Time for another blast from the past. And a hint at the future.
With the Razor Crest ship-shape again, Din Djarin travels to Corvus in search of Ahsoka Tano, hoping to find a Jedi to train Baby Yoda. He visits the city of Calodan, which is under the despotic rule of Morgan Elspeth, a former Imperial magistrate played by Diana Lee Inosanto. Ahsoka, played by Rosario Dawson, is hiding in the forests and harrassing Elspeth's forces, seeking to learn information about her master. Elspeth offers Din a Beskar spear if he kills Ahsoka, and sends him into the woods. The pair soon team up to liberate the town.
Like in "The Heiress", we see the return of a prominent character from the animated shows. Again, I'd already seen Ahsoka in Rebels when I first watched this, but hadn't watched The Clone Wars. If you're unfamiliar, here's the run-down: She was originally a Jedi padawan apprenticed to Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, but later left the Jedi order and became something akin to a Neutral Good ronin. It's clear that her Jedi skills haven't faded.
This episode utilises a strong Kurosawa-themed element, which is something that has been part of Star Wars from the very beginning. The visuals of Calodan and the surrounding woodlands do a great job in painting a bleak world. It seems kind of symbolic, but it's also mentioned that Elspeth helped build the Imperial war machine, so the visuals and deforestation are akin to industrial smog. A subtle environmental message?
This episode also reveals that The Child's name is Grogu, and he was raised on the Jedi Temple in Coruscant until the Empire hunted down the Jedi. Between the action sequences, we get some quiet moments of Ahsoka trying to teach Grogu how to use the Force, but she chooses not to fully train him on the grounds that he's too attached to Din.
As for the action, we open with Ahsoka fighting off Elspeth's faceless goons who are essentially knock-off Stormtroopers before confronting her at the gates. There's also a brief scrap between Din and Ahsoka when she initially assumes he's working for Elspeth. During the final battle, Ahsoka does most of the fighting while Din works with one of the locals (later revealed to be the governor) to free several prisoners whom Elspeth is holding hostage. While she confronts Elspeth, Din gets into a staredown with her main enforcer; a gunfighter called Lang, played by Michael Biehn. We don't get to learn much about him, other than that he's likely from a military background.
Finally, this episode serves as a teaser for Ahsoka, a spin-off show in which Rosario Dawson and Diana Lee Inosanto would reprise their roles. I'm not going to look at that in this marathon. However, I will say that while I enjoyed it, I felt it relied a little too much on having seen Rebels.
Anyway, it's a great episode.
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