Okay, finale time. Here we go. Either we pull out of the dive with a spectacular finish … or the show is blessedly done until the next assembly-line insult to the intelligence of Star Wars fans rolls out in a few months. Either way, we win, right?

00:00 I am not paying Disney+ extra for the ad-free, so I had to endure a commercial for British Airways, the theme of which is “What is a British accent?” It’s something we’ve got too damn much of in Star Wars, that’s what!

Though, to be fair, the shows are not as offensive in that regard as the Disney movies.

1:32 They are still including Morrock in the helmets.

1:59 I thought the cargo transfer was complete last episode, when Thrawn was smugly pointing that out as proof of his win. They did not succeed in disposing of Sabine or Ezra, they lost a few troops doing so, when he said it wasn’t worth the loss of troops to dispose of people who were just going to be stranded here anyway, but all of a sudden, his new goal all along was merely to keep Ahsoka too preoccupied to interfere with the cargo loading.

And he was telling all this to Morgan, who is now the one reporting to him that the cargo is loaded. Before, she was completely ignorant of the cargo-loading being his priority, but now she’s overseeing the project?

2:05 Why don’t you flying the Star Destroyer UP to high orbit to begin the docking procedure, out in space, where there is no gravity making the procedure more complicated? That IS how hyperdrive rings work the only other time we have seen them in live-action Star Wars – Obi Wan flew his fighter into space to dock with it, in order to travel between star systems.

2:19 Make up your mind, Thrawn. Are Ahsoka & company worth expending resources on fighting or not? Maybe he just wants to harry them so they can’t interfere, but his phrasing of the command suggests it’s no big deal if they find them or not. And the best way to keep them from interfering, is to set up a perimeter. Have his TIE fighters flying a combat air patrol is a much better way to prevent interference from her (or at least her shuttle – remember last episode, having a bunch of fighters chasing the shuttle did absolutely nothing to stop Ahsoka from interfering with Shin’s attempt to kill Sabine & Ezra).

3:52 I am guessing Morgan is going to end up looking like these Fate Mothers as a result of the Gift of Shadows?

Also, I can’t help thinking this sounds like the Smith-Priestess discussing options for upgrading Din Djarin’s armor. Like, they speak with the same cadence and everything.

4:36 Just when I was thinking it’s odd that Thrawn, the quintessential outsider, is being privileged to witness this quasi-religious ceremony, we get this shot of her staring over Morgan’s shoulder like she’s looking at him and thinking “Crap! A non-believer saw this!”

That said, I wonder how, exactly, Morgan’s power-up is going to work out. Either it will be something they talk about but doesn’t amount to much on screen, or some overpowered ability that she will not at all use to its greatest effect, and what’s more, Thrawn will fail to make ultimate tactical use of it. ITB, Thrawn was really really good at finding tactical applications and also work-arounds, for uses of the Force. For example, the Empire had cloaking technology, but it was considered useless, because whatever was concealed by the cloak was also effectively blind. In addition to coming up with uses that did not require the use of data (cloaking a bunch of starfighters in the hold of a vessel so it scanned as empty, allowing them to be inserted into the heart of an enemy base, cloaking asteroids and releasing them into orbit around Coruscant, so it was unsafe to approach or leave the planet, and they had to keep up their defensive force field, to keep them from falling from space and nuking the capital), he would use his Jedi ally to coordinate cloaked vessels, negating their blindness, or allowing them to shoot accurately while undetectable.

If the Fate Mothers have given Morgan some sort of superpower, you can bet Thrawn can think of a dozen uses for it that would not occur to me, and I am pretty sure I can think of one or two that Dave Filoni can’t. Or else he’ll deploy it in a way where I can see a major drawback and Thrawn would have laughed at, if Timothy Zahn were writing him.

5:59 Of course, the gift of power of this ancient order of powerful magic beings, who can reach across space to another galaxy, would manifest as a fucking sword! Force and violence are the only forms of strength or power that modern writers understand, respect or value. Welcome to Mando-Jedi, the Series, featuring the Dathomir Darksaber.

