Okay, one more after this. Just one more. This past weekend, we got a visit from my cousin, who is the biggest Star Wars enthusiast in my family, and works in the film industry. Big getogether to meet his year old son for the first time for all of us on the East Coast. He’s the only other member of the family, it turns out, who has seen the Star Wars shows. He agrees about Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but inexplicably liked Book of Boba Fett, and loves Ahsoka. I don’t get it. This doesn’t even have nostalgia bait to anything other than some cartoons! Aside from Mon Mothma, there is not a single Lucas character here. My cousin think Dave Filoni is the savior of Star Wars. And he could not give me any clear answer other than how great it was to see the characters from rebels. He couldn’t defend the plot holes or the depictions, just happy to see his faves.

This must be a cult, that’s all I can figure out.

2:18 Everything the guy is saying is correct, that officers in the Republic cannot simply go around acting with the same latitude they enjoyed during the Rebellion and that as officers of a Republic they have to follow rules and procedures.

So what is the show’s opinion? That he is correct and Hera’s actions, while correct in spirit actually violate the rules, or even were wrong? That he is full of it and Hera is utterly right? That he would normally be right, but not in the case of a Protagonist or Strong Female Character? That he would be right in principle, but is misjudging Hera’s actions, out of a lack of insight or personal animus? Is the personal animus that of a politician for a warrior, of a johnny-come-lately to the Rebel cause resenting the sense of superiority a long-standing rebel projects toward his sort, of a male feeling threatened by a Strong Female Leader, or possibly a racist against an alien? So many choices.

2:26 No, Hera, your job is not to protect the people of the Republic, your job is to follow the lawful orders of the elected representatives of the Republic, whose job is actually is to protect those people, the best way THEY know how! A general doing what she thinks best to protect the people is a military dictatorship. Absolutely every step of Palpatine’s rise to power was in the name of protecting the people of the Republic, first from the greed of the Trade Federation, then from the attacks of the Separatist armies, and finally from the Jedi who did, in fact, technically speaking, ignore the lawful authority of the leader of the Republic and dismiss that of the Senate in attempting to remove him by force. Except the Jedi had a lot of probable cause and exigent circumstances which do not apply to Hera’s case. She simply disagrees with the political leadership, and has zero grounds on which to discount their authority, aside from her own opinion of proper policy.

2:38 “No, I protected the New Republic by ignoring you.” And Mon Mothma conceals a smirk as if she has scored a point! She has NOT proven her case, she has not answered anything. If she is contending that as a mere member of a council, he did not have the authority to issue her orders, that she did not receive proper and lawful orders from her council, merely an over-reaching demand from a single member of the government, the show has not made that clear. Nor has Hera on screen so far.

There is a good question as to exactly what Hera thought the status of her orders was, since she requested a task force, was refused, and went on her own with an escort of fighters, taking 40% casualties. She did not take the task force, which indicates she thought there was some legality to the orders, and yet she did not go on her own, on her own personal ship with no military assets, which might have been defensible as within the letter of her orders. But if she felt she was not constrained against taking military forces, which the X-wing unit was, why not take an actual task force? What orders was she under, what orders was she obeying, which activities of hers did she feel do not fall under the constraints placed on her?

3:29 So, things the bad guys do only matter if they are working together? The ONLY wrongdoing by Imperials is if it is for a greater cause?

3:53 So, Senator Xiono is formally charging Hera with disobeying a direct order. But the implication of Hera’s statement that she ignored him, suggests there was no direct order! Was there a lawful order or not? That’s a pretty open and shut question.

4:09 Fuuuuuuuuuck. Not even Threepio is safe. And why is Mon Mothma standing up for his entrance? Since when does anyone take him seriously? The people who come closest to caring about him don’t. Ever.

4:19 I know the answer to this question is “Carrie Fisher is dead,” but why is C-3PO coming on Leia’s behalf, when this same council uses interstellar communication to talk to generals. Why can’t Leia call? I mean, it’s not like Caroline Blakiston, who is still alive, last time I checked, is playing Mon Mothma in this scene. Re-cast.

