On Wednesday morning, Ahsoka‘s two-part premiere released on Disney Plus.
This series follows the immensely popular character, Ahsoka Tano, who first appeared in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated film in 2008.
She has come a long way since she was Anakin Skywalker’s young Togruta Padawan. She has since appeared on Star Wars Rebels and The Mandalorian.
Fans have spent 15 years feeling invested in Ahsoka. Are we getting the emotional payoff that we deserve, wrapped up in a solid story and thoroughly grounded in the broader Star Wars universe?
Yes. The show is genuinely fantastic, and feels like the kind of Star Wars that we’d expect from a master like Dave Filoni. So far, anyway. We’ve only seen the first two episodes. There will be at least six more.
Before we delve into this series, which takes place more or less around the year 10 ABY (roughly), let us warn you:
This THG review is filled to the brim with Ahsoka spoilers. Not for the rest of the season, but certainly for the two-part premiere.
We start off with some breathtaking starships, both outside and in. The Sequel Trilogy established that the New Republic exists, but did little to show it before wiping it out.
But excellent series like The Mandalorian and now Ahsoka have picked up the slack, showing us the people, the ships, and organization that replaced the Galactic Empire.
During Ahsoka‘s cold open, Captain Hayle and his ship are transporting a prisoner who first appeared on The Mandalorian.
The moment that we see the ship, we can guess that it will not make it to its destination. But this isn’t a firefight — not in space, anyway.
Instead, there is a subtle callback to Return of the Jedi‘s use of an Imperial shuttle and an old-yet-valid clearance code. This time, it’s an Eta-class shuttle, which dates back to before the Empire.
The show wisely avoids repeating “it’s an older code” despite the overlay of events. Overusing lines, especially memes, can become cringey.
Additionally, Captain Hayle is no fool. He doesn’t believe that these interlopers are Jedi, and he greets them with a full security escort.
One of Andor’s few real shortcomings is that, despite the great storytelling, the show contains an almost entirely Human cast of characters.
Ahsoka does not. Even random background characters might be Rodians, protocol droids, or in this case, a loyal Mon Calamari serving the New Republic.
Portraying Captain Hayle is a small but rich role for Mark Rolston, who is a live action and voice acting veteran of decades. He’s been on everything from Murder, She Wrote to Babylon 5 in the ’90s.
Much of his recent work has been voiceover. He is spectacular as smooth-talking villains like Young Justice‘s Lex Luthor and Spider-Man PS4‘s Norman Osborn.
Here, he plays a smart, competent New Republic captain who, understandably, could never have predicted how this would go.
Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati are not familiar characters. Their names, their orange lightsaber blades, and backstories are all unfamiliar.
However, they are not con artists. Both display skill in using the Force to deal out incredible violence.
While Shin Hati easily massacres the security officers, Baylan Skoll waits patiently. He also prevents Captain Hayle from becoming involved. Then, he kills them.
Creating a Star Wars villain is extremely tricky. There is always going to be a temptation to recreate Darth Vader, but that is not reasonable.
We think that we can reasonably say that Kylo Ren was a failure as a villain. His fans might agree, because many of them do not consider him to be a villain. His detractors simply consider him a pale, weak imitation. Arguably, that was the point.
Baylan and Shin are not going to be Darth Vader, or Palpatine, or Asajj Ventress. They don’t have to be. They are mercenaries and underlings, which gives them room to be interesting without the pressure of assuming Lord Vader’s mantle.
There is a bittersweet element to watching Baylan slaughter these New Republic forces, and it’s not sympathy for those in his path.
Portraying Baylan Skoll was Ray Stevenson’s final role.
After a long and storied career as an actor, he passed away earlier this year. This season is dedicated to him.
The Mandalorian viewers will remember Morgan Elsbeth from Season 2, which was also Ahsoka Tano’s first live-action appearance.
At the time, this Human antagonist stood out the most for her possession of a beskar spear. Din Djarin would later wield that weapon against Moff Gideon.
She is the prisoner whom the late Captain Hayle and his similarly deceased crew were transporting. When Baylan arrives, it is quickly Morgan who is giving orders. She seems to be the one paying him.
After the cold open, Ahsoka is exploring an ancient ruin on the planet Arcana. She is following a lead that she previously extracted from Morgan.
Among the ruins, which bear a number of motifs with striking similarities to the Zeffo ruins in Jedi: Fallen Order, Ahsoka finds the premiere’s MacGuffin. It’s a sphere, a puzzle, and a star map.
Calling it a MacGuffin isn’t a criticism. Many of the greatest stories in history contain these elements. MacGuffin is simply the word for these objects.
Naturally, Ahsoka emerges after finding the hidden chamber and solving its puzzle to find five HK-87 assassin droids waiting for her.
She presents her lightsabers, which is actually a point of criticism for some reviewers. See, it’s light out, and her lightsabers are white.
While the color contrast isn’t ideal, we’re unsure of what these critics would suggest. Should every fight take place at night? Or should showrunners have randomly changed Ahsoka’s blades to another color?
