3:22 OMG!! They said the line! Ahsoka is worried about “Thrawn’s return as heir to the Empire.” Tingles. Also, that’s bullshit. You don’t sacrifice rescuing a person because another person might do something dangerous. A Jedi should be better than that. What’s the point of having the Force if you’re going still to make inhuman calculations which are inspired by normal human limitations? The whole point of a Jedi is to be better, to have the power to make those kinds of gambles. If rescuing a person who needs it results in Thrawn’s return, you cope and deal with Thrawn. Who’s to say Thrawn would even be all that effective? He certainly never really threatened the galaxy the way Vader & the Emperor did. And even if he was so awesome, how do we know his ordeal wherever he went has not broken him? I don’t know who or what Ahsoka is in other stories, but this is not a hero, or an engaging character, at all. She’s just this emotionless voice of what the writers think is a perfect protector and hero.

5:22 I have remembered Morgan. She was in the episode of The Mandalorian in season 2, where Ahsoka guest starred and dueled her and her beskar spear, and Din Djarin took the spear as his payment and would later melt it down to make armor for Grogu. Also, Michael Biehn was working for her. Why does this woman get all the best guys to play her henchmen?

Meanwhile, Darth Bangs and Not-Ezra are going to go fight Ahsoka and Sabine, instead of sending in one of those droids with the OP self-destruct mechanisms.

7:07 You ALWAYS have to, or should, do what’s right, regardless of personal feelings. In this case, the right thing to do is save a person if you can, rather than WhAtEvEr It TaKeS tO prevent Thrawn from returning to the galaxy.

And for the record, I don’t know what formula for canon they are using to bring Thrawn into all this, but he was such an authorial favorite that Timothy Zahn couldn’t let him stay a villain and began giving depth and complexity to his backstory and retconned him and his private forces as the sole line of defense against greater dangers to the galaxy beyond even the Empire, to the extent that Palpatine willingly sent his best commander out to the frontiers to guard against them, rather than crush the Rebellion. Maybe bringing back Thrawn might have surprise benefits.

7:58 Now! Set off your self-destruct! If you value your technological simulation of life so little that you will do it when a fight turns slightly against you, it should be worth it to possibly take out both enemies, and at the least, destroy their ship.

What you do NOT do is get into a fight with this droid. The droid is voiced by David Tenant, btw, so I am going to refer to it as 10-NT, rather than Huyang, which sounds racist.

8:10 Why does the murder droid think banging 10-NT into the hull is going to do any good. Also, “gagging” him by covering up his speaker doesn’t sound very effective. You could be using that hand on a more effective attack instead.

8:24 BTW, this is what they call a choke point. Anyone on the ship has to go out through the hatch. Just have everyone point their guns at it and fire at the first sign of motion. Worst case, it forces Ahsoka to hold the door and keeps Sabine from getting out. They should also have some sort of heavy weapon to overwhelm her as well.

8:52 Instead they came very close, and allowed themselves to be shredded with short-range weapons, and one actually kept firing when a comrade was moved slowly into his line of fire.

Do the producers think this makes their heroines look good?

9:35 Why is their only means of communication a transmitter integral to the ship? Why don’t they bring along something they can set up to call, if, for example, they get shipwrecked and need to call for help? Given that big empty area in the middle of the ship with the table that rises and lowers, I doubt the space to carry such a device is lacking.

10:30 And now Hera is being completely irresponsible. On the other hand, their military is extremely messed up. She has no discretion to so much as send a reconnaissance force or even a rescue mission for a war hero and one of the rare Jedi attached to the Republic, but she has clearance for absolutely everything.

10:40 Also, she is taking her child into danger.

11:17 Oh. Yay. It’s the Only X-Wing Pilot. You guys couldn’t get Dennis Lawson? I know he’s old but this Carson fellow is not exactly a spring chicken. He could play Wedge’s uncle or something. Or use the anti-aging CGI to play Wedge.

And by the way, the last time I saw “Carson” he was hanging out with Zeb. Couldn’t they recruit him for this thing?

16:30 Guess that wasn’t actually Ezra after all.

