– Spoiler Review –
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, this show, and those it continues stories from, wouldn’t exist. Consider supporting the strikes here.
As Ashoka Tano awakes in the World Between Worlds, she’s faced with one last lesson from her former Master, while Hera and Jacen Syndulla lead a search for her and Sabine Wren. Ahsoka’s “Part V: Shadow Warrior” is dazzling, exciting, but held back in little ways, including by the chosen format.
“Part IV: Fallen Jedi” ended with such exciting promise, and while “Part V: Shadow Warrior” picks up and deals out a worthy enough salvo, it’s not quite the home run it could’ve been. All the ingredients are there, with a charismatic and nuanced return by Hayden Christensen, a fitting, balanced portrayal of a younger Ahsoka by Ariana Greenblatt, dazzling lightsaber battles between Master and Apprentice, and a return to the Clone Wars, but the pacing, dialogue, some effects, and overall purpose of the moments didn’t click as well. Part of the issue stems from something I made comment on in my review of the season premiere: this show will never be able to prove it couldn’t have been done in animation. I’ve moved beyond worrying about it, but it was hard to ignore how much more impactful this might’ve felt in animation, as amazing as it was to see Christensen with Ahsoka in past and present, melding the two so it feels even more cohesive and important to watch the animated shows which came before, the overly foggy visuals (while makes story sense, made it feel more like a play quality), an awkward look to Christensen in Anakin Skywalker’s Clone Wars armor, or what is meant to be purposeful pacing feels too glacial at times. Hemmed in by the runtime of animation and a smaller budget, Filoni, other writers, and the animation teams have shown how they can use each piece of real estate to its maximum potential, but the open runtime of a live-action episode means the focus is lost a bit and plenty of fluff exists this episode, be it strange lingering shots or odd pauses, which distracts from the admittedly exciting events or character interactions. All in all, this is still a rather intriguing episode, though I’d say “Fallen Jedi” was the better of these two episodes, and the best overall yet, but this certainly did the best it could with the subject matter.
In the World Between Worlds, Ahsoka’s both excited to see Anakin and confused why she’s there, initially forgetting but beginning to remember what came before in her battle with Baylan Skoll. Anakin tells her this is a good thing, as it means she still has a chance to live, and then reveals he’s here to teach her one last lesson. Ahsoka feels incredulous about needing to learn more, but we know all to well one can never be too old to learn and that a Jedi is always learning, always fighting against the darkness, as Anakin even points out. His lesson to her? Choosing whether to live or die, as he ignites his lightsaber and starts attacking Ahsoka, who tells him she doesn’t want to fight him. At first, it makes this lesson seem like a simple one, defeat Anakin and she lives, or lose to him and she dies, as he presses an impressive attack against his former apprentice. When she begins to hold her own, he changes the rules, cutting away the platform she’s on and leaving her to plummet into the unknown below, where she rises in the past, as a much younger version of herself in the middle of a Clone Wars battle, Anakin in his armor rushing past her alongside clonetroopers!
Across from Hayden’s shifting Anakin Skywalker, now more like the Matt Lanter version from the animated show, is a stellar Ariana Greenblatt, which more than honors Ashley Eckstein’s performance as the character and yet makes it her own in little ways. Comforting an injured trooper, their pain and losses weigh on the young Padawan turned warrior, as she’s leading them and making choices which result in their deaths. She’s curious if Anakin is bothered by the losses like she is, especially since he doesn’t seem to be affected as much, and he admits he does feel their loss, but also knows it’s an unfortunate part of war, as is their role in it. Anakin says the Jedi must adjust to the times, which he’s somewhat correct on, so he’s not teaching Ahsoka what she initially trained for, but instead to be a soldier so she can live. If that’s all she’ll get from him, she’s worried she’ll pass on the same to any eventual apprentice of her own, which might sound like a minor moment but actually digs a lot into why Ahsoka’s even experience all this in the first place, and shows the deeper aspects of Anakin’s seemingly simple lesson. As the battle looks to resume around them, she questions his methods and he sort of points out it doesn’t matter, as he’s still teaching her to survive and fight regardless, but she reveals she might not want to keep fighting, which may or may not be the older Ahsoka bleeding through into the moment, and he tells her such a choice means she dies.