No, this screenshot is not from Ahsoka, but from Jedi: Survivor. Because it shows the bleeding of a lightsaber’s kyber crystal.
Years after the fall of the Republic, one of the Empire’s Inquisitors faced off against Ahsoka. It was his last mistake.
An unarmed Ahsoka easily killed him. She took the two red crystals from his shattered blade and healed them. Healed kyber crystals turn white, and produce white blades.
Ahsoka is a master of combat with few rivals. Even as a young Padawan, she survived two encounters with General Grievous. Grievous had killed numerous Jedi, including members of the Jedi Council. But not Ahsoka.
After leaving the Jedi Order, Ahsoka faced and defeated Darth Maul on Mandalore. Later, she would face off and hold her own against Darth Vader, her former master. She didn’t win, but she did injure him.
Some critics have questioned why none of Ahsoka’s enemies seem to be a match for her. We would ask what else they expected. There are many ways to tell a compelling story, and not every protagonist has to be an underdog.
Huyang, who first appeared on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, has returned. This ancient droid has been helping Jedi Padawans construct their lightsabers for an extremely long time.
Here, he is simply doing his best to serve the no-longer-existent Jedi Order. Even though Ahsoka left the Order well before Order 66.
David Tennant has once again done an extraordinary job in voicing this character. He provides comedic relief, a wonderful contrast to Ahsoka’s more determined energy.
Speaking of returning characters, Hera Syndulla is back. One of the leads from Star Wars Rebels‘ ensemble cast, she is now a General in the New Republic.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead had big shoes to fill, but she pulled it off very well.
Some critics have complained about her color contacts. That’s just the color of Hera’s eyes.
Those of us following news of the show with bated breath already knew that this show would likely be a search for Grand Admiral Thrawn and for Ezra Bridger.
But for those who weren’t aware, Hera and Ahsoka’s conversation brought them up to speed. Many assumed that both of them died at the Battle of Lothal, but Imperial Remnant activity suggests otherwise.
If Thrawn is alive, perhaps Ezra is, too. Meanwhile, Hera suggests that Ahsoka should visit an old friend, Sabine Wren. The fellow Star Wars Rebels alum is also living on Lothal.
It is nothing short of breathtaking to see what Lothal looks like with an actual budget.
For those unfamiliar, Clone Wars seems to have had a budget of “anything George Lucas is willing to pay for.”
When Disney bought the rights to Star Wars, they did not initially see the value in investing in top-tier Star Wars television. Star Wars Rebels‘ visual design and animation suffered for it. It is a very good thing that this has changed.
If you saw “Clancy Brown” trending on the remnants of Twitter on Wednesday morning, this is why.
He reprised his role from Rebels. No longer a rebel leader or a political prisoner, Ryder Azadi is now governor of Lothal.
Behind him, you can see Humans and Aliens alike. And behind them, a very important mural.
Sabine Wren is a no-show.
We cannot think of a better way to introduce this character to people who never saw Rebels than to show her skipping a ceremony and also escaping from some cops.
Sabine is actually a Mandalorian from a prominent family. She is also a brilliant inventor and a talented artist. And there’s even more to her than we knew.
Living in the tower where a teenage Ezra Bridger squatted before joining up with the Ghost’s crew, Sabine is unable to move forward.
Clearly, she feels that she failed Ezra. And there’s clearly more to it than that.
Rebels ended with, among other things, Ahsoka and Sabine embarking upon a journey to find Ezra. They did not succeed.
A lot of us have been donning our electrum hats about Ezra.
Fan theories range from Ezra being Thrawn’s enemy to Thrawn truly being dead, with Ezra posing as him to rule the Imperial Remnants from afar.
That would be effing amazing. But it’s hard to imagine his character going all Grand Admiral. Alas.
Meanwhile, Morgan Elsbeth is back in a more dignified wardrobe. It does resemble a watered down version of Mother Talzin’s regalia.
She discusses her backstory as a Nightsister, and hands out orders to Baylan and Shin and also to Inquisitor Marrok.
The Grand Inquisitor and Darth Vader himself trained the Inquisitors, but they are not true Sith. It is a bit of a surprise to see that one survived the fall of the Empire, but we doubt that Marrok is long for this world.
Here’s where one of the bigger mysteries for fans is: what went down with Ahsoka and Sabine?
It sounds like Ahsoka trained Sabine, not merely in lightsaber combat (Sabine did wield the darksaber for a time on Rebels). She was her Padawan?
The two-part premiere only lightly touches upon Sabine’s tenuous-at-best connection to the Force. We expect to learn more as the show continues.
Their meet-up feels a lot like they’re ex-girlfriends. A lot of people really ship that and we’d love to see that play out.
Did a personal relationship interfere with their relationship as mentor and pupil? Or did the opposite happen?
Or maybe they’re just throwing a few crumbs for shippers. That said, very few Star Wars fans see Ahsoka as straight, so … we’ll see.
Even though Sabine agrees to look at the mysterious little orb, she does it her way. That is, she swipes it and takes it home.
This is where she solves the puzzle, uncovering the star map that seems to lead from their galaxy to another.