4:49 Instead of objecting in the strongest terms, why doesn’t the Senator offer a reason for his objection? Remember in “A Few Good Men” when one of the attorneys gets ridiculed by her co-counsel for thinking that saying “strenuously” gives an objection additional standing? Clearly this guy is just a strawman villain, and we are not supposed to take any of his criticisms or their seemingly firm principles, seriously.

The interesting thing is that Leia has sent a data transcript, which begs the question as why Hera is not presenting black box and gun camera and other recorded data from her mission to the council proving that the Empire is up to something. There were space whales present, that they had to dodge, which then jumped to hyperspace. The Imperials built a massive hyperspace ring, using engines stolen from Republic shipyards, salvaged from the largest imperial warships, which very clearly is a hostile action against the Republic, regardless of whom else they might or might not be working with.

Did Hera not present this data? Is it simply being ignored? Why would Leia’s transcript be accepted? Why is the New Republic worth fighting for, if facts depend on the celebrity status of the one presenting them? Since this is following the third season of “The Mandalorian” this is also the same Republic that puts Imperial personnel through a dehumanizing and incompetent rehabilitation program, that fries the brains of Imperial defectors on trumped up charges, with no supervision, while allowing other former Imperials absurd latitude and credibility.

5:20 This is not evidence from a mere droid, this is a “data transcript” from Leia. Aren’t there ways of verifying this? Or are they just taking Threepio’s word that it is from Leia? If it is from Leia, it is not from a “mere” droid, he is just carrying it, which is more or less what you would expect droids to do.

Then there is the question of why Threepio is here and Leia is not. How did Threepio get here? Public transportation? Did Leia hire a ship to send him? How long did this take, and when did she send him, to arrive in the middle of Hera’s trial? How much advance warning did she have, what did Leia know about Hera’s mission? Is this just an expression of her blind trust in Hera that she is basically writing her a blank check with this post-dated order?

Best-case scenario, this is paying off a relationship developed in Rebels, but not established on this show, because we didn’t have time, needing to show lots of superfluous movement and long pauses between dialogue. I saw Return of the Jedi at a time when I had only seen Star Wars, once, years before and long before I ever saw Empire Strikes Back, and I was more aware of what I needed to know than I am in this show.

It’s not like they don’t get this principle either. There is a much stronger case to be made that watchers of Mandalorian Season 3 could be expected to have seen Book of Boba Fett, and yet Filoni & co felt the need to recap the relevant material from the latter in the beginning of the former. Expecting people watching a show to have watched the entirety of a several-seasons-long cartoon is far more excessive than assuming Mando viewers followed up on its spinoff.

5:28 If Leia is leader of the defense council, why has this other council been the ones to whom Hera is answering? Why has her defense at no point in these proceedings or her prior confrontation been “I don’t answer to you, I answer to the defense council?” And why is the council led by the Chancellor inferior to the defense council? Is this part of the legislature, or is an executive council and Leia’s defense council is a legislative committee? The latter is the only possible way her council chairmanship should override that of the Chancellor.

5:42 Is that Ackbar sitting next to Xiono? Why is he not on the defense council? Why does Leia outrank the council that has two of three leaders issuing orders for the Battle of Endor, and the field commander for that battle.

6:37 Okay, Mon Mothma asked Hera for an objective assessment of Thrawn’s return, putting aside her personal feelings. Actually, her personal feelings, as far as we know, should have been bringing into question her motives for the mission. Up until now the question was whether or not she was using the possibility of Thrawn’s return as a stalking horse to find and retrieve Ezra. Well, that ship has more or less sailed. Either Sabine or Ahsoka or both will bring him back, or not. Hera has done all she could, the personal part should not matter anymore, and she has no personal interest to be served here.

But anyway, Mon Mothma, her boss, and presumably friend to some degree, has asked her for an objective assessment, and Hera replies “We should prepare for the worst.” That’s not an answer. She wants to know how likely the worst is to come to pass, and Hera is saying “It does not matter, prepare for it anyway.” What about the rise of a new SIth lord? What about someone building a new Death Star? Wouldn’t those be worse than what is basically merely a clever officer with no special powers, who was, apparently, thwarted by a five-man crew of a small ship and some space whales?