The foggy scene shifts and Ahsoka is a little older now, still played by Greenblatt, but from her outfit, lightsabers, and the Maul-aligned Mandalorians she’s cutting down, it’s clear we’re at the end of the war during the Siege of Mandalore. After Captain Rex (!!Temuera Morrison voicing the character too!!) tells her to push on, she stops and regards the foggy scene of Mandalore before her and Anakin appears behind her, unsure of when they are but sure it’s an intense battle. He feels confident in his training of her, calling her a true warrior now, and telling her she’s part of a legacy, that all of his experiences live on in her, much like his master’s does in him and so on. This gets even more pointed to why this is all happening, but she’s not quite there yet, not quite understanding the point of the lesson, what she needs to learn. Ahsoka is aware she’s experiencing this all through the World Between Worlds, more self-aware than she was in the initial scene, and confronts Anakin about how she’s only death and war and he’s much more dangerous than anyone realized. He’s disappointed she’s focusing only on the bad, restarting the lesson, but this time, he’s Anakin after the fall, the one Obi-Wan battled on Mustafar, yellow eyes and red lightsaber humming to vicious life. They battle and he kicks her into the fog and when she falls through it, they’re back to the star-filled, blue platformed World Between Worlds, Ahsoka her older self once again.
We hear Vader’s breathing next and Anakin appears out of the fog, lightning flashing and switching his visage between Vader and Anakin (hinting at the fractured way his Force Ghost will appear later on to his son), his voice showing hints of both sides of him. This continues to feel like an extension of their duel on Malachor, the one Ezra pulled her away from before he would’ve killed her, though it’s a far more even fight, to the point she manages to get the better of him, grabbing his lightsaber and throwing it away. Anakin certainly has a lot of people throw lightsabers away around him, hey? By choosing not to kill him, she tells him she’s choosing to live and he backs away, the red/yellow eyes going away and his signature grinning smile brightening his face instead again, telling her there’s hope for her yet before he disappears. So how was choosing to live by not killing Anakin her learning the lesson he was trying to teach her? As they talk about, first in a roundabout way and later a little more directly, there’s a legacy associated with Ahsoka from being Anakin’s apprentice, something Baylan hit on during their battle, and it’s been clear from when she walked into the depths of Malachor in Rebels to avoiding training Grogu after the failure with Sabine, that’s she’s been unable to let Anakin’s shadow go. She’s too worried his darkness is in her and she won’t grow beyond it, that she’s doomed to keep the cycle he seemed to start going. Anakin’s lesson isn’t to simply live or die, it’s far more complicated, as if she gives up now, she’ll be allowing the worst of Anakin to win out in her actions. To live is to truly live without fear of the consequences of being Anakin’s apprentice, to create her own legacy, give all the parts of her as well to her apprentice. She’s has much of him in her, but she’s not defined by him and his actions, rather what she chooses to embrace, which we saw literally as she declines to kill him when she gets his blade from him. This choice and Anakin’s lesson harkens to one Anakin’s son will learn from Yoda decades later, as Masters are what apprentices grow beyond, and failure is one of the greatest teachers. Was this really Anakin? Was it the Force presenting Anakin to Ahsoka? Why did it feel the need to step in if it wasn’t Anakin’s doing in some way? Does the answer really matter? I’d say it doesn’t and it’s nice to keep it mysterious because that’s how the Force works best.
Back in the real world, Hera has Carson Teva and his fellow pilots scouring Seatos for any hints for Sabine or Ahsoka. Huyang knows they separated, despite him asking them not too, but has no idea what became of them. Just when Senator Organa’s (namedropped only, but still!) ability to cover for their excursion seems to be running out, and Hera is willing to regroup for now as their efforts have been futile, Jacen keeps bugging his mom he can hear something out in the water. She waves him off at first but knows better, knows her son and his potential abilities, and listens alongside him, coming to hear what he hears in the water somewhere: lightsabers clashing! Jacen’s ability to hear what’s happening in the World Between Worlds is an interesting moment and I hope it helps Hera consider letting him train to be a Jedi to some extent, to honor his father before him. As they fly around, the search still turning up nothing, Huyang is with Hera on the Ghost and he’s surprised, yet delighted to hear she came to their help without official backing of the New Republic, saying decisions like this are why people like her. Just as fuel reserves are reaching their limits, Jacen tells Hera Chopper is finally sensing something in the water, and they set out to find it. After Ahsoka learns her lesson, Anakin disappears and the World Between Worlds seems to dissolve around her, water rising above her head and consuming her (almost like the cards Filoni made way back in 2016), and she awakes in the seas of Seatos, a bright light appearing and one of the pilots diving in to rescue her.
