TV Review: ‘Ahsoka’ Season 1, Episode 3 — A True Star Wars Sequel
by Frank Martin
This week’s episode of Ahsoka was considerably shorter than the two installments featured in the premiere. Not a whole lot happens, but there was still plenty for a Star Wars fan to appreciate. A lingering question from the premiere was Sabine’s (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) relationship with the Force. Although she is an experienced warrior and has even wielded the Dark Saber in Star Wars Rebels, Sabine is not necessarily Force-sensitive. And yet, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) still tries to train her in the ways of the Jedi knowing full well she can never become one. But it’s still a worthy path of discipline that Sabine can learn from. This is a controversial area that many Star Wars purists are going to have to come to terms with.
Now that Sabine and Ahsoka know where the bad guys are hiding, Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) tried to get authorization for a larger New Republic mission, but was denied. Sabine and Ahsoka then went by themselves and discovered a large hyper space ring that the bad guys plan on using to rescue Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). While trying to out maneuver the ships on their tail, they dive into the planet and see a pack of space whales in the clouds. Eventually, they take shelter in the forest, and the foes on the planet head out to hunt them down.
It’s kind of strange that the Star Wars shows are in a completely different trajectory than the movies. The films had their own plot line involving the First Order, but for Star Wars fans, Thrawn is a much bigger threat that’s never been addressed or even mentioned in the movies at all. His return is set up as a big plot point in this show. In terms of Star Wars mythology, it’s such a big plot point that it could have been the main threat of the sequel trilogy. That’s not what fans got. Instead, it was a storyline that divided the fandom. Ahsoka is setting up the stakes so much higher than those films ever did. And this episode shows that fans could get a true Star Wars sequel from this show that they never did with the movies.
Ashoka streams Tuesdays on Disney+.
