Rosario Dawson takes center stage in the newest episode of The Mandalorian, entitled "The Jedi," which has a wonderfully eerie tone throughout the episode, the perfect kind of Star Wars feel, and gives us yet another waypoint to follow in Din Djarin's quest to return The Child to his people.
But it was the name that was dropped near the end of the episode that brought me the most joy. After her fight with someone called the Magistrate, Ahsoka asks her, "Where is Grand Admiral Thrawn?"
Thrawn is back! But more on him later.
Ahsoka finally slashes her way onto the screen with her classic two one-handed white lightsabers with slightly curved hilts. I wasn't sure about her look when I initially saw her, probably because seeing a cartoon character come to life takes a moment to adjust. It did feel like the orange makeup was a bit thick for a live-action character, but it worked. The costume designers and makeup artists otherwise nailed her look, and during the big fight with the Magistrate near the end of the episode, Dawson nailed her walk, her quick looks at her opponents, the way she composes herself, and her fighting style. It was especially cool to see her change stances when she lost one of her lightsabers; she reverses her grip of her remaining weapon, just like in the cartoon.
At the beginning of the episode, Ahsoka moves in stealth mode through a forest to take down some enemies tracking her position. Dawson moves swiftly and covertly, perfectly embodying cartoon Ahsoka's limberness and mobility.
Later when she and Din Djarin are talking about The Child, Dawson captures how Ahsoka would speak and think after years of estrangement with the Jedi Order. She exuded confidence, but also a sense of fragility or feeling of fatigue that the character probably would be experiencing after years of working on her own accord and fighting for causes she believes in (it make sense that she would have worked with Bo Katan's Mandalorians once again).
What continues to not make sense, of course, is what Ahsoka (and Thrawn, for that matter) have been up to all these years. I guess they're implying she's been hunting down Thrawn this whole time, but where has Thrawn been? Surely he would've been a part the Empire's reign during the original trilogy, right? (Of course, the original trilogy doesn't mention him at all). I've said it before, but The Mandalorian more and more is proving to be a continuation of The Clone Wars and Rebels than it is Episode VI as it seems to be ignoring the original trilogy entirely. Given that Dave Filoni, the chief designer of The Clone Wars cartoons, directed this week's episode, the amount of continued callbacks to that era without a whole lot of context is not surprising.
This week's episode gave me a new favorite callback, though! Thrawn was by far the best character from the old Legends books. He was such a fan favorite that they brought in a young Thrawn during Rebels as we got to witness his rise through the rankings. Thrawn was earning his stripes and developing quite the reputation as a great war tactician for the Empire. He's a genius who is well-versed in many different cultures and practices.
We got two big namedrops this week. We finally got a name for The Child: Grogu. Not what I expected. Ahsoka communicates with Grogu to find out about his past. Grogu apparently was one of the younglings at Coruscant during the Clone Wars. When Order 66 was executed, someone had the foresight to hide Grogu from the Sith/Empire. Conveniently, Grogu's memory gets fuzzy after that. We know that Grogu is around 50 years old, so it makes sense that he might not remember a lot, though it would've been nice to get something new from the circumstances after Episode III.
Ahsoka references the planet Tython. I remember playing the Star Wars computer game "The Old Republic" back in the day, and Tython was a planet in that game. Ahsoka mentions an old Jedi temple still on the planet. After some quick research to jog my memories of the game's story, it makes sense because Tython was the site of the Force Wars thousands of years earlier between "light-siders" and "dark-siders" (the light-siders won and established perhaps the first ever Jedi temple on Tython).
Ahsoka references this planet because she refuses to take Grogu from Din. She senses darkness surrounding Grogu and is afraid of leading him down a dark path that likely would end with the same fate as Anakin, her former master. So she recommends that Din takes Grogu to the temple to see if any other Jedi come calling for him. What Jedi are left? I doubt we'll see Luke (and definitely not Leia) during this time. It's likely we'll keep seeing more Clone Wars/Rebels characters, which means we probably will see Ezra Bridger.
Notes:
-Seriously, the episode was eerie largely because of the sound effects; it sounded like the Christmas Carol's ghost of Christmas future was leading us on a tour.
-We saw an interesting torture device for the townsfolk. Sort of a hanging electrocution chamber. Pretty cool.
-The Magistrate originally tries to hire Din to kill Ahsoka. She offers him a spear composed of pure beskar, like his armor, as payment. We later see that Beskar is not broken by a lightsaber, so it's possible Din can use the spear to fight Moff Gideon and his darksaber.
-Ahsoka's fight with the Magistrate felt kind of cheesy and wasn't choreographed particularly well, though I guess there were limitations given the narrow walkway above a water pond.
-The captors of the townsfolk say "they'll be ready" when Ahsoka comes back a day later, but the only thing they end up doing is hiring Din. Did they have him on their tracker before she showed up? Or did they just get really lucky he showed up at the exact right moment? That writing was pretty clunky.
-We got to see HK-47 Assassin droids, which have been around in Star Wars lore for a long time. They're tough foes in some of the older video games, and I've seen them quite a bit in the recent Star Wars LCG card game I played quite a bit.
-The Magistrate's name is Morgan? She apparently plundered worlds during the Clone Wars. I'm not sure if she is an established character or not. I'm guessing no.
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