When she awakes, she’s back on the T-6 and without her adornments on her head, so “bald” if you will, and it was strange to see to be honest. She joins Jacen, Hera, Huyang, and Chopper out at map-henge, giving the young Syndulla a big hug for helping find her, though he’s ushered away with Huyang to check out the T-6 as Hera and Ahsoka talk business. Ahsoka, wrapped in a white shawl and later decked out more like the Ahsoka the White as we saw her in the Rebels finale, connects with the broken map, sensing an echo of what went down and where Sabine is now. She then takes a cue from Ezra’s book, deciding the only way to get to Sabine and stop Elsbeth from returning with Thrawn is to ask the Purrgil, still flying in a pod in the clouds above them! Stepping out onto the wing of the T-6, Ahsoka reaches out in the Force to connect with the biggest purrgil of the group, and it responds by…opening its mouth?! In a very Pinocchio/Noah and the Whale heavy moment (or Finding Nemo), Huyang flies the ship into its mouth per Ahsoka’s instructions, and as the mouth closes, she reveals she honestly has no idea where the purrgil will take them! Since she awoke on the ship, there’s been a levity to Ahsoka we haven’t seen in her live-action appearances, and most of this show she’s been reluctant and methodical about her work, not seeming to enjoy it and simply doing it out of necessity, that if she stopped she might not be able to move forward, hence her leaving Sabine when things got tough as failure would force her to slow down as well. Since dealing with her lingering issues with Anakin and learning how to move forward, Ahsoka the White is truly here, more sure of her purpose and having a willingness to move forward. The New Republic sends some of its fleet to bring them all back to Coruscant, with Mon Mothma even revealing the subcommittee will likely strip Hera of her title, though Carson Teva and his pilots help distract them long enough for the purrgil effort to succeed, the space whales gliding past the ships and jumping into hyperspace, Huyang and Ahsoka with them, to parts unknown. As exciting as last episode’s ending was, the idea we’re going to refocus on the main story, and likely spend a lot of time in a new galaxy before a brief glimpse of Thrawn to close it out, is almost more enticing to me than the set up for this episode.
Here are a few other things:
- The case against Rosario Dawson and her family was never truly resolved, as it was only due to the court not rescheduling that the charges were dropped, so this is still an outstanding issue if and when the plaintiff decides to reopen things. This disclaimer will come with every episode reminding readers of this, as it’s the very least we can do for trans fans of the Saga.
- Greenblatt might look familiar to fans, as she played the young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War and Sasha in Barbie! She looks to have an incredible career ahead of her if she keeps these performances up. On Instagram she was coy about the episode, posting the color orange. Love it!
- When we first see young Ahsoka, her outfit is FAR different than her initial one in the animated show, as it’s no longer a tube top. Of all Filoni’s retcons so far, this is the only one which makes any real sense and does this important character a little more justice than she originally received.
- The Kiner family showed a little video of them playing some of the impressive score for this episode, which reached across themes and eras, as well as presenting some new and unique for the situation and WBWs.
- I do find it funny both times the WBWs has been used, it’s been for Ahsoka, making it harder to ignore how specially Filoni treats the character. I’m assuming we’ll see it again, for another character or two, in the future, to even it out a little, otherwise it’ll feel like a cheat just for her because Filoni, as much as he makes episodes about characters learning to let go, can’t let go himself.
Ahsoka “Part V: Shadow Warrior” dips its toes into something special, which is quite the joy to experience, but it’s still just the tip of what could’ve been due to a few things holding it back.
+ Hayden Christensen and Ariana Greenblatt
+ Learning to create one’s own legacy
+ Short but effective lightsaber clashes
+ Purrgil teeth brushing and heading back to main plot ending
– Overly foggy scenes feel more like set limitation, not due to story/setting
– Unnecessary fluff/off pacing, shows power of the limited real estate animation had to rely on
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Bluesky, Twitter @MynockManor, and Instagram @mynockmanor.
AHSOKA REVIEWS
Season One: Part I: Master and Apprentice / Part II: Toil and Trouble | Part III: Time to Fly | Part IV: Fallen Jedi