16:39 The dramatic pauses after every line of dialogue are not great and make the show slow and boring, but they do even worse things when they occur in the middle of a battle. Why is Darth Bangs going along instead of running back to warn Baylen and Morgan that Morrock is dead or evaporated or deflated or whatever and that Ahsooka and Sabine are coming?

18:43 Ahsoka might not want to discuss her past, but it’s the most interesting thing she’s got going.

21:35 Ahsoka ran to the rock, jumped up and pushed her foot off and turned around. It’s supposed to look cool, but it makes no sense. Baylen did not back her up against it, and the height she gained by kicking off it was negligible. She could have done as well just jumping normally. This is why the lightsaber fights suck nowadays (aside from the inept stories that give them context), it’s all about superficial cool factors and doesn’t feel like a real fight.

24:01 Wow, throwing someone against a hard surface actually hurts people now!

26:33 I have to say, I don’t NOT believe him. Nothing I have seen of Ahsoka contradicts his implication that she’s just a killer or a weapon. I could see why someone with a slightly different point of view might see commonalities between her to Anakin. This could make an interesting character arc except they have done absolutely nothing with Ahsoka’s characterization all season. She’s just a badass and she’s awesome and she has difficulty in dealing with this obnoxious punk Sabine. We have no information about her fears, feelings or goals, so Baylen’s charge that she is just like Anakin doesn’t really land at all.

With Sabine, the problem is that we have nothing established suggesting that doing the right thing matters at all to her, or that anything matters to her besides her own relationships, interests and amusements. She apparently has some sort of relationship with Clancy Brown’s governor character, as he and the cops address her by her first name, but she can’t be bothered to stick around at the ceremony or politely decline. She has this fraught relationship with Ahsoka, but they’re both assholes, so there’s no investment in it on my part as a viewer. 10-NT can say all he wants about how they are better together, but I just don’t care. Maybe if I had watched Ahsoka grow up on all those cartoons or watched all of Rebels, but this should stand alone. You should not have to do homework to understand the characters and the sequel defense does not hold up for different media. You should not need to read a book to watch a movie, or vice versa, nor a bunch of cartoons to understand a live action show.

If they HAD built up a relationship in this show between Sabine and Ahsoka and developed their characters beyond stoic badass and smug asshole, this choice would have been a good point, and Baylen would have presented a real conundrum. As it is, nothing.

That said, on its own, in Sabine’s shoes, I push for more guarantees, especially since Baylen seems inclined to offer them, and the question of how far I can trust a witch and a near-Sith is another sticky one, but cooperating to rescue Ezra and Thrawn is not unthinkable.

26:47 He just said “For Ezra.”
27:13 She just put the map ball in his hand. Did we need nearly a half a minute of a couple of different camera angles? That’s the problem with this show – they draw natural pauses out far too long. Try holding your hand out for 26 seconds waiting for someone to put something in it, without saying anything to encourage them. It’s more annoying than you’d think.

27:34 “Shin” is the actual name of Darth Bangs. I was just thinking Baylen would have slightly more credibility if he’d gone to check on her, but this works, too.

30:57 I was wondering how much they could actually obstruct a ship that much more massive in a universe where the “Holdo Maneuver” is a thing.

Is there a reason this ship has to be a ring? I thought the point of a hyperspace ring was to take something else into hyperspace, that could not go on its own, like Obi-Wan’s fighter in Attack of the Clones. But from what they are saying, the ring is going on its own, so, why? Why not strap all engines they salvaged onto a regular ship?

32:12 Psst, kid. This is what happens when you disobey orders. Your mom’s an idiot.

33:54 Is this Force Heaven?

34:54 I guess it is. And now they are going to ruin even Anakin’s redemption. It was one thing to mess with his downfall and evil career and whatnot, but up until now, the one thing they could not take away was his redemption and death in RotJ.

Oh, well.

Actually, it occurs to me, what if Baylen is going along to kill Thrawn. That line where he says "I'm not starting a war, Thrawn will" has been niggling at me. That might be cool.

Actually, Ray Stevenson doing it would make most things cool.