6:34 The title of this episode is “The Jedi, The Witch and The Warlord.” I’ve already heard accusations that Filoni is doing a lot of LotR riffs (the intergalactic hyperdrive craft is named for the Eye of Sauron; Ahsoka’s wardrobe change after her near-death experience is intended to be like Gandalf the White). Turns out we had the wrong member of the Inklings.

7:05 They are flying that ship at a fraction of their speed to cover the snail people, for some reason. Meanwhile the snail people are going to be endangered because the Imperials are coming to hunt (as they have been for the last two episodes) Ahsoka and Ezras Miller and Bridger.

7:19 I see he is constructing a new lightsaber. Are his skills now complete?

9:04 10-NT finally gets to be objectively right and put one of the Jedi or aspiring Jedi characters in their place, and of course it’s the male one. You KNOW that if Ahsoka or Sabine had been bickering with him about constructing a lightsaber, his organizational system would have been blamed and whatever they were trying to do that he disapproved of would have worked.

9:22 This show cannot seem to decide whether making a lightsaber is a highly personalized, idiosyncratic process, or something for which there is only one proper method, and 10-NT is the master of it.

10:18 This backstory for Sabine and Ahsoka, as it relates to the destruction of Mandalore, is something we needed back in episode 1! This is not a major revelation that puts a whole new spin on things, this is entirely missing information, and furthermore, describes part of a character arc! It’s not an explanation, it’s a motivation. This is how you start the story of their conflict over Sabine’s training, with the explanation that Ahsoka does not trust Sabine not to fall to the Dark Side, because she’s clouded by the desire for vengeance, or grief over her family and homeworld, and with Sabine determined to prove her wrong, or else turning to the Force for help in overcoming her grief, anger or malaise.

What this revelation does, when cast back over the previous episodes is make everything more stupid in retrospect. Hera whining to Ahsoka to give Sabine another chance is now dumb, because in addition to the issue of Mandalore, now Ezra’s potential involvement only makes her emotional issues worse. If Ahsoka had been adamant, and Sabine persistent, and Ahsoka refused to teach her to use power, when she did let her tag along, and only focused on emotional control and seeking peace and calm, to Sabine’s great frustration, that could all have worked, because now, with 10-NT’s revelation, we understand why Ahsoka would have been so leery of training her, and we would get what the focus of her tutelage was all about. This whole jaunt to the other galaxy, where Sabine surrendered to Baylen and handed over the intel would have confirmed all of Ahsoka’s fears, and it would be an even greater challenge going forward for Sabine to prove herself. That revelation would set the stakes for the climactic actions of Sabine in this episode. But as it is, this supposed motivation of Ahsoka does not accurately inform any of her interactions or attitudes regarding her would-be pupil in this season. We could have had her confrontation with Anakin in Force Limbo be all about learning to accept the good in him and his redemption, rather than letting his fall to the Dark Side cloud her judgment of others. He could have given her insights that could change her mind and make her more receptive to teaching Sabine, and a whole new tack, that actually reaches her and helps her.

But having squandered all of those opportunities, I will bet the show barely even makes an issue of Sabine’s role in helping Morgan reach Thrawn and bring him back to Far Far Away, and will only bring it up in a strawman form to clear her of any guilt.

10:31 Sabine is standing there with her default smirk, when Ahsoka surprises her with her presence, saying “You must be pleased.” Yes, that’s what her smugly self-satisfied expression was telling us. But now all of a sudden, she’s making a sad face, and she’s just “relieved”.

10:47 Turning away from Ahsoka like that is literally refusing to face the consequences of her actions.

10:52 Ahsoka that White is all about forgiveness and seeing the best. Don’t worry, Sabine.

11:11 Notice, she only says “I’m sorry” after Ahsoka has hinted at validating her, by noting that without Sabine’s actions, they might never have seen Ezra again.

11:17 The smirk is back, which means not only is she not just going to take the W, she’s going to push it.