That’s a big deal for Star Wars, where we’ve never seen anyone explore another galaxy — not in canon, anyway.
Unfortunately, this is also where a group of HK-87 assassin droids find Sabine.
Shin Hati sent them.
And while Sabine can defeat them, one gets away with the star map. And chasing him down leads Sabine to face a real threat.
The green lightsaber that Sabine wields belonged to Ezra Bridger. It was his second, but he left it behind.
She has since modified it. And she received training — from the late Kanan Jarrus and then from Ahsoka Tano.
But her training is incomplete. Her spectacularly choreographed fight with Shin Hati makes that clear.
Social media users have commented that this fight made them feel downright “feral.” And you can see why.
Shin has a specific sort of determination to her. She’s more than just bangs and a lightsaber.
Unfortunately for Sabine, she’s also very skilled with that lightsaber. Certainly not a match for Ahsoka, but Sabine is another matter.
The first episode of the premiere ends with her running that orange blade through Sabine’s body.
She misses her spine or her heart. And, frankly, characters like Vader and Maul have survived much worse.
But, had it not been for the second episode, most viewers would have spent a week wondering if this show cast Sabine just to kill her off immediately.
Not so.
The second episode shows Sabine recovering, under the care of a medical droid and under the watchful eye of Ahsoka.
She’s not fully healed, yet. But she’s awake and can tell Ahsoka, and a hologram of Hera, what happened.
Meanwhile, Baylan and Shin have the map and are on Seatos.
It’s so, so nice to see new planets that are not deserts. That said, we’d really love to see more fantastical worlds. Take us to Umbara, please.
Anyway, they don’t have the expertise to use the map to its full potential. Their employer does, however.
Despite her injuries, Sabine is still a mad genius. Ahsoka finds a surviving HK-87 assassin droid and instantly beheads it. Sabine tries to access the droid’s memories.
This is a wonderful callback to established canon. The Republic forces tried something similar with various battle droids and strategy droids during the Clone Wars.
This risky maneuver tells them that the droids came from Corellia, the location of the New Republic shipyards.
Meanwhile, on Seatos, Morgan uses Nightsister mysticism — their witchcraft is similar to Sith sorcery, but not the same.
She unlocks the map in full, showing a grand and very well-designed map of the cosmos.
There are even astrological symbols. She says that this map comes from another place far away — another galaxy.
This is where, she claims, Grand Admiral Thrawn — the brilliant Chiss strategist and looming specter over the New Republic — is living. She wants to bring him home.
Here’s where it’s really interesting: Morgan claims that she can “hear” Thrawn, as if through the Force.
Is she merely sensing him? Because Thrawn is not Force-sensitive. Another possibility is that someone else, be it Ezra or a more sinister figure, is impersonating Thrawn to lure Morgan there.
Ahsoka travels to Corellia with General Hera Syndulla. You can get a lot of things done much faster with a New Republic bigwig by your side.
They quickly uncover that some of these salvage and construction operations are not authorized. What are they doing with hyperdrive cores so large that no New Republic ship could use them?
After dealing with a few traitors, Ahsoka takes off to stop an SSD Hyperdrive core from launching. But she runs into Inquisitor Marrok.
Obviously, she’s not going to die by this goon’s hand.
She’s killed Inquisitors before. Unarmed, even.
But as we mentioned, she doesn’t need to be an underdog. And he doesn’t need to win. All that Marrok has to do is slow her down long enough for the drive core to launch.
Hera is one of the best pilots in Star Wars, and we see her piloting the Phantom — a smaller craft that detaches from the Ghost, her main ship.
So she pursues the ship, taking fire without returning it. Hera explains that she can’t risk this crashing and exploding on the population below.
Even though her homicidal astromech, Chopper, really wants her to open fire.
Dave Filoni reprised his role of voicing Chopper.
He’s one of those droids where you can’t understand what he’s saying, but you always get the vibe. The vibe is often very rude.
Anyway, Chopper manually throws a tracking device onto the ship before it makes the jump to lightspeed. Spectacular Star Wars.
On the ground, Ahsoka seems to be mostly just annoyed by Marrok and the HK-87 assassin droid.
But Marrok has done his job.
After she destroys his droid, his goal is simply to escape. That’s unusually smart for a faceless enemy.
Shin Hati is there, but she wisely does not try to engage Ahsoka.
We know that Baylan has no desire to face Ahsoka. Perhaps he believes that he can kill her, and simply fears losing one of the few survivors of the old Jedi Order.
He was a Jedi. When the Republic fell, he became a mercenary. We can judge him, but hey, he survived! Really interesting guy. Definitely a dark foil to Obi-Wan.
We see some sort of massive hyperspace-related device, though it’s unclear if it’s an engine or some sort of gate. Morgan is building it, but it’s still under construction.
Now they have the map, and she has big plans. Shin, for now, is just following Baylan’s lead. It will be exciting to see how all of that plays out.
Sabine cuts her hair back to Rebels era length, and is ready to get back with Ahsoka. She touches the mural, just as she did in the Rebels finale. Her goal is to bring Ezra home. And we’re on the edge of our seats to see the next episode.