Please, show, put Mon Mothma down, and leave her alone for Andor.

8:33 I saw no reason for any of that, beyond shoe-horning Hayden Christiansen into the show again. Not that I object, because the man deserves a break for how he is generally looked down upon, especially considering the quality of acting in Star Wars since then has not exactly set the world on fire, especially on the shows (except in the case of a few performances on Andor, from much older actors, with much more experience than Christiansen had when making Episodes 2 & 3).

9:42 It’s not so much that Ahsoka is direct and to the point, as 10-NT just brought up a stupid and pointless question. The better question of how do we find whom we are looking for in a new galaxy was Thrawn, last episode. And 10-NT’s point about star charts (was Sabine going to be on those star charts? Why?) is absolutely no less relevant when It comes to finding the enemy. How will that be an easier task than locating Sabine? For that matter, Ahsoka is only right by accident, since Thrawn is ready to abandon Sabine and return. The only way that finding the enemy will help them find Sabine is because he incongruously dispatched Baylen & Darth Bangs to hunt down Sabine & Ezra. If he had just said “Haha, leave them on the planet, we’re going back to the galaxy Far Far Away...” Ahsoka’s directness would have been hilariously thwarted.

The actual answer is that the enemy is following the space whales migratory route, so the whales are taking everyone to the same place.

9:50 Again, 10-NT is asking the wrong questions in the wrong setting. As near as I can tell, the whales took Thrawn, so the ancient Nightsister records of their own travels following the whales’ migratory patterns, indicated where the whales would have taken Thrawn to. Thus, riding the whale is actually their best chance of landing near where Thrawn did, and more importantly to them, personally, where the enemy is taking Sabine.

Of all the things this script should be questioning, we are focused on the strawman arguments against one of the few things that is relatively coherent.

10:03 10-NT is correct that the odds are astronomically terrible and that is what the script is basing everything on. For the characters, from a Watsonian perspective, it’s the best chance they have. From a Doylist perspective this plot is dependent on astronomically unlikely contrivances.

12:10 Now is this minefield new? If not, how did Morgan & company evade it? Considering how strapped for resources Thrawn’s outfit appeared, I can’t imagine this was their doing. At the very least, Republic forces showing up could have been used to get home. Revenge on the whales for bring him here seems rather counter-productive. The best guess it Morgan brought them to deter pursuit.

The next issue is, why they are a problem for Ahsoka, since they appear to be set up in very symmetrical and straight lines. Just fly out of the lines they are laid on.

12:19 Ah. Looks like they converge on the ship. Explaining this would have been good. Galaxy Quest, a sci-fi parody, did a better job of showing how a minefield works.

12:33 What if that ring had orbited around to the far side of the planet?

13:23 Why chase Ahsoka into the debris field? This is not like “Empire Strikes Back”, where catching the Millennium Falcon was critical to Vader’s objective, in this case, Ahsoka has only one or two possible reasons for being in this galaxy. Just sit tight and she’ll come to them.

14:27 Why is Wes Chatham playing this guy? There is nothing in the voice that I recognize as Chatham, nor are we seeing his face. What value is gained by casting someone who is known within the space opera drama, for something that so far, could have been done by a TTS device.

15:10 That’s a lot of pompous nothing. How are you going to put her on a path of your own choosing, so that no matter what she does, you’ll be one step ahead of her?

Also, why is it supposed to be so relevant that Ahsoka trained under Anakin? Did Count Dooku go around saying “Well, we knew Qui-gon, so based on that, Obi-Wan is X” or did the rebels say that about Darth Vader? For all that he is not generally known to have been Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan was upfront about Vader being a former pupil of his.

It’s like they just want to blurt out facts and connections to give this mess legitimacy.

16:06 Mining your back-trail should not require the insight of a tactical genius. That the Imperials did something so rudimentary as lay traps on the path from the last place where their pursuers were seen, suggests to Ahsoka that Thrawn must be calling the shots indicates nothing good about the Republic’s failure to eradicate them.