12:22 This is all bullshit.
Sabine first. She has not been shown keeping up her training in any way. She didn’t even take up Baylen’s suggestion that she use her downtime in the cell constructively, she just kept banging on the door and yelling like a spoiled child. Instead of showing any empathy or compassion for her wolf-horse that was frightened by being in the middle of a firefight, she yells at it for cowardice. And she has been denying, avoiding and changing the subject from reality the whole time since she reunited with Ezra.

And let’s break down Ahsoka’s assertion. Was turning to the Dark Side, obsessing about his illicit family, and butting heads with the Jedi Council over not being given rank and honors he clearly had not earned “always being there for” Ahsoka? Is this stuff even remotely the actions of a man you should be using as any sort of role model? Obi-Wan was always there for Anakin as well, as he himself admitted at their last parting before his fall, right up until he saw footage of him murdering children. He defended Anakin to the other Masters despite their very well-founded doubts. How did that unalloyed support work out?

A statement like that would be so much more meaningful if Ahsoka was demanding Sabine face up to what she did, and was offering her support, no matter what, only after Sabine expressed a willingness to accept the consequences of her actions.

12:34 And to Sabine, of course, it all boils down to skill with a sword. See above, re: that’s all that matters to these people.

12:41 Being a Jedi isn’t about wielding a lightsaber, says Ahsoka, despite that being 50% of the lessons we saw her giving Sabine on their journeys back in Episode 3 or whatever, and apparently the only thing the show is really interested in.

12:55 Nothing about morality, or priorities or focus on emotional control. Nothing that even really backs up her assertion that being a Jedi isn’t just about swordsmanship. Train your body, train your mind, trust in the Force, is all about power. Sabine’s problem is right and wrong and selfishness versus service. Choosing to go after Ezra can be seen in either light, but absolutely nothing we have seen of Sabine this season supports service as her motivation.

This is so directly tied in to Anakin’s fall, as well. Anakin could not bear to be without Padme, and so he betrayed everything that was important to Padme, the Republic, democracy, peace, including, for all intents and purposes, abandoning her & their family, all in order to seek the power to keep her for himself. Ezra sacrificed himself (I am assuming, based on his recording to Sabine in the first episode and basic story rules) to stop Thrawn and get him banished to this galaxy, and Sabine is in danger of betraying his sacrifice and his commitment because she can’t bear to be without his company. This should be all about confronting her motivation and reasons for trying to save Ezra.

As long as her reasons are properly centered and unselfish, I can get behind her choice, because when you get down to it, Thrawn is just a smart military officer, and it’s a whole different kind of fucked up to view him as such an existential threat to the galaxy that the people of the Republic can say “Fuck Ezra, sacrificing him is well worth it not to have to face off against Thrawn again.” Not even the Bad Senator that Hera is always butting heads with was saying that, he was poo-pooing the threat of Thrawn and claiming that it was all disinformation for Hera to get the resources to search for Ezra. It’s Hera and Ahsoka who act like Thrawn is a threat on the order of a Death Star suddenly dropping into Corscucant’s system and charging up its big gun.

If Sabine’s attitude is “Thrawn is just one man, who brings only the somewhat understrength combat support complement of a single, worse-for-the-wear Star Destroyer to the equation. This threat does not justify leaving a hero of the Rebellion stranded in a far off place. Ezra deserves all of our efforts to bring him back, and if that means defeating Thrawn again, so be it. That’s what we will do,” that’s one thing. But if her mindset is “My feewings! I miss Ezra so much, I have to have him back no matter what. Who cares about Thrawn,” that’s bullshit. And everything so far supports the latter.

Ahsoka frames Sabine’s choice as a gamble to get Ezra back and suggests it paid off, but the context and the situation in which Sabine made her choice were not so much a gamble as a deal with the devil. She did not come after Ezra, accepting the risk that it might allow Thrawn to return, she enabled Thrawn’s return on the slim chance that there might be a payoff with regard to Ezra, which was dependent wholly on the choices of other people. My issue with the trolley problem has always been that since you did not put people on the tracks, nor sabotage the trolley, you do not have any obligation to stop the disaster, and especially no obligation to make a sacrifice in order to stop it. That’s basically the issue of Sabine chooses to retrieve Ezra instead of stopping Thrawn. But the choice she had instead was to start the trolley, knowing there was nothing foreseeable she could do to stop it, and knowing about the people tied up on the tracks, solely because it was the only way she could see to reach her friend who was near the fatal collision point. And all the while, it turns out, that had she possessed a little more patience, she might have been able to hitch a ride with a whale to find her friend, no trolley necessary.

