Star Wars: Ahsoka hits a point of no return in Episode 4, “Fallen Jedi”

With the release of this week’s episode, Star Wars: Ahsoka has officially hit the midpoint of its season. It’s fitting that “Fallen Jedi” is a climactic affair that launches the series into unknown territory. The lightsabers and emotional damage came out this week. You get the feeling that the show is ready some of the lingering questions it’s posed.

Read on for our full SPOILER-FILLED review.

Star Wars: Ahsoka Episode 4 review: “Fallen Jedi”

The entirety of “Fallen Jedi” revolves around a series of showdowns on and around the planet Seatos. Even Huyang (David Tennant) gets in on the action, fighting another droid as he alerts Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) that Sith forces are attacking their stranded starship.

While there may be a lot of action in “Fallen Jedi,” we learn about the characters as they fight. Ahsoka and Sabine finally work together, fighting off droids before they are confronted by Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and Marrok (Paul Darnell). I’ll admit I was a little nervous when these four faced off; Sabine didn’t have much time to train before her rematch with Shin, and it would have strained belief if she was just suddenly a superior fighter so quickly after how Shin toyed with her during the last duel.

Fortunately, Ahsoka handles these fights really well. Sabine combines her saber fighting with some Mandalorian trickery in order to force Shin to retreat, which feels right. Ahsoka kills Marrok after a tense standoff, and he explodes in a cloud of black dust. What was the deal with that guy? Was he an Inquisitor? RIP Marrok, we hardly knew ye.

From there we launch into yet another saber duel, with Ahsoka facing off against Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll at the henge on Seatos while the star map to Thrawn’s location uploads to the hyperspace ring in orbit. The settings and choreography of these scenes are a lot of fun, and there are a few unpredictable moments. Things linger a little awkwardly at times, kind of reminding me of an anime where people stare each other down for multiple shots before they start fighting, but on the whole it’s an exciting affair.

Hera arrives too late, Sabine makes a bad choice, and Ahsoka meets an old friend

“Fallen Jedi” isn’t only about the lightsaber duels…although it mostly is. Sabine has a difficult moment where she watches as Baylan knocks Ahsoka off a cliff. Then, rather than blow up the star map to prevent the bad guys from finding Thrawn, Baylan tempts her into handing it over. I’m loving how multifaceted Stevenson’s performance is; his character feels like the Sith equivalent of Qui-Gon Jinn and I am fully here for it.

That said, I do have to admit this choice frustrated me a little bit. On the one hand, sure, this is obviously what needed to happen; otherwise we would never see Thrawn’s scary blue face on the show and the threat would be averted too early. On the other hand, Sabine handing over the star map essentially undercuts Ezra Bridger’s sacrifice at the end of Rebels. He purposely allowed himself to be transported to another galaxy to get rid of Thrawn, so giving the bad guys the tools to go get him feels odd, like she missed the point of his decision.

Ultimately though, it works. Sabine is a fascinatingly conflicted character. She wants to respect Ezra’s decision but also wants him back in her life. That conflict drives the show into the back half of the season.

With the map fully uploaded to the hyperspace ring, Baylan destroys it so that no one can follow as he, Shin, Sabine and Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) set out for the galaxy where Thrawn is in exile. Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) arrives with some New Republic ships hoping to help, but it’s too little too late.

The hyperspace ring blasting off is probably the single most devastating scene of the episode. We’ve seen lots of ships get blown up in Star Wars, but this still hit very hard. I covered my mouth in shock. It was brutal and I loved it. It’s not good news for Hera, who took off against orders to help Ahsoka and ended up getting people killed. Hopefully she’s able to help out Huyang and Ahsoka, who are both still on Seatos.

Or are they?! The episode’s final stinger shows Ahsoka in a strange alternate dimension. She turns around to find none other than Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) standing behind her. This otherworldly plane is the World Between Worlds, a kind of bridge between spaces and even different time periods which played a crucial role in the Rebels animated series. So while Anakin doesn’t seem like a Force Ghost (remember, Ahsoka takes place after Return of the Jedi), something strange is clearly afoot.

Between the return of Christensen as Anakin, the good guys being scattered, and the bad guys taking Sabine off to Thrawn’s galaxy, “Fallen Jedi” had some very solid cliffhangers that are going to make the wait for next week’s episode tough.

Ahsoka Bullet Points

• Baylan and Ahsoka’s talk about Anakin Skywalker was both well-timed set up as well as a great bit of character building for them both. These are two of the only living people who remember Anakin from before he was Darth Vader.
• Hera’s son mentions having a bad feeling at one point in the episode. While this could just be a cute nod to Luke Skywalker’s iconic line from A New Hope, it’s also possible that it’s setting up the kid as being Force sensitive, since his father Kanan was a Jedi.
• There are some cool Purgill whale designs in the projected star map at the henge.
• The World Between Worlds is essentially a bridge dimension; in Rebels, we see Ezra use it to look at various key moments in the series’ history, even changing a very important one which ultimately ends up saving Ahsoka’s life. Bringing it into Ahsoka opens up pretty much infinite possibilities for what happens next. Will Ahsoka use time travel to save the star map before it’s destroyed? Is there some way for her to go directly to Thrawn’s galaxy by using its various pathways? There are a lot of options.
• Hayden Christensen is back as Anakin! Just had to shout it out one last time, because I love how these Disney+ shows are giving fans a way to appreciate him in the role again. It feels extra special considering the backlash that the prequel trilogy got upon its release.

Verdict

“Fallen Jedi” is a solid, well-rounded episode of Star Wars TV. It has lightsaber duels, it has important character beats, it has great special effects, cinematography, music and settings. While it does rely a little heavily on viewers being invested in Ezra Bridger’s fate from Star Wars Rebels, the string of cliffhangers at the end is extremely compelling set up for next week. A turning point, Ahsoka has found!

Episode grade: A-

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