17:22 Wow. She is really holding back on her criminally traitorous actions here. There is no reason for her not to tell him, unless she is extremely aware that she did something very, very wrong, or else of which Ezra would not approve. And also, there is no long-term to this plan. One way or another, unless they want to live with the snail people for the rest of their lives, he’s going to learn and she’s going to look even worse for stalling for so long.

Also, remember in the best Star Wars work of all, when Luke is being urged not to abandon his training and go rushing to the rescue of his friends, and he says “Sacrifice Han and Leia?” to which he is told “If you value what they fight for, yes!” And in the prequels, Anakin commits exactly that failing, betraying everything Padme dedicated her life to, in order to save her for himself. Disney is bound and determined to never ever learn that lesson. The important thing to these writers is that these smug, smirking women who repeatedly ignore the franchise’s most consistent message and strongest theme of respecting others’ choices, are not white males like Luke or Anakin, so that makes everything okay.

17:51 “Getting home is kind of important,” Ezra reminds Sabine, to which she responds by turning the topic to herself and her career, and now Ezra is on the defensive because of his word choice when trying to process this non-sequitur! How dare he fail to appreciate how awesome things are for Sabine!

18:03 The reason every turn of this conversation becomes uncomfortable for you, Sabine, is that you are a horrible person who did something very very wrong and you are acting incredibly immaturely. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt when she first took up Baylen’s offer, on the assumption that she was aware of the risks and all that, and weighed helping her friend to be worth the risk to the galaxy of a clever officer returning to the Imperial cause, with a single, falling apart warship and a detachment of poorly equipped troops. Instead what we have is a child who believe what she was doing was wrong, went ahead and did it anyway, and is taking an irresponsibly long time in giving Ezra the facts of the situation, all to avoid admitting her own actions and questionable decision. I would follow Rose Tico in an assault on Hell before I would leave Sabine Wren unattended with anything more important than the life of a goldfish.

20:08 I wonder which is more detectable? The scanning technology they used to search for Sabine on a planet, while they are in the debris of its rings, to the Imperials, who presumably have control of said planet and its orbitals, or Ahsoka reaching out with the Force, to the Great Mothers?

Too bad these shows will never ever commit to establishing the rules of the setting, the technology and powers, lest they find themselves having to think about that when writing these stories. So much easier to set all the rules and limits and capabilities as “whatever the plot requires”.

20:26 I feel like a more interesting story than Sabine’s bullshit would be Ezra grappling with abandoning the Noti, who have taken him in and given him his own pod but also would appear to have troubles he could be helping them with.

21:38 “What kind of feeling?” “Familiar”. She just said “Ahsoka” a moment ago! Why isn’t she thinking this, or telling him?

22:34 So Thrawn’s cunning response to having flushed Ahsoka out of hiding is not to prepare defenses, whatever that means, but to acknowledge that she is looking for Sabine whom Thrawn has sent away in pursuit of Ezra. So he dispatches the fighters to hunt her down. But can’t their turbolasers still target her now that she is no longer under cover? Normally for a capital warship, I would think defenses would mean fighter cover, especially with regards to a single, smaller opponent with a disproportionate capability to do harm. But he’s send the fighters off to chase after her.

22:51 They have hovercraft technology, but not telecommunications or any better detection methods than the naked eyeball? Or whatever the Noti use instead of eyes.

And how did Baylen and Bangs get ahead of them?

23:00 “Friends of yours?” “No.” Sabine is still not clarifying that she came with them! She is all but denying any knowledge of them!

23:36 I wonder if Baylen means this as a test or a choice for Darth Bangs. Like saying “If you want to be an Imperial big shot, this is how you go from here. Get in good with Thrawn by reporting to him and killing his enemies.” The unspoken alternative is “come with me and do something different, which we are apparently saving for a surprise with only an episode and a half to go.” What I am saying is that we need some better information about Baylen and his motivation. We have no idea what he is after, and this dialogue implies Bangs does not either. If her choice is to be meaningful, she should know what Baylen is up to, and whether or not she wants to follow him down that path. Also, what exactly is Baylen’s relationship with Bangs? It seems personal, and not ideological, unlike every Jedi and Sith apprenticeship I can recall seeing. He is not teaching her to be a Jedi or a Sith, but setting her up to follow her path, whatever that might be, and regardless of its diverging from his own goals. He is clearly not interested in working for Thrawn or the Empire’s goals, and is merely advising his apprentice how to achieve her own ambition in that regard.