Ahsoka’s concern which 10-NT finally reveals this episode is entirely validated by Sabine’s actions, and her behavior in this conversation shows no remorse, no shame, no experience of any emotions that might cause any discomfort. And rather than follow through on her now-revealed motivating attitude, Ahsoka is giving her a pass, with some platitudes about self-empowerment, rather than self-improvement or self-correction.

13:03 The naked eye spotted incoming TIE fighters before any sensors or detection system on the ship, or the danger senses of two Jedi.

13:23 Any bets on whether or not this problem that is causing three of four engines to smoke, and sparks fly out the rear of the ship can be solved by punching buttons and tinkering under the panels in the cockpit?

13:29 As I noted earlier, the snail people would have been better off if Ahsoka had flown away, rather than staying directly over them. Now they are literally having to hold up the ship to keep it from crushing the snail people.

13:31 Ezra (Bridger) needed a lot of effort to convince them to get out from under the massive thing that is coming down on their heads.

14:07 Just fuck this show. Rather than try to steer slightly to one side the TIE pilots throw their hands up over their faces and let Ahsoka’s ship crash into them.

And I was right about fixing physical, structural damage-caused engine problems in the cockpit.

So are TIE fighters made of balsa wood or something? How did Ahsoka’s ship not also explode or get smashed up? I know it’s bigger, but that’s still a very high-speed collision of two fast-moving objects, both of which have considerable mass. What could the shuttle’s hull possibly be made of not to be shredded by that impact?

15:07 Is she off to befriend some wild wolf-horses?

15:12 They’re just walking off, without even a glance back for 10-NT?

15:35 They’re retconning Thrawn’s plans again. It turns out that he was perfectly willing to trade two TIE fighters to cause some damage to their ship. So why not send out four, who can observe and report back and ensure they really were stopped? He’s also declaring it a success before he knows how far out they encountered the Jedi ship. What if it’s just over the next ridge and for all you know, they are using the Force to infiltrate your ship right now, dumbass?

16:02 Not gonna take a ton of credit for that prediction, wolf-horses was really their only option.

16:47 Why is anyone willing to make sacrifices for Thrawn, whose tactical performance in this series has been utterly appalling. He has been sending out dribs and drabs of troops to achieve constantly fluctuating objectives, and then claiming after the fact that whatever apparent defeat they suffer was actually part of his plan. He ordered fighters from the hyperdrive ring to pursue Ahsoka, without support of the turbolasers, and sent out Baylen and Shin to hunt Ezra and Sabine, alone, because they were expendable. Then he sends a bunch of troops on a couple of transports that he calls gunships, which never fire any guns, and don’t even take off to provide air cover for the troops, to back up Shin. When the Jedi hold off the initial skirmish, after Ahsoka joins up with Sabine & Ezra, rather than have the fighters switch to strafing their position, on foot, on open ground, without cover, he recalls all their units, including presumably, the fighters who never so much as touched Ahsoka’s ship (in the interests of good faith, I will concede they don’t make ‘em like 10-NT anymore, rather than wonder why they don’t have droids do all the piloting, given his vastly superior performance). He declares success, because now his sole goal has been to prevent Ahsoka et al from disrupting the loading of his critical cargo. That loading well completed, he now sends out two TIE fighters to hunt down the Jedi. When they are destroyed damaging the enemy ship, he again expresses satisfaction, but now he is asking for volunteers for some sort of suicidal rear guard to prevent the Jedi from assaulting their operation from the ground.

