“The Jedi” was an exceptional 45 minutes of television, largely because writer and director David Filoni leaned into The Mandalorian’s biggest strength: Making sure to pair Mando up with characters strong enough to carry the narrative load of the episode. And boy was Ahsoka Tano the perfect character to bring out the latent emotional elements of Mando, a character who has shown almost no personality thus far in the series.
As someone who hasn’t watched either Clone Wars or Rebels, I’m happy to say the series managed to convey just how badass and cool Ahsoka is through that amazing ninja-esque opening sequence. Watching a Jedi at the height of their power smoothly slice and dice her way through multiple foes before delivering a kick ass ultimatum to our episode’s villain was one of the coolest Star Wars moments I’ve witnessed. As I’ve written multiple times this season regarding various guest stars, I would gladly watch an entire spin-off centered around the Rosario Dawson version of the character (and yes, this has prompted me to finally commit to starting the animated series, largely on the promise of the really cool characters we’ve gotten to meet this season). The poise, intelligence (both actual and emotional smarts), and clearly complex and dark backstory alluded to during the episode for Ahsoka really sold her as a fully realized, three dimensional character – something that is incredibly hard to convey to audience members without any real background in the character.
I loved the touch of having her reluctance to train Grogu stem from her own experience watching Anakin fall prey to his own deep emotional attachments – as we have seen frequently in Star Wars, when a Master is wary of the emotional unrest of a Trainee, it rarely turns out well for anyone involved. Although, of course, we all knew there was no way Ahsoka was going to agree to take Grogu away from Mando and rob the series of its main attraction (and there was no way they would be able to add her to the cast as a main character due to the narrative structure of the series – namely that Mando travels around the galaxy on mini-missions each week while trying to stay one step ahead of Moff Gideon), but it was nice to have the refusal couched in Star Wars lore rather than some other excuse. So, now Mando and Grogu (I’m trying to make fetch happen, as I’m sure Disney wishes, by using the little guy’s given name now) are off on another quest, while Moff Gideon is presumably tracking their every move waiting for the proper time to strike. And man, would the ruins of a Jedi Temple be the perfect place for such a showdown.
But, outside of Mando’s inevitable showdown with Moff Gideon (the proverbial gun on the wall of the season), the series now has several side stories hanging in the ether with the various guest stars we’ve encountered (and re-encountered) along the way: Ahsoka is searching for Grand Admiral Thrawn, Bo-Katan is on a mission to find Gideon and take back her Darksaber, and Kara Dune certainly seemed to be considering returning to the service after the latest dust up with Imperial troops. With the general slow pacing of The Mandalorian, I’m not sure how many of these hanging threads will get tied off before the season’s end (if I were a betting woman, I’d say Bo-Katan should be back at some point, and perhaps a Thrawn sighting before all is said and done), but it’s nice to have this additional arcs ready and waiting to pay off when the series wants to bring them back.
Final Thoughts:
— While I haven’t watched Clone Wars or Rebels, I did spend a lot of my childhood reading up on the now non-cannon Star Wars novels, including the great Timothy Zahn books. So imagine my surprise and joy when I discover that Grand Admiral Thrawn was back in the cannon! Man, would it be amazing if we found out Thrawn was pulling Moff Gideon’s strings in some way . . . which would mean that Ahsoka, Bo-Katan, and Mando would all be back for a big finale this season.
— Grogu is a pretty cute name for The Child. Not sure I would have played this card this late in the game, but I guess it was time to name him. Although, with all the Christmas merch already out without the name . . . well, it’s a bit late in the game to rectify that one.
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