Ahsoka episode 5 review: "Despite being overly steeped in nostalgia it's easily the best episode yet"

This review features minor spoilers for episode 5 - you have been warned...

Star Wars is at its best when it looks inward. Arguably the most lasting impact of The Empire Strikes Back isn’t Harrison Ford’s enviable winter fits on Hoth or the swagger of both Lando and Boba Fett, it’s the surreal few minutes on Dagobah when Luke meditates and finds hints that his greatest enemy, Darth Vader, is closer to himself than he might care to know.

In the decades since Luke’s hallucination, the way of the Jedi has been a distinctly spiritual one. The Jedi altogether have a different vibe than, say, the Avengers, even if they’re all in the peacekeeping business. In Rian Johnson’s divisive (and in my book, fantastic) The Last Jedi, it made sense when Luke rebuffed Rey’s insistence that he rescue the Resistance. Swooping into the heat of battle and dominating like Michael Jordan in the fourth quarter isn’t the Jedi way. Their participation in the Clone Wars was so unusual and out of pocket, it’s why I remain annoyed by Luke’s splashy return in The Mandalorian, but that’s another matter. 

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With Ahsoka, the fan-favorite title hero played by Rosario Dawson finally endures some of her own harsh self-reflection courtesy of the Force, and it’s simply some of the finest hours of Star Wars yet. In 'Shadow Warrior', fittingly directed by George Lucas’ own apprentice Dave Filoni, Ahsoka (Dawson) awakes from her battle with Baylan when she is greeted by a familiar face in a strange place. It’s the World Between Worlds, a concept introduced in the animated show Star Wars Rebels but as the episode plays out, functionally irrelevant (so you can put down your phone with Wookiepedia in the browser tab). But the World Between Worlds is still an enigmatic conduit where the Force is concentrated, appearing in the episode beautifully rendered as a vast and empty nothingness. It was a sight to behold in Rebels, but now here in Ahsoka with flesh and bone actors stepping around its crystalline pathways, it looks magnificent. 

The redemption tour continues...

Actor Hayden Christensen continues his Star Wars redemption tour in his reprisal as Anakin, though the weeds of the script means that the ways of the Force makes his presence more symbolic than corporeal. While Christensen’s still-stifled delivery and off-putting digital de-aging means Anakin remains in the vicinity of the uncanny valley, there’s no denying a palpable thrill upon seeing the actor really sink his teeth into the psychology of Anakin. I have little love for Star Wars animation – I think they’re fine, mostly – but seeing Christensen confidently don the metal shoulder plates of his animated counterpart has stirred something in me I’m still trying to fully comprehend. All I can muster is that we’ve come such a long way from Kevin Smith laying the blame on him for ruining the saga.

The A-plot of 'Shadow Warrior' is arresting. Perhaps too much, as its secondary story following Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) attempting to locate Ahsoka and a third plot bringing them together lacks the same grandeur and profundity. And even so, Ahsoka herself is woefully eclipsed by the bombast of Anakin despite the script’s own emphasis of her unrest. 

But man, what a story it tells, and how. In what is essentially an interrogation of Ahsoka and her relationