In the “Ahsoka” finale recap, Ahsoka, Sabine and Ezra race to stop Thrawn from escaping back to their galaxy while the Grand Admiral plots his return and the resurrection of the Empire…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s safe to say we haven’t seen the end of Ahsoka Tano.
With so many dangling threads out there with only one episode of “Ahsoka” remaining, it was going to be nearly impossible to stick the landing in the finale — and the show clearly didn’t accomplish that in a 45 minute episode without a post credits scene to even tease what comes next.
That said, “Ahsoka” obviously sets up either another season of the show — that won’t likely get renewed or announced until after the ongoing actors’ strike is completed — or perhaps this is just the precursor to the upcoming “Star Wars” film that guru Dave Filoni is set to write and direct.
Filoni — who crafted much of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars: Rebels” — is widely considered the real mastermind behind the majority of the current “Star Wars” universe after he served as a Padawan to George Lucas. When he finally directs his own “Star Wars” film, Filoni has stated that he plans to wrap up the current storylines from “Ahsoka” and “The Mandalorian” in that movie but there’s still no telling how far off in the distance that might happen.
So for now we may have to wait on word for another season of “Ahsoka” or perhaps confirmation that Filoni’s movie is happening sooner rather than later.
As far as the finale goes — we pick up where we left off last week with Ahsoka reunited with Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren as they fend off Thrawn’s soldiers and Baylan Skoll’s apprentice Shin Hati. Now they trio prepares for a final assault to stop Thrawn from returning to their galaxy while hopefully finding their own way home in the process.
With that said, let’s get to the recap for the finale of “Ahsoka”…
Part 8: The Jedi, the Witch and the Warlord
The episode begins with Grand Admiral Thrawn receiving the news that the final cargo has been loaded into his ship, the Chimaera, and they can now begin preparations to exit this galaxy. It’s still a mystery what lies within that mysterious cargo that he’s been packing for several episodes now but obviously that’s one of the many questions we’ll have to wait to get answered at a later date.
Thrawn receives word that Ahsoka Tano and her friends have survived and they’ve located her ship. He orders two TIE fighters to engage them — and Morgan Elsbeth feels they’ve already won because the Jedi will soon be defeated. But Thrawn cautions her that he’s seen one Jedi do plenty of damage in the past much like he’s now learned that the Rebellion overthrew the mighty Empire so it’s best not to underestimate anyone with the capability to tap into the Force.
As for the Great Mothers, they thank Morgan Elsbeth for her service and offer her a reward for hearing their call and coming to find them alongside Grand Admiral Thrawn. The Great Mothers ask Morgan Elsbeth to give up her old live and they will grant her the power of the Gift of Shadows as she begins to transform into a full-fledged member of their sect.
The final reward granted to Morgan Elsbeth is the Blade of Talzin — a weapon that hasn’t been seen since “The Clone Wars.”
The sword originally belonged to Mother Talzin, who was a member of the Nightsisters and the mother to Darth Maul. Mother Talzin actually despised the Sith lords who chose her son as an apprentice and after his death, she vowed to destroy them all.
Her blade, which was imbibed by dark magic from Dathomir — that gave it a green hue and made it strong enough to do battle with lightsabers — became Mother Talzin’s primary weapon and she actually dueled with Jedi Master Mace Windu once upon a time. Eventually, Mother Talzin was killed by General Grievous when she attempted to stand up to the droid and its master Darth Sidious aka Emperor Palpatine.
Now the blade belongs to Morgan Elsbeth for her service to the Great Mothers.
Back on the Fulcrum, Ezra Bridger begins building a new lightsaber for the battles ahead and he’s scrambling to put the pieces together with Huyang keeping a watchful eye over him. It’s here that Sabine Wren arrives and informs Huyang that Ezra’s eagerness is a trait he took on from his Master Kanan Jarrus.
Huyang remembers Kanan because he taught the Jedi Master how to build his own lightsaber when he worked with him at the Jedi Temple. With that, Huyang hands over a final piece to Ezra so he can complete his lightsaber.
The piece is identical to the one that Kanan Jarrus had on his own lightsaber and Huyang held onto the other duplicate just for this kind of occasion. Ezra installs the final piece and with that his lightsaber ignites but when he turns to show Sabine, she’s already gone.
Ezra wonders what happened to Sabine during the years he was missing and that’s when Huyang finally reveals the events that led to her falling out with Ahsoka.