The military term for what Thrawn’s forces are experiencing is “defeat in detail.” That’s where a nominally superior force fails to concentrate to engage the enemy with the full weight of their combat power, instead allowing the enemy to confront separate elements of the superior force on terms where they can win these lesser engagements. Why not send more of the fighters that are visible in his hanger deck to prevent the Jedi from linking up with their ship? Why not direct the turbolasers from the orbiting hyperdrive ring to bombard the position of the Jedi and the snail-people? Why not send air cover to help the troops assault them when they are surrounded and pinned down?

This sacrifice is only necessary because of Thrawn’s failure of will.

17:28 “Do not wait for me,” would be funnier if this show and its ilk on Disney (and Amazon) have not made me absolutely certain 10-NT will have the ship up and running in time for whatever is necessary. Also, I cannot help but note all the people in the cockpit fussing with wires when the major issue should be the serious structural problems caused by high speed collisions with two TIE fighters and the severe engine damage caused by multiple gunshots.

17:41 Ahsoka asks Ezra for any intelligence he has on the landing site. Ezra states that he is unfamiliar with the site, and gives reasons (or excuses) why he has been unable to scout the place, including that he was alone, with no support. And Ahsoka smirks that he’s not alone now. That is not relevant to her original question which was a request for information as to what they might be getting into.

Also, despite Ezra living on this planet for quite a few years, and presumably being more familiar with the local fauna, on top of Sabine’s established poor rapport with the wolf-horses, and Ezra being a Jedi with greater access to the Force which they use for “knowledge and defense”, she is riding in front and holding the reins, because ThE fOrCe Is FeMaLe.

18:01 Is Thrawn’s entire reputation built on his saying “good” to every development, and giving the impression he has a master plan? Because what it looks like he is doing all this time is flailing and spinning his defeats as part of some grander plan.
Is he Space Napoleon or Space Flashman?

18:33 For the record, raining hellfire was always an option at Thrawn’s disposal, he simply chose not to use it until they were mounted on swift-moving steeds, rather than pinned down among a immobilized caravan of snail people. In Zahn’s original trilogy, Thrawn would have nuked the planet to get our heroes. In later books, when he started retconning Thrawn as more morally gray, with some sort of greater good in mind, he might have hesitated to employ such a wasteful and brutal tactic, but if it was a choice between bombarding the caravan of peaceful aliens who are sheltering enemies of the Empire, or sending some of his troops on a suicide mission, because he believes the security of the Empire is at stake, even kinder, gentler Thrawn would not have hesitated.

19:18 When you’re about to leave the planet, and everything you need or want is aboard your ship, and you have aircraft anyway, is there a reason those doors were operable and not sealed shut?

19:32 Night Troopers? Is there some new special action figure sale opportunity type of troops Thrawn has been developing in his exile? He is informing the Fate Mothers that it is time. Does that mean these troops are enhanced with their powers?

19:36 Cover? What’s cover? Heavy weapons? Like the tripod-mounted gun that the troopers assaulting Echo Base on Hoth set up as soon as they had a foothold into a large open space? Why were they not prepping this area for defense? What defenses where they actually setting up? Why did they not have trenches outside the front door? The Roman Legions would erect a fort any place they camped. Why does not a tactical genius of Thrawn’s caliber do the same, if just to protect his loading operation, just in case the Jedi did not cooperate with his mobile defense scheme?

19:42 Remember Din Djarin charging down a narrow corridor to assault a stormtrooper position, counting on his armor to absorb the gunfire and did so without significant injury?

Any time, Sabine.

19:49 Why would drawing them out work? Their goal is to stall and delay to allow Thrawn time to escape. If Ahsoka and friends are falling back, they are achieving the troopers’ goals, and the smart thing to do is hold their positions.

20:06 They are coming out into the main area of the room, away from the stairs and landings, like Sabine wanted. Even if they don’t have their own tactical briefings and standard procedures, can’t they hear her telling the others what she wants, and maybe not do that?

20:30 Now what was the dramatic pause? In other situations, I might say to indicate that Sabine and Ezra are in awe of Ahsoka wiping out this large squad or infantry section, but they did just as much, and it wasn’t all the impressive.