The most interesting character on this show is played by a now-deceased actor. They are making it really hard to care about this Filoni-verse continuity and its projected climactic movie down the road.

23:45 Why can’t the ring ship just bombard this spot from orbit?

23:54 Darth Bangs’ name is Shin.
Baylen’s final lesson to Shin is that impatience for victory will guarantee defeat. Which is probably a hint about the coming events, since that’s a basic platitude with countering ones like “who hesitates is lost” or “who dares, wins.”

24:25 I liked that look they exchanged. From the prior dialogue, we get the impression that this is where Shin & Baylen part ways, and that’s just a kind of acknowledgement, that okay, there’s nothing left to say here, this is where we part, what can we say to sum up all our training and adventures together to this point? It’s minimalistic acting, without showing tons of emotion, but not being the expressionless plank of wood they seem to be demanding of Dawson and whatsherface playing Sabine, when they aren’t smirking.

24:34 I would also, in addition to some idea of the capabilities of very weapons and Jedi, like to know about Thrawn’s. The condition of the ship and equipment, the fact that he sent Baylen & Shin on wolf-horses as he did Sabine, and that he brings the Star Destroyer in for a docking with the surface, rather than use landing craft, as well as relying on the fighters that seem to have come with Morgan & co all suggests he is lacking in flight capacity.

He indicated that he dispatched Sabine to find Ezra because he didn’t want to waste other resources on someone he could just as easily leave behind, and that he sent Baylen and Shin to take them out because he considered them equally expendable, and again, people he would not have a problem abandoning if they had to leave.

So why is he now sending two gunships to back them up, when they would seem, by all indications to be precious assets? Not only that, his strategy for dealing with Ahsoka was to let her go off after Sabine, because it would separate her from his forces. But now he is sending his gunships after the same target that Ahsoka is responding to, further increasing the risk to them.

On top of all that, what about if he has to leave? Sucks to be the guys on the gunships, and what are the rest of his troops going to think going forward, about Thrawn abandoning his men forever in another galaxy? If he is going to be taking over leadership of an Imperial remnant so reduced as to be beneath the notice of most of the Republic (and indeed, his potential to take command seems to be the only thing that concerns the smart leaders of the Republic), he can’t afford to get a reputation as a guy who doesn’t care about his troops, or they’re going to start wondering if it’s worth the uphill climb to Thrawn’s victory. Even if they are committed to the Imperial cause, there are going to be lots of ambitious rivals to Thrawn they could serve instead.

I wonder if they are going to try to frame this as Thrawn’s brilliance in action, because he is bringing Ahsoka’s pursuing fighters, the gunships and Shin & the mercenaries all together to converge on, and crush the Jedi, an example of how his seemingly unrelated moves coming together, because he can see a much bigger picture. But they can’t win, because this is the Ahsoka and Sabine show, and they are Filoni’s babies, and he will not leave them stranded or defeated in another galaxy.

24:43 Is this going to be the excuse for Thrawn’s failure, that he is counting on Baylen, whom we know to be checked out already? Except, as I said, up until this minute, he was not counting on him, Baylen killing Ezra and Sabine was a nice bonus, but the primary quality for which he deployed Baylen was expendability.

26:11 Once again, the bad guys, despite access to firearms, are resorting to hand-to-hand weapons, so their “peaceful” adversaries can plausibly fight them off with rocks.

27:00 The one thing they had going for them was mobility, and they have just sacrificed that to engage multiple enemies with a single pair of guns. This is also likely to get a bunch of other Noti killed, because they are pursuing Ezra and Sabine, and Sabine is not being honest with Ezra about who might be hunting them. This circling the wagons tactic is a non-starter without substantial ability to inflict damage. Western settlers used to do it against Indians, because they had guns, and the Indians had superior mobility, while the settlers had at least a chance of military support. Ezra and Sabine have no expectation of support, and their mechanical transport should, in theory, be capable of far greater sustained mobility than the biological mounts of the mercenaries. Their charity toward their stalled companion should not extend further than having someone take him on their own transport and keeping the whole shebang on the move, until the wolf-horses get tired.

The one slightly redeeming feature of this might be that the writers are aware of the untenable status of this maneuver, and are deliberately putting them in danger for Ahsoka to ride to the rescue. Which is a classic idiot plot.

27:27 Baylen’s just watching all this like “LOL, what a bunch of dumbass chucklefucks.”

27:42 Sabine’s introduction of Shin is that she is like Ezra, but lacks his sense of humor. Which I guess is code among the crew of the Ghost for “uses the Force, but evil” because he realizes the next question to ask is if she carries a lightsaber. Maybe it might be worth pointing out that she is allied to the Imperials, who came here to bring Thrawn home, and thus is connected to a whole lot more bad guys? Sabine has no way of knowing that Thrawn had indicated he was only sending Baylen & Shin and no one else, and anyway, he seems to have forgotten that as well.

27:42 Actors need screentime, so Sabine is not putting on her beskar helmet.

28:27 What is Ahsoka’s plan if the fighters choose not to follow 10-NT & the ship, and instead focus on the person they were sent to stop, Ahsoka?

28:31 10-NT asks what about last time and Ahsoka says that last time he got the timing wrong. I assuming this refers to some other incident in which she made a combat insertion that we have not seen, because the last time she went EVA, the last time fighters from this faction pursued them in fact, 10-NT was out of commission, and Sabine had to fly the pickup.

That time she got lucky, because they flew within reach of her lightsaber for absolutely no discernable benefit.

29:18 What is his motivation? Why does he have any interest in stopping Ahsoka? He has made it as clear as possible he is not remotely invested in the Empire, and he seems to have a sentimental interest at least, in her survival.

29:58 Give the prequels shit if you must, but the climax of Revenge of the Sith was a lightsaber battle between two sets of adversaries, all four of whom we knew would survive another 20 years or more to the next trilogy, and it’s considered one of the greatest action scenes of the franchise. I am not a fraction as invested in this fight as I was in that one.

31:17 I rather like the idea of a Jedi having to survive stranded on a hostile planet with no lightsaber and needing to figure out other ways to fight, with judicious use of the Force, so as not to cross the line between knowledge & defense, and attacking. This show could barely give us a few seconds of that, because they were much more interested in another generic chase sequence, and starfighter pursuit and a lightsaber battle that can’t go anywhere.

Also, Shin is hanging back and Sabine got to keep the lightsaber, only so she can vindicate her earlier defeat.

32:00 And just like that, all of Ezra’s efforts are undercut, because we have to have Sabine’s rematch.

32:25 Why were those missiles or blaster volleys or whatever not used at any point before this? And why are we supposed to take the fighters seriously as a threat, if 10-NT can evade them so easily that it was not worth showing at all before this? Bear in mind, Ahsoka flew all the way down from the planet’s rings to the surface and across the surface to the exact spot where Sabine and Ezra were, without any trouble at all from the fighters, then she jumps out undetected, because they never noticed the gangplank extending, and continue their utterly ineffective pursuit of the ship with a droid pilot through his return to strafe Baylen. According to Ahsoka when she jumped, this was a ploy where timing is critical, so her plan HAD to be to confront Baylen and district him up until this point when the ship returned for the strafing run. And the issue of the pursuing fighters was no inconsequential that it was easily accounted for in arranging the timing. Which also means that rather than extract Sabine & Ezra, Ahsoka’s plan in jumping out was to confront Baylen, nothing more, nothing less, and arguably, even in this very spot.
Why?
Does she care less about her friends than about a rematch with the guy who beat her?

32:37 Did we need all that footage of the ship flying past after its shots hit, and 10-NT blinking in the cockpit?

32:43 This was Ahsoka’s plan. This had to be premeditated, because she left the ship with the understanding that 10-NY would return at a precise time to perform a strafing run to extricate her from a fight against a superior opponent. And the end goal was “steal Baylen’s wolf-horse.” Why is that the plan she decided, rather than dropping into the fight directly to assist Sabine & Ezra?

33:03 And now another 20 seconds, uselessly spent on watching Baylen look around before walking away. What does this tell us? How does it add value to the show?