It seems the Great Purge of Mandalore — where the Empire effectively attempted to wipe the planet and its people off the map forever — left Sabine in a fragile and angry state. She lost her entire family and as a result, Ahsoka feared that she might not be able to control her power and perhaps she might find herself fueled by anger and rage, which would make her rather dangerous — and possibly even a potential victim to be seduced by the Dark Side.
So Ahsoka broke off teaching Sabine and the Master and apprentice split apart until now.
As for Ahsoka and Sabine, they reconvene outside the ship as the continue traveling towards Thrawn and that’s when they finally address what happened back on Seatos. Ahsoka reveals that she knows Sabine went along with Baylan Skoll willingly so she could rescue Ezra — but she’s not angry with the choices she made.
Instead, Ahsoka remembers how her own Master Anakin Skywalker always stood by her no matter what — even when she made questionable decisions. So Ahsoka will do the same for Sabine.
The moment ends when Thrawn’s TIE fighters arrive and begin attacking the slow moving convoy, which also includes a herd of Noti ships traveling along with the Fulcrum.
The blasts take out part of the engine and it appears that Ahsoka’s mission may end before it really gets a chance to begin. As the ship begins to fall, Ahsoka and Ezra use the Force to hold it up so it doesn’t crush the Noti beneath them.
Inside, Sabine hotwires the ship and gets just enough power to try one particular maneuver — as she flies directly at the TIE fighters and they have to break off to avoid her, which causes one to crash into the wing of the Fulcrum and the other smashes to the ground. The TIE fighters are down but so is Ahsoka’s ship so she leaves Huyang behind with the Noti to handle repairs while she, Sabine and Ezra jump on the howlers to make for the tower where Thrawn is loading his ship for departure.
At the Chimaera, Thrawn learns that the TIE fighters were able to disable Ahsoka’s ship before they lost contact but that only means the Jedi likely survived. Thrawn tells Captain Enoch to prepare for a ground assault because now Ahsoka will be forced to come after them through the tower, which is the only way they could reach the ship above as the Chimaera begins docking with the Eye of Sion to prepare for departure.
With Ahsoka, Ezra and Sabine approaching, Thrawn orders the ship to rain down hellfire upon them with the Chimaera blasting down to the ground but none of the shots hit the targets. Using the Force, Ahsoka, Ezra and Sabine are able to open the doors to the tower as they slip inside.
As soon as they arrive, Thrawn’s Night Troopers converge on them with blasters but it doesn’t take long for the Jedi to wipe them out. In the ship above, Thrawn orders the Great Mothers to use their dark magic — and soon enough the dead Night Troopers begin floating under a green mist and they all start to reanimate.
Yes, we have zombie Storm Troopers!
A second battle breaks out but this time the zombie Night Troopers are much tougher to kill as they walk through blasts and lightsaber swipes so it takes a lot more to put them down. Ahsoka ultimately decides to take the path of least resistance by shutting the blast doors between them and the zombie Night Troopers to hopefully slow them down.
Knowing that the reanimated Night Troopers will slow but not stop Ahsoka Tano and her crew, Thrawn calls upon Morgan Elsbeth to serve him once again. He asks her to descend upon the tower and slow them down so that the Chimaera can finish docking with the Eye of Sion, which will then blast them back home again.
Down in the tower, Morgan Elsbeth arrives imbibed by the dark magic from the Great Mothers along with the Blade of Talzin. Ahsoka tells Ezra and Sabine to go on without her because she can handle Morgan on her own and the two begin to battle it out for the second time after first clashing on “The Mandalorian.”
This time around, Morgan holds her own with the Blade of Talzin along with her dark magic and she even manages to slice through Ahsoka’s short-bladed lightsaber. The zombie Night Troopers also manage to cut through the various closed doors and begin attacking Ahsoka as well as she’s forced to back up and try to duck and dodge their blasts.
At the top of the tower, Sabine and Ezra encounter a pair of Death Troopers, who more than handle the young Jedi. These two aren’t anywhere nearly as powerful as Master Luke Skywalker, who mowed down Moff Gideon’s Death Troopers like he was crushing Mountain Dew cans.
This is where Sabine is finally able to tap into her connection to the Force as she uses her telekinetic ability to reach for her lightsaber, which she then ignites to kill the Death Trooper attacking her. She does the same for Ezra — but their battle has taken so long that Thrawn’s ship is powering up and preparing to launch.
The gap between the tower and the ship is growing too wide but Sabine tells Ezra that he can make the jump so long as she uses the Force to give him an extra boost. Sure enough, Ezra makes the leap and Sabine gives him just enough to make it to the side of the ship and he quickly climbs on board, kills a couple of Storm Troopers and then calls for Sabine to join him.
