Star Wars: Ahsoka Part 8: 'The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord'

© Lucasfilm

‘Ahsoka’ ends its season with some decent action and a million unanswered questions.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The season finale of Ahsoka is called “The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord” in an obvious Narnia reference but it’s also “cute” in a way that I don’t think the episode’s content warranted. This season has raised many questions and has answered very few of them -- sadly there is no way they could’ve predicted the unexpected death of Ray Stevenson, who was so commanding and intriguing this season, but his ending was a big old question mark with strong references to some Rebels storylines.

So what questions are left? Will Sabine face consequences for her mistakes? What’s going on with Baylan and his breaking of the cycle idea? Why did he cut Shin loose so easily and what’s their story together anyway? Why was Hera barely in the season except to be annoyed by that one annoying Senator? Why was Mon Mothma so ineffective and needed Leia to save her?

Why was Sabine able to suddenly jump in midair with the Force after just figuring out how to use it at all, and why didn’t she have a jetpack which would’ve made more sense anyway? If Thrawn is supposed to be so strategically clever, why wasn’t he? If Anakin could show up as a Force ghost to his Padawan, why to no one else (like his son or grandson when they would’ve needed him)? Or was he just invisible to her?

Why was a stunt performer of Diana Lee Inosanto only able to show off in this one final episode and why was she killed off so pointlessly while the Zombie Troopers stood around doing nothing? Why are they always both adding new powers to the Jedi yet also making lightsabers less and less cool -- now there’s yet another weapon that can block them, although at least now Ahsoka has it.

The episode was entertaining as a cliffhanger for a Season 1 where it was expected to have another season or something to wrap things up, but did we actually know that? I felt like the show had a bit of a slow start, with some good action but a lot of very slow dialogue scenes with a lot of vagueness and simplistic conversation. The fact that Dave Filoni wrote every episode was probably not the right approach, he simply left too much in the air.

© Lucasfilm

The show did a few things right -- it cast Ray Stevenson and Ivanna Sakhno as instantly compelling characters and then teased more interesting stuff with them in the end. It had some legitimately fun fight choreography, with the standout scenes as the Ahsoka/Baylan, Ahsoka/Anakin, and Ahsoka/Morgan fights.

The one flashback episode was the right time to utilize all the vague dreamlike talk and helped show Hayden Christianson as handling some real acting complexity -- something he barely got to do with the prequels, where he was either a creep, a lovelorn idiot, an annoying teenager, or a sociopathic monster. But I did like that episode, even if none of the rest of the season approached that level of creativity.

© Lucasfilm

As someone who is familiar with but never saw Rebels, I didn’t really think the show adequately gave me a reason to fully care about Ezra or Hera, and I think it didn’t really pay off Sabine’s storyline enough either. At least I did enjoy Ahsoka’s arc, even if I didn’t always agree with her character’s decision, and in general I liked all of the performances here. I assume there will be a follow-up season or movie and if so, I sure hope Dave Filoni gets someone to give him feedback to improve things.

After all, even George Lucas got substantial help with his scripts back in the day for the original movies, and without that, well, the dialogue in the prequels was pretty bad despite a lot of interesting ideas and story possibilities there. As for Ashoka, it simply didn’t stick the landing.

Note: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. We support the strike and emphasize the importance of actors and writers, and ensuring they and fellow creatives are compensated and treated fairly for their work. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn't exist.