In ‘Fallen Jedi’ the latest Star Wars show, Ahsoka, finally shows us that it means business, though I still maintain that Ray Stevenson’s character, Baylan Skoll, is doing most of the heavy-lifting. Every time I think about how terrific his character is, I’m reminded that Stevenson passed away earlier this year and my sadness is rekindled. What a tragic loss.

Ahsoka has been pretty hit-or-miss up to this point, with more misses than hits. Janky dialogue, bizarre pacing, flat characters, wooden acting, a convoluted plot, etc. etc. etc. have all conspired to make this yet another relentlessly mediocre Star Wars offering.

Thankfully, ‘Fallen Jedi’ turns the tables: This episode was more hits than misses, and hopefully that signifies a trend toward a better second half of the season rather than just a flash in the pan.

This episode felt much tighter than the first three, giving us some great action—especially the cool lightsaber duels—and some real trajectory toward the greater plot. Some highlights:

All told, most of this episode is summed up in these bullet points. Mostly, it was great action and some cool moments with Baylan pontificating about power. So what didn’t work? Well I’m glad you asked.

Of course, this being Star Wars and Disney, some of the episode just didn’t click:

Still, compared to the first three episodes I actually really enjoyed this one and it felt more Star Wars than most of the Disney+ stuff has and better than anything in Mandalorian Season 3. I think Ahsoka remains my least favorite part of Ahsoka, and that’s a shame. Hopefully she finds her spark.

Final thought: All of this would be so much more compelling and exciting if we didn’t know what came next. As in, if the sequel trilogy had never happened and we didn’t know that all this Thrawn stuff was ultimately not actually important to the bigger picture in the Star Wars universe. We know the First Order comes and smashes the New Republic and that Rey ultimately wins and so on and so forth.

Even if this builds into something really cool and great, we have that disappointing sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, and it sucks a lot of the wind out of this franchise’s sails. Perhaps it’s time to pick a new era in Star Wars history to explore.

Further Ahsoka Reading:

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