20:57 It’s been half a minute since they killed all the troops, and they’re just strutting around the room looking all full of themselves instead of hustling to get on with whatever they are hoping to accomplish, since they registered the sight of the ring docking with the ship and know they have a deadline.

21:07 Why is she standing at the bottom of the stairs with her arms folded like she is posing for her badass portrait?

21:23 Don’t you have somewhere to be? Why are you turning around to engage the zombie troopers behind you? Is this what Night Troopers are? Because Thrawn was calling them that before they were resurrected. Does it mean they have been prepped for necromancy?

And Thrawn and Morgan were talking about, I assume, these guys, as if they were making some huge sacrifice. I thought at the time it was to mount a rear-guard defense knowing they could not win and would not be able to reboard the ship, or else to pin the Jedi in place for an attack, possibly by the Fate Mothers, that would make them collateral damage. What it seems like they are talking about was that the troopers were sent out deliberately to be slaughtered so they could be resurrected as slower-moving, less likely to shoot versions of themselves, that the Jedi would irresistibly turn and fight, instead of running to try to achieve their actual objective, which is not, I would presume, notching kills.

21:45 The zombie troopers are driving them up the stairs, in the direction they should want to go and the troopers should be trying to prevent them from going at all cost. And why are there no heavy weapons or booby traps covering these stairs?

22:01 The ones they knock down are getting up again. Why are they bothering to fight, instead of flee?

22:34 Cornered by zombies, mission in danger, and the first priority when they have a break to talk is to blow more smoke up Sabine’s ass. She can’t even accept gracefully, but has to belittle Ezra in turn.

23:19 Maybe you could convey the urgency and importance of the situation better by NOT taking dramatic pauses in the middle of your sentences, Thrawn?

And why did they do everything this way? Why did the ring not come down from high orbit until after the Star Destroyer was finished loading? Why did they call it down at all, instead of flying up to dock with it, which would have had them out of the atmosphere well before Ahsoka & co could get anywhere close to it?

24:07 So now we get a rematch between Morgan and Ahsoka from Mandalorian season 2. Do we care? Back when she was jailbreaked, I had actually forgotten that was her, and was wondering why they were talking about her like we were supposed to care.

24:12Whatever that was they used to blow down that door, why did they not use it to render this structure impassible?

24:20 Are these zombie troopers or the live kind?

24:27 Why were all these doors not being sealed to slow down the Jedi and make them cut their way through?

25:03 Maybe one of you should shoot her in the back, or use a Force push to shove her onto Ahsoka’s blades?

25:19 Those last two parries happened only because Ahsoka chose to use the same axis of attack with both blades, instead of swinging them in two different directions or from two different angles.

25:37 That whole fight. Ahsoka swings both blades together, so they can be blocked with the same parry, or she only swings one, and holds the other back or two the side. Even when she has one blade locked up with Morgan’s she works that one, instead of bringing the other one around for a free shot, or she brings the second on in to join the first.

25:46 So are these the Night Troopers?

26:02 Trailer shot! We have the back of Thrawn’s head in the control room of the hyperdrive ring!

26:40 They were careful to show us Sabine’s lightsaber falling to the ground, which seems to be setting up for a eucatastrophic breakthrough where she calls it to hand to win the fight, because it will work that time, where it has not so far.

26:46 The super-strong enemies pick up the good guy with armor to shake ineffectively, and the soft-skinned meat sack, they just throw softly, instead of trying to crush him. Standard tactics. Hey, their job is delaying and preventing them from boarding. Why not use that implacable strength to simply hold on and not let go and drag them over the edge of this platform?

27:06 He went to all the trouble of pulling off her helmet, why isn’t he just pounding her head against the rock behind her? Not only would that kill her PDQ, it would do wonders at preventing her from calling on the Force.

27:30 Why didn’t they go for head shots, at the outset, since no one has died from a lightsaber through the torso since the Battle of Naboo?