34:02 She had a flamethrower in her gauntlet this whole time, and never bothered to use it, except to distract Shin as Ezra was hauling her out of the fight.

34:56 Don’t care. You will never convince me that these fighters are any sort of threat at all to 10-NT surviving to see the outcome.

Also, there were stormtroopers behind Ezra and Sabine, and yet, despite Shin’s order to first, destroy them and then after Ezra’s babbling, a direct command to fire, none of them do, because a couple of them are thrown forward, and Ahsoka takes up a position between the targets and Shin, deploying her death smirk. Not one thing has changed in the tactical situation for those troopers behind Ezra and Sabine, and they were dispatched from their Star Destroyer by Thrawn for the express purpose of killing them! This is their mission! Hell, they should not have even needed to wait for Shin’s command, since she isn’t their commander, or even part of the Imperial forces. As late as a moment ago when Thrawn was looking at the tactical display, he was referring to her and Baylen as mercenaries. The only thing the stormtroopers should have cared about was pumping Sabine & Ezra full of blaster shots, they should not have been waiting for her order, nor caring that Ezra was trying to distract her with his babble, nor that a couple of their comrades went flying or that a Jedi was facing off with Shin. Their mission was to kill the other two, which Ahsoka had no way to prevent.

35:06 When where these troopers recruited, yesterday? He stopped shooting to look at his downed comrade! What kind of discipline is this?

35:45 What ARE Thrawn’s goals and priorities? Okay, he’s calling off the fight, recognizing it’s pointless and no reason to pursue sunk costs. And he says, in response to Morgan’s questioning look that these are acceptable losses in light of Baylen’s absence. How does his absence change the equation? Last episode he was expendable and only worth sending after Ezra and Sabine because they were not exactly high priority targets. Now, for some reason, the troops who have just been killed attacking the Jedi gang are acceptable losses, given his absence. Would they be unacceptable losses if Baylen was still present? A better way to phrase that would be that without Baylen, continuing the fight would be too risky or costly for the gains it would represent.

36:26 Thrawn’s little lecture here makes sense, but it still does not explain any of his actions regarding the gunships and the troops he sent out. Ahsoka was only about fighting Baylen and dropped into the fight before the gunships deployed their troops (with a remarkable lack of gunnery for gunships, as opposed to transports), so his use of them did not contribute at all to his apparent goal of distracting Ahsoka so he could finish his plans to leave undisturbed. The only thing I can see working here was that the fighter pursuit forced her to act fast and keep up the pressure, so she didn’t have time to swoop in and pick up the kids and go after Thrawn again. But, again, the gunships had nothing to do with any of that.

The smart thing to do would have been to have the gunships circling and maybe strafing Ezra and Sabine, as they tried to fight the mercenaries and Shin, and then when Ahsoka ditched Baylen and joined the fray, he orders the various craft to RTB, telling Morgan that without Baylen, there is no point in risking further casualties, and they have done what they were primarily sent out to do, ensure that Ahsoka would be kept away from his loading operation. They would have deployed to keep the rebels bogged down, or if there was a certainty of killing them, but why take the risk when his successful return to Far Far Away is now assured? It would make Baylen’s defection consequential, give the good guys a moral victory for defending the Noti, and get enough action scene glory in beating the faceless mercs and Shin, while also showing that Thrawn has bigger plans and always has another card to play.

This post hoc explanation could be interpreted as sour grapes.

37:31 Now with all the bad guys gone, Sabine should be due a trip to the woodshed…

38:15 “You thought she was dead?” only serves as a reminder for just how little Sabine has told Ezra about how she came to be there, and what the situation is.

38:52 It’s nice that Ezra made connections with other people and all that, but come on. With one episode left, and a lot of stuff to get done, we did not sign up the sight of allegedly endearing snail people celebrating. We watched the Ewoks fight and bleed against the Empire and battle droids to earn their celebration scenes (and even then, their reception among the fandom is decided mixed).

39:00 You and Grand Admiral Thrawn, buddy.

Apparently consequences for Sabine will have to wait. 50/50 I figure whether or not they even address it in the finale.