Main cast: Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine Wren), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Hera Syndulla), Ray Stevenson (Baylan Skoll), David Tennant (Huyang), Evan Whitten (Jacen Syndulla), Genevieve O’Reilly (Chancellor Mon Mothma), Ariana Greenblatt (Young Ahsoka Tano), and Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker)
Director: Dave Filoni

I’m a sucker for fanservice as much as anyone (ahem), and Part Five: Shadow Warrior brings back Anakin Skywalker for some tremendous seal claps from fans, or so I deduce from the rave reviews of this episode everywhere.

Then again, those reviews make it seem like this entire episode is solely focused on Anakin blowing kisses to the enraptured fans or something, because that’s the only thing that they are raving about.

This does bring home one sad point: death in Star Wars will always be cheap because the people behind this show will drag out the rotting carcasses of Darth Vader and whoever whenever things are rocky, so that fans would clap and cheer like trained seals at some circus. With the available technology these days, even the deaths of the actors are no hindrance to the dragging out of these carcasses.

So yes, we’re going to be treated with Darth Vader in every freaking Star Wars show all the way into the next millennium, hallelujah.

Sadly for me, I have not watched any of the previous shows that Ahsoka appeared in, so all that fanservice stuff goes over my head. And no, I’m not inclined to watch those shows because I’m not in the mood for Dave Filoni inserting his precious waifu into Star Wars cannon and making her the most important thing ever. Stop asking me to, people.

It’s quite ironic, in a way, that he is trying to recapture the magic here and at the same time angling to be appointed by Kathleen Kennedy to be the master mind of the Star Wars shows in Lucasfilm going forward, when he’s also making Ahsoka appear so bland and boring in her own live action show.

Okay, on with the episode.

General Hera Syndulla must not be well-liked person because she only manages to cobble together a sad, ragtag crew to come look for Ahsoka and Kathleen Wren. I mean, the evil Morgan manages to conjure an actual army with what seems like a snap of her fingers, while Hera can only muster up the equivalent of a sad posse of red shirts that drew the short straw.

Along the way, there is some babble about Jacen’s parentage, but hello, I’m the No Clue About Those Shows and Don’t Care person in this corner, so my reaction is to shrug and try not to think unkind thoughts about Ewan Whitten’s acting. I still don’t know what Jacen is doing here. The child actor must be a kid of someone working at or is BFF to Lucasfilm, perhaps?

In the meantime, Ahsoka is in the World Between Worlds, where she engages her former mentor Anakin in long, drawn out conversations about peace versus war, when she’s not dueling him.

There are also the obligatory flashback scenes of Ahsoka butchering who knows how many people. Still, that’s okay, because she’s a girl boss and she probably feels tad bad about the whole thing as she now pouts a lot and she also claims that she doesn’t want to fight anymore.

It’s nice to see Hayden Christensen bringing some gravitas and even charm—that smile should be illegal—when he couldn’t do that under George Lucas’s hammy treatment of that character, but alas, Anakin’s scenes with Ahsoka feel like the standard mentor-prodigy apprentice claptrap stuff that doesn’t flesh out the relationship between two in any significant way.

In the end, of course Ahsoka comes back to present, and I’m not sure if there is anything she has learned from her time with Anakin. The whole detour into the World Between Worlds feels like fanservice filler to drag out the season, and this whole episode is just a big nothing aside from all that fanservice.

So now, our titular character and Huyang will look for Kathleen Wren, who may have turned traitor… oh, I wish I am dumb enough to believe that for a second and feel some smidgen of suspense and anticipation for the next episode. Remember Ezra Bridger, some important guy from a show that I didn’t catch and have no interest of watching? Yes, she is doing all this to save that fellow.

As of now, the Ahsoka road trip continues after a slight hiccup, and it’s kind of remarkable how a mission to stop the resurgence of a great evil is shaping up to be more like a family trip comprising bickering family members. Then again, nobody asks Dave Filoni to create a show that can’t stand alone and have Lucasfilm market it as otherwise.

Things appear to be heating up soon, as Ahsoka is going to finally meet Thrawn, and god, I am already dreading how Lucasfilm is going to turn that guy into a joke like they did to Poopootine. How is that studio not bankrupt yet?

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