Julian Recaps: Star Wars: Ahsoka Episodes 7-8

 Star Wars: Ahsoka is done! And I think this was a decent show that picks up the Rebels storyline and leaves it on a cliffhanger. It was also Disney’s attempt at trying to make another…I guess you can call it a “direct sequel series” to the original trilogy after the official sequel trilogy fumbled the ball in its execution with The Rise of Skywalker. The obvious inspiration is Timothy Zahn’s novel Heir to the Empire as this series builds up to that re-telling later. So without further ado, here is my two-episode conclusion of Star Wars: Ahsoka.

Part Seven: Dreams and Madness finds General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) about to have her rank stripped away for disobeying orders in front of the New Republic council on Coruscant. Saved in the nick of time by a special guest appearance by C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) who informs Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and the council that Hera’s mission was personally (and allegedly) approved by Leia Organa. Mothma asks Syndulla if the threat of Thrawn’s return is real which Hera says it is. Traveling with the school of Purgills, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Huyang (David Tennant) arrive to Peridia where Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is hiding and rebuilding the Imperial army. After dodging the planet’s minefield and Thrawn’s genius search efforts in coordination with the Great Mothers, they were able to locate Sabine with Ahsoka’s connection to the Force. Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), and the planet’s native species the Noti were attacked by Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and her band of marauders, and eventually Thrawn’s Night Troopers. Ahsoka engages in a duel with Skoll (Ray Stevenson) with the former winning the battle and goes to save Wren and Bridger, leaving Skoll to his mission. After a perilous battle, the three force-wielders were victorious with Ahsoka opting for Hati to join them, but she ends up running away. 

Part Eight: The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord find out the main characters gearing up to stop Thrawn from escaping. However, the TIE Fighters shoot down their aircraft forcing Ahsoka and the gang to hoof it on horseback. They manage to infiltrate their way into the fortress and fight off stormtroopers in their conscious state and then, through the dark powers of the Great Mothers, reanimated into zombies (that’s…well, it’s not the first time zombies were introduced in Star Wars). Ahsoka duels Morgan with Wren and Bridger attempting to sneak aboard Thrawn’s star destroyer. Bridger manages to get on board with Wren staying behind to help Ahsoka defeat Morgan. Unfortunately, Thrawn manages to escape back into the known galaxy preparing to invade the New Republic in the name of the Galactic Empire. Ahsoka looks skyward with hope that they can make it back, with her former master Anakin Skywalker looking onward with the same hope she passed on to his former apprentice. 

As a series finale, it takes a page from Marvel where it ends on a downer note…sort of. Our main characters manage to kill one bad guy yet fail to stop the other from preparing to cause madness untold. It provides one-half of a resolution of the Rebels storyline, but the other half still needs to be finished. So it’s curious how Lucasfilm is going to proceed with Ahsoka season two or go straight to Dave Filoni’s Star Wars movie. We’ll see how everything turns out when they announce the next Star Wars Disney + show in the future. 

Star Wars: Ahsoka ends the series on an anti-climatic cliffhanger for the set up of a resolution to the entire Mandalorian saga that might culminate with a last-stand team-up against Thrawn as the big bad.