But Sabine turns to see Ahsoka now at the top of the tower as she continues fighting Morgan Elsbeth with the zombie Night Troopers serving as an audience. Just when it looks like Morgan is gaining the upper hand as she taunts Ahsoka about being left behind with Thrawn’s ship ready to depart, Sabine arrives to remind her Master that they are always better together.
Sabine fires on the zombie Night Troopers while Ahsoka deals a final death blow to Morgan Elsbeth.
As the remaining Night Troopers reanimate again, Ahsoka and Sabine prepare to depart just as Thrawn orders the tower destroyed to ensure his enemies can’t escape. Thankfully, Ahsoka and Sabine jump off the tower just as Huyang arrives with a fully repaired ship.
Back on board, Ahsoka prepares to go after Thrawn as he breaks through the atmosphere in order to jump to hyperspace. The Fulcrum goes after the Chimaera and Thrawn is informed that the Jedi ship is attempting to close on them.
Thrawn opens a channel to speak directly to Ahsoka Tano — and he tells her that this is exactly what he predicted would happen because he knew her course of action thanks to his own relationship with her Master Anakin Skywalker.
“I know you because I knew your Master. I concluded your strategies would be similar. One wonders just how similar you might become. Perhaps this is where a ronin such as you belongs. Today victory is mine. Long live the Empire.”
~ Grand Admiral Thrawn
It must be noted once again that Thrawn is one of only a few people who knew Anakin Skywalker eventually became Darth Vader and he knew both versions of the same man. His knowledge about Anakin allowed Thrawn to predict how Ahsoka would come after him — but he also couldn’t help but taunt her with the fact that perhaps she might take on some of Anakin’s other qualities as well in years to come.
With that, Thrawn ignites his hyperspace engines and they erupt out in a blur leaving Ahsoka and Sabine behind. Moments later, Thrawn arrives at his destination — the planet Dathomir. This will be the staging area where Thrawn will begin his plot to overthrow the New Republic and resurrect the Empire.
As for Ezra Bridger, he manages to knockout one of the Night Troopers and steal his uniform before boarding an escape vessel to leave the Chimaera once they’ve arrived back in their own galaxy. From there, Ezra seeks out the New Republic and he boards a ship where he’s greeted by Chopper, who seems to already know the person behind the helmet.
Ezra removes the helmet and he comes face to face with his old friend Hera Syndulla, who is stunned to see him in person again after all these years.
As for Ahsoka and Sabine, they return to the planet surface on Peridea where they reunite with the Noti and start to reconcile with their new surroundings. It appears this will be home for the time being anyways.
From there we finally catch up with Shin Hati, who ultimately decides to seek out the bandits she befriended previously with her Master Baylan Skoll. She ignites her lightsaber as they all look up to find her on the horizon.
As for Baylan Skoll, his grand mission was obviously to get to Peridea — and his final moments show him standing on a crumbling statue depicting the Ones.
The Ones — or the Mortis Gods — were an extremely Force sensitive family that consisted of a Father, a Son and a Daughter. The Son was powerful with the Dark Side of the Force while the Daughter maintained control over the light side of the Force. Their Father represented the neutral or the balance of the Force.
The Father actually tested Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars to see if he truly was the person destined to bring balance to the Force. Anakin declined Father’s request to remain on his home planet of Mortis to train together and the family was eventually destroyed thanks to the Son’s own dark ambitions.
Just before he died, the Father prophesized that Anakin would eventually bring balance to the Force, which is exactly what happened years later when Darth Vader killed Darth Sidious.
Now how exactly these statues were erected on Peridea and what that means for Baylan Skoll, we have no idea just yet. Sadly, Ray Stevenson — the actor who portrayed Baylan Skoll — died just before the series premiered so we may never actually see the character again, at least not this version.
Baylan was searching for a greater power and the Ones definitely maintained that level of strength, especially with the Father, the Son and the Daughter all possessing incredible control over the Force. Maybe Baylan hoped to gain some of that strength for himself?
With that, “Ahsoka” comes to an end and we are left with far more questions that answer now that Thrawn is back in the galaxy with plans to resurrect the Empire, Ezra has finally reunited with Hera Syndulla while Ahsoka and Sabine are stuck back on Peridea with no way to escape.
When will we get closure? Perhaps that will come in “Ahsoka” season 2 or maybe we’ll have to wait until Dave Filoni finally unleashes his “Star Wars” movie in the next few years.