28:01 Nice job of not actually stalling her, Morgan. You could be using her preoccupation with the gunshots to get around her and cut her off from the stairs…

29:05 Thrawn’s personnel have the absolute worst discipline of any troops, ever. First there are the guys who stop and stare when one of their comrades falls, while a firefight is ongoing. Then we have the TIE pilots who flinch at an incoming, slower vessel rather than keep cool and try to evade it. Now these chucklefucks, instead of firing at the guy being slowly thrown through the air by telekinesis, or shooting at the stationary target doing the throwing, just stare dumbfounded.

29:42 Guys, everyone on this platform is a willing sacrifice. You should all be taking more shots. Why not set for stun, like you did Princess Leia? Even if a Jedi can shake it off, it will slow her down and not kill Morgan, and if Morgan does get tagged for a fatal distraction, that’s an opportunity to kill her while she’s finishing off Morgan. Or dogpile her! So what if you lose a few limbs to her blade or the Dathomir Darksaber? This is a suicide mission, remember?

29:42 That does not look like Ahsoka’s bare back, with what the internet suggests is a gray racerback top baring her shoulder blades, that looks like a red and gray tee shirt, or a gray pattern painted on her spine.

29:49 When Morgan is on the ground, for a few seconds like this, that’s the ideal time for a few volleys.

For the record, my comments on these last few scenes do not indicate I am rooting for the Empire, I simply want the good guys to actually win a fight that matters, not through a series of unforced errors or own goals.

I notice we have not seen Sabine rejoin Ezra on the ship. I cannot imagine why they are doing whatever they are doing in this fashion.

29:56 She’s on the ground, every blaster should have been trained on her, and started firing as soon as she hit floor.

30:14 That’s not the expression of Jedi, calm, serene and one with the Force, willing to accept the sacrifice of her life in the cause of a greater good, because everyone has to join the Fore at some point. That is the expression of a feminist who has just been told she is not all powerful and cannot have everything she wants.

30:55 This is not great action, or a visually pleasing fight, all it is, is a stalling tactic to delay showing us the next development of the plot. We are getting nothing from this ongoing scene other than “they are fighting”. There is no suspense or drama here. We know Morgan is not going to kill Ahsoka nor are all the zombie troopers going to kill Sabine. Just show us the next thing already.

31:05 All that empowerment and Morgan goes down from a slice across the abdomen, not even a full impalement. Could you make the plot armor any more blatant?

Why isn’t she resurrecting like the troopers? Wouldn’t she make a more effective zombie? Maybe a Force lich or something?

31:22 He was just standing there this whole time, watching Sabine not rejoin him and do whatever she was doing from the time she turned from Ahsoka’s duel to run away and then proclaimed “Not alone.” And what good did she do? She fought a bunch of troopers who were watching the fight. Did her presence somehow motivate Ahsoka, pointlessly? Why would that motivate her, when it just means that the mission she has been fighting for, getting someone on the ship to stop Thrawn, is 50% less likely to succeed?

32:27 Why are we even supposed to be impressed? Thrawn’s gunners could not hit a stationary building, and the zombie troopers could not shoot two women running in a straight line in front of them.

And don’t think for a moment, we are not fully aware that 10-NT has flown the repaired ship up to the edge of the cliff and they have jumped down onto it.

34:25 According to an easy Google search, Ahsoka was born 36 years before the Battle of Yavin, and the show is set 9-12 years after that. She is between 45 and 48 years old, and we are supposed to take seriously Thrawn’s insinuation that she will turn out like Vader? What’s taking so long? Her side is winning, so it’s not like anger or fear or desperation are going to drive her to depths that Order 66 and the rise of the Empire did not.

35:05 Again, they are playing this like we don’t know space whales will come along in a timely fashion.

35:30 I like to imagine the snail people are all saying “Oh shit, it’s those alien monsters who brought the Imperial forces down on us, and took away our friend Ezra!”

35:49 Instead, because every right-thinking being worships Sabine and Ahsoka, they applaud the arrival of characters they have no reason to care about.

36:06 Hey, why did we meet the snail people, all lying face down in the dirt, out of sight of their caravan?

36:23 Why did we need to see that bird? Is it reporting to Baylen? Why didn’t we get any Baylen this episode? Now I guess we’ll never know what he was up to.

