Welcome back to the blog readers. As you no doubt have been seeing for the last few weeks, I am falling more in love with Ahsoka as time goes on. As a continuation of Rebels, this has turned into an engaging Star Wars story. And especially after last week's twist ending, how in the world would they be able to top that? And would this episode, titled "Part Five: Shadow Warrior," and written and directed by Dave Filoni, hold a candle to those episodes? Stick around to find out.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.
First off, I have to say between reveals and twists, this was a doozy of an episode. Now how would I actually feel about the episode? Dave Filoni gave us, in my opinion, the second best episode of television so far this year. No, I am not kidding you right now. Between a soulful performance by Rosario Dawson and Hayden Christensen, the massive reveals that happen during this episode, and the twists, this episode was one for the ages. So buckle in guys, we got a lot to talk about.
This will be a two-pronged paragraph because I can. First, I want to commend Rosario Dawson for giving in her best performance as Ahsoka to date. For an episode that is focused on her past, I immediately gravitated towards her magnetic presence. And a big thing that I focused on is the fact that this is the first time in the series that we see Ahsoka being vulnerable. Her guard is down as she is literally revisiting her past. From her first mission with Anakin to the Siege of Mandalore, we have to see her learn to unwrap and show her true colors. And we actually learn that she has closed herself off all these years after feeling guilt for what happened to Anakin. She believes that she had a part to play in his fall to the Dark Side, and the moments between the two were enough to bring a smile to my face.
I have not said it yet but here you go: Hayden Christensen got too much hate for his role in the prequel trilogy. You triggered yet? Hope so. Hear me out at least. He was tasked with doing a job, and he did it. It is okay to not like the job he did, but to treat him the way he was treated was despicable. It takes me back to the rant I had made about the hate Ahmed Best got. He did a job; and you can hate the job he did, but you cannot blame him or send him death threats. With that being said, I absolutely loved him in this episode. As someone who is now 20 years older, I have come to appreciate the job he did. Was it the best? No, but he tried his damn best. And seeing him in this series is such a breath of fresh air, because now he gets to flex an acting muscle we have not seen yet. My boy's still got it. When Anakin goes dark in the flashbacks/hallucinations, boy he can be dark. He even comes off more terrifying than he does in Revenge of the Sith (2005).
I want to get into the first reveal we get, and we get it pretty early on in the episode. I had a feeling that this might happen if we were to ever revisit these characters, but we learn that Jacen Syndulla was able to sense Ahsoka and Anakin in the World Between Worlds, revealing that he is a Force-sensitive child. Like I said, it makes sense because his father Kanan Jarrus was a Jedi Master. The reveal was still a surprising one, and I do hope that we possibly get to see more of him later on down the line. He was instrumental in getting Ahsoka rescued from the Seatos waters. And I hope that he can get more involved as we wind down towards the end of the series.
I do want to talk more about what transpired in the World Between Worlds. Anakin tries to convince Ahsoka that she had no part in his turn to the Dark Side, but Ahsoka refuses to listen and reflect on the past. As we all know, during the Clone Wars, Ahsoka was framed for a terrorist attack and decided to walk away from the Jedi Order. She only decided to have any part in the war when her friend Bo-Katan Kryze recruited her to retake Mandalore from Maul. These events coincided with Anakin's turn to the Dark Side and Operation Knightfall (aka the storming of the Jedi Temple). Reflecting back to these flashbacks, we see times where Ahsoka did not want to be known as a fighter or a soldier. It really was Anakin who pushed into it. In another flashback, we see the two at the Siege of Mandalore continuing to harp on that message of peace. I loved these talks between the two of them (and especially when Anakin called her "Snips." I really wanted her to call him "Skyguy.") and how their different perspectives really made them different in the long run. Ahsoka finally was able to accept that she was in no way responsible for his demise, and it made their final moments together very touching. It was touching for the 10-11 year old kid sitting on his bedroom floor every Saturday watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-14; 20). Here's to hoping we can get more of this later on in the season.
Side note, can we talk about the brilliant performance from Ariana Greenblatt as a young Ahsoka? If you do not know her, she played young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the daughter in Barbie (2023). And she was asked to do a hell of a lot here, playing old Ahsoka as young Ahsoka. I thought she was really able to hold her own against a powerhouse performer like Hayden Christensen. I really felt like she embodied the version of Ahsoka that we are all used to: the one that was voiced by Ashley Eckstein for so many years. It would have been a nice touch to have her for this series, but whatever I guess. Beggars cannot be choosers.
Now we have another wrinkle in this story, as the New Republic is on Hera and Ahsoka's asses now. Hera brought a few soldiers with her to Seatos (including Captain Carson Teva!) on an unauthorized mission, and now they will be feeling the heat. Well at least Hera will be, because Ahsoka was able to enlist the help of the Purrgils to teleport to the galaxy where Ezra and Thrawn are suspected to be. I did say in the review of last week's episode I thought we would see Thrawn at the end of this episode, but I guess I was dead wrong. We have to get this man next week, and I at least hope Hera will not end up in too deep shit.
Thank you all for reading the review to this episode and I will see you for the next one.
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