoka’s the best.
What We Noticed
I asked Mrs. Know-It-All what stood out to her, and she went straight to the sound. There are very subtle, familiar sounds from the Star Wars movies playing low throughout these two episodes. If you’ve watched it, you know which one she’s talking about. It leans heavy into the Star Wars nostalgia, in a good way.
It’s the thing George Lucas has always talked about, that it should be like poetry. When the guy sat at the feet of George Lucas learning, obviously it’s going to feel like that. My hat’s off to Dave Filoni for putting this together. I hope it keeps going as strong as these two episodes.
She also caught some shots. One of her favorite scenes was Ahsoka pulling in, the way they cut it. And there’s a moment where a whole scene is happening, they turn the camera, and there are people waiting in line to fight. She said the camera work, the editing and the cinematography are things she’s appreciating because I’ve taught her to appreciate them, and she can see it’s good.
Everything in this lives and breathes like cinema. When the stills were released, people were judging the stills, asking when they’re going to stop making this stuff look like bland video wall backgrounds. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This thing was exciting. Rosario Dawson does a full sprint on top of something and it feels great. Normally for the smaller screen you get a lot of close-ups. This was nice and wide and spacious, and sure, a lot of it was done in the Volume as well.
Another thing she liked, and we’ve talked about this since the first season of The Mandalorian. The women in that Mandalorian scene earned every right to be standing there with guns. They fought their way there. The women in Ahsoka aren’t so much earning it. They’ve already been established. Nobody stops to say, okay, you’re a woman and you’re strong. You’re strong regardless, and you don’t have to earn anything. She said she might be talking in circles. She wasn’t. It made sense, a hundred percent.
Where the Map Leads
At the very tail end you find out where they’re taking the giant Super Star Destroyer drive, and it’s this humongous structure. What I remember is a hyperspace ring. In Episode II, when Obi-Wan arrives in his little fighter, it’s attached to a ring that gives it hyperspace ability. I think this is a super mega version of that, a hyperspace gate, because the map leads outside the Star Wars galaxy to another one. It’s got to be some sort of hyperdrive that lets them cross that distance quickly. The whole point is she’s trying to bring Thrawn back from wherever he was exiled.
Very exciting to see the groundwork they’re laying.
So there you go. Now you know, and if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
The Verdict
Ahsoka’s two-episode premiere, Master and Apprentice and Toil and Trouble, lands at an 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. They served these up as two parts of one story, so we held the rating to the end and rated them the way they were presented to us.
It’s a good, solid start. I thought it was excellent. The eight and a half is me wanting to see more. I want to see bigger. I’m excited by it.
Mrs. Know-It-All has an eight and a half too. She wanted to give it a nine, but it’s just too soon. It came out of the gate doing wonderful, and we always give a show three episodes as it is. She doesn’t see herself turning away unless it really starts to fall off.
I was very happy we got at least a nod to Ezra. He’s ever present even when he’s not in the thing. Mary Elizabeth Winstead did an amazing job playing Hera, and having known that character from the early days of Rebels, seeing her brought to life like that was really exciting for me. Rosario Dawson is doing next level work as Ahsoka. And I just found out David Tennant is the voice of Huyang.
I can’t wait for next week.
Your turn. Were you as excited as we were? Those of you who know Rebels and Clone Wars, tell us more, give us the fun facts, and tell us what you think is going to happen. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. And never forget: everyone loves a know-it-all.