36:51 “Oh shit, it’s that alien monster who led our kinfolk to defeat in our assault on snail people!” Just kidding, she’s a female with a blade, so they’re going to fall down and serve her, or rush to die on it.

Why are we seeing what Darth Bangs is up to and not Baylen?

37:03 I am not placated. This is just an empty dramatic picture. It tells us only that Baylen is, in fact, on the planet on which he was last seen, where he indicated he would be staying.

37:25 That building the Star Destroyer was docked at looked like brown Minas Tirith when Ahsoka & Sabine were fleeing it and now Baylen looks like he’s standing on a Chinese Argonath.

37:58 Why Dathomir and not the Imperial capital or some other center of power?

38:39 We know this is Ezra. I can’t help but think if they trimmed some of the dramatic pauses, sweeping landscape shots and gratuitous swordplay, we might have had room for a mildly interesting tale of his hiding and stealing the shuttle before making contact with the Republic. Amazing how he knew where to find his old crew member, and got off without all them turbolasers blowing the shit out of his shuttle.

38:43 Why has Hera been demoted to greeter of suspicious ships? Not that she doesn’t deserve it, but last we saw she was winning her political cover battle. And why was he allowed to land if they are all drawing blasters on him when he comes out? Including the head of the party?

39:47 Humans have trouble recognizing humans of another race. Hera is recognizing someone of a different species, with a decade or so of aging (I am assuming Ezra disappeared at the end of Rebels, which AFAIK took place before the movies), with a whole lot more hair than she knew him having. He had no facial hair in the recording he made to Sabine before disappearing, and his hair was long and straight when he knew Hera. There is no way she should have recognized him, and if she knew ahead of time, greeting him with the guns was silly.

42:04 You are damn Jedi pupil on the home world of evil magic! Why would you assume anything you felt is “nothing” instead of dissecting that feeling and searched for all possible sources?

43:01 So Anakin isn’t appearing to his son or daughter, his Force ghost is off in another galaxy looking out over his grownup pupil, he only fought beside for a few years, and wasn’t there for the most important events of his life. This is a totally realistic set of priorities and perfectly in character, and not at all an attempt to retcon their fan-fiction character into someone of vast importance to the whole IP.

Given them the technology to duplicate stuff in a halfway presentable quantity, and we’re going to get a remaster Return of the Jedi where Ahsoka is just as important in Vader’s redemption as Luke. Or maybe just a dubbed in line, “Tell your sister … you know what, never mind, most important of all, find my old apprentice Ahsoka Tano and make sure she knows she was the most important person to me, and I’d never been saved without her.”

This is either the setup for a season of totally made-up bullshit adventures of Ahsoka and Sabine being awesome until they need to catch a space whale back to Far Far Away, or else that's how Ahsoka season 2 will start out. Or worse, they'll pull a Mandalorian/Boba Fett thing and she'll make her surprise return in a whole other show. Even more buffed and Mary-Sued into supremacy because of all her experiences and powers she learned in Space Whale Florida.

Meanwhile, Sabine has basically removed Ezra from the situation in which and Ahsoka are now perfectly content, at the cost of unleashing Thrawn on the Republic, AND taking a Jedi off the board.

You know what was funny, in Zahn's sequel books, the Hand of Thrawn duology, it was 15 years after RotJ and 10 after his defeat in the Thrawn trilogy, and everyone kept saying how the Imperial Remnant, despite controlling eight sectors with a fleet of 200 Star Destroyers had no hope of turning it around and even Thrawn's return probably would change their inevitable defeat. In the show in the current status, the Imperial Remnant is not even that powerful and although numbers are never given, no one challenges the hostile Senator's assertion that they are gone and even Remnant is too grandiose a term for them. They are no more than scattered gangsters in hiding, and Gideon's sad little base with maybe a company of Mando-Stormtroopers stands out among the surviving Imperial Forces. I just don't believe Thrawn can restore the Empire. This is not a credible threat, even leaving aside the incompetence of Filoni's tactical writing.