With its second episode, Ahsoka has done a good job of setting up the stakes and structure of the show and picking up the pace from the first episode.
1. Imperial loyalty
“Toil and Trouble” does a good job to remind the viewer that we’re not that far removed from the Empire, and that the transition from the Empire to the New Republic wasn’t exactly welcomed by all. This may seem like a relatively unimportant point, when many of the folks watching care more about the stories of the Rebels characters, but it is a really salient point, especially with all we know about this time period.
We know from The Mandalorian season 3 that the Shadow Council made up of ex-Imperials wants to place Grand Admiral Thrawn as the head of the reconstituted Empire, and we obviously know from folks like Moff Gideon that there is still strong Imperial loyalty out there in the galaxy. But this episode shows regular, rank and file workers who are loyal to the Empire, not just leaders who would have material benefit from its return. The galaxy is a messy place, and while there are lots of folks who are happy at the Emperor’s death and the rise of the New Republic, there are plenty of folks who aren’t. This is laying ground for the First Order, as well as giving depth to the ordinary citizen who we just presumed rolled with the punches, politically, but may be more conflicted than we thought.
2. The Dark Side
With some full on Nightsisters green fire magic(k), a sight of a former Inquisitor, and the master/apprentice relationship of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, we’ve officially never had this many varieties of Dark Side energy in a live action Star Wars project before. I mentioned the lack of Inquisitors last time, but this time we see Ahsoka face down what surely looks like an Inquisitor, with the spinning lightsaber. There is something about the way the character is shot that it seems like there’s more to their identity than just an unimportant Inquisitor. That said, I can’t think of who would make sense to be under that helmet. It’s not Maul (dead), and all of the other ‘villains’ that we know of from the Original Trilogy era are accounted for, while all of the Dark Siders from the sequel trilogy don’t make sense, either.
The only person that makes a little sense, but not really due to the last we saw them, would be Reva from Obi-Wan Kenobi. We know her as an Inquisitor, but at the end of that series, she gives it up.
Any guesses as to who it is, or am I just reading too much into this?
3. Birds of a feather
One of the things that separates Grand Admiral Thrawn from the rest of the Imperials in Star Wars is that he has a very clear moral code, along with being a bastard. Specifically, he values life far more than any Imperial before or since. He sees the value in all living creatures.
This is interestingly echoed in something Baylan Skoll says, which is that it will be a shame to kill Ahsoka, as there are so few Jedi left. This opinion is partly held because he was once a Jedi, and seems to be relatively beholden to those traditions (his apprentice has a braided rat-tail, for crying out loud), but it also seems similar to how Thrawn thinks. It makes sense that these two would be ideologically aligned, but how Morgan Elsbeth fits in is a little unclear at the moment. Again, there’s a lot of history between the Sith and the Nightsisters, but none of this is exactly traditional.
I actually really like the imperfect alliances here, as it seems very realistic for how people who are being desperate act. They’re taking on any allies they can, and so they find themselves aligned. The Empire, the Sith, the Nightsisters, and Thrawn: all very different, but with enough baseline similarities for a partnership to make sense.
4. Ezra as Luke
I used to think that Ezra would play a major role in this series, but I’m now thinking that his role won’t be dissimilar to Luke Skywalker’s in The Force Awakens. In some ways, Ezra is the MacGuffin to get the show moving, but we won’t be seeing him until the end, and briefly at that. That may wind up being a good thing, otherwise the show will really just be Rebels season 5 and not really an Ahsoka showcase. That’s not to say I don’t want more of the Rebels stuff – I do – but I think if you’re going to make the show about Ahsoka, you need to give her a bigger role than she had on Rebels.
Continued belowI’m also very interested to see how Ahsoka and Ezra are handled if/when this show gets a second season, or if there’s a new, live-action Rebels reboot after this. We know that by the time of The Last Jedi, Luke believes that he is…well, read the title of the film. But we know that Ahsoka and Luke have met, and I can’t imagine Luke being unaware of Ezra. Does he not consider Ahsoka, Ezra, and Grogu Jedi because they did not complete their training? There are ways around the language that Luke uses, but I’m not sure if that’s how this is going to be handled, or if things are going to get much worse for our trio of almost Jedi.
5. Is Sabine ready?
At the end of “Toil and Trouble,” Sabine declares herself ready to continue her training with Ahsoka. I loved the scene with Sabine and Huyang, where it is revealed that Sabine has the least Force sensitivity of any Padawan Huyang’s ever seen. This is interesting for so many reasons; is Ahsoka trying to prove that anyone can become a Jedi? Is it a situation of Ahsoka wanting to believe in something that isn’t there and can’t be changed? Is it supposed to show how the Force is not static and can grow in a person?
Regardless of that piece, earlier in the episode both Sabine and Ahsoka talk about how they aren’t ready for this journey to continue, but just a little time later, Sabine decides that she is, in fact, ready. What changed? Obviously, she wants to find Ezra and correct the wrong of letting the star map get stolen, but all of that was true when she was recovering, too.
But regardless of why she thinks she’s ready, the question remains, is she? Does her lack of Force sensitivity negate her from this training? Is the goal to be something different than a Jedi? I hope that we get a little more with this and it isn’t a dealbreaker if they don’t, but it’s a big change of heart, and I hope that it is addressed in one way or another.
