This review contains spoilers for the Ahsoka episode 6, “Far Far Away.”
The Ahsoka ride has definitely been a strange one so far. The amount of homework that feels required is indicative of a larger Disney problem with nostalgia as a whole. But as someone who has spent hundreds of hours watching The Clone Wars and Rebels, I’ve been enjoying what ostensibly feels like a new season of the animated series, and “Part 6: Far Far Away” doesn’t change that. In fact, it delivered a handful of moments that were among my favorite of the series so far, alongside one that I either really love, or absolutely hate. Still haven’t figured it out yet.
The big highlight of this episode is obviously the introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) in all of his live-action glory. As one of the most memorable villains in Star Wars history across Timothy Zahn’s books and the Rebels series, I was curious how they’d frame his entrance in Ahsoka. With millions of people watching who don’t have the same shared history with the legendary tactician, how do you immediately highlight his power and gravitas?
Well, this is how.
We’ve seen the image of hundreds of Stormtroopers lined up at the arrival of their leader countless times before, but immediately something is different here. Kevin Kiner’s score bombards us with a series of droning tones, creating an unnerving feeling of dread. Not only do the mass of troopers chant the name “Thrawn” over and over, but their armor is a far cry from the pristine white we’re used to. It’s battleworn, evoking shades of the Japanese art of kintsugi, and wrapped haphazardly in slashes of red cloth. This sight brings to mind the Night Sisters, which is fitting since the subtitles call them Night Troopers. Chances are they’re dead soldiers resurrected by magic, much like the Inquisitor Marrok was. The main trooper, Enoch, has a golden faceplate that looks ripped straight out of the Holy Roman Empire. Thrawn hasn’t even spoken a word, and yet we already know that this is a man to fear.
Once he does speak, Lars Mikkelsen commands the screen. His calm and level-headed demeanor hides a sinister malice underneath, and I’m looking forward to him going mask off at some point and showing his true colors. Speaking of, his Chiss red eyes provide a stark contrast to the show’s muted colors anytime he’s in frame. Ahsoka has had some pretty great antagonists from the start, and Thawn just strengthens that lineup.
I honestly dug everything surrounding the villains in this episode. Everything from the planet being surrounded by a ring of Purrgil bones, to a deeper dive into the mysticism and witchcraft of the Night Sisters, all paint this corner of the new galaxy with different colors than we’ve seen before.
Everything Thrawn-related aside, the other highlight of the episode for me was the reunion between Ezra (Eman Esfandi) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), not just because we finally get to see the two of them together again, but because the lead-up to it contained one of my favorite things in all of Star Wars – weird little alien dudes acting weird.
A Star Wars story is only as strong as the strange critters that populate its world. From Jawas and the drunks at Mos Eisley’s Cantina, to Ewoks and Porgs, to Yoda and Maz Kanata, I love seeing the bizarre forms of life that exist across the galaxy. The Mandalorian understood this perfectly with the introduction of Grogu, and I’m happy that Ahsoka also gets the assignment.
It started with Sabine’s adorable Loth-cat, and continues here with the shy turtle creatures that live with Ezra. They felt like something out of Labyrinth, and I mean that in the best possible way. So yeah, it was emotional seeing Sabine and Ezra embrace after being apart for so many years, but doing it in front of a dozen strange turtle folk made the moment all the more memorable.
The final thing we need to talk about is that moment I referenced at the top; the one that I’m not sure whether I love or hate. Right near the start of the episode, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Huyang (David Tennant) share a nice quiet moment while in transit between galaxies in their space whale Uber. They discuss how Huyang used to read stories about the history of the galaxy to young Jedi. He even still has them archived in his memories.
The conversation then turns to how Sabine willingly went with Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and the Dark Jedi in an attempt to find Ezra. Ahoksa sees the decision as selfish, while Huyang is much more empathetic with Sabine. He doesn’t think decisions and emotions need to be so binary. Ahsoka doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, instead suggesting, “On second thought, tell me one of those stories.” Huyang responds, “Very well. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” The music swells, and we cut to the episode’s title screen.
Star Wars has a long history of explaining things that don’t need explaining. We didn’t need to know why Han Solo took up that specific surname, or how he got those fuzzy space dice in the cockpit of Millennium Falcon. And we certainly never wondered what the in-universe explanation was for the iconic words that have preceded the series’ title crawls since 1977. At best it’s silly, at worst it’s pandering as hell. But then that dumb lizard part of my brain clicks in, and I’ll admit that I got chills when I heard Huyang say those 10 words that have been a foundational part of my pop-culture lexicon since I started watching movies.
That internal struggle is my relationship with Ahsoka in a nutshell. I thought last week’s trip down Clone Wars memory lane was simultaneously nostalgia bait, as well well as an effective bit of visual storytelling. The abundance of smoke and fog felt both cheap, as well as a great depiction of wading through the haze of memory. This series is both everything that’s wrong with modern pop culture, as well as something I look forward to every single week. I guess Huyang is right – maybe things don’t have to be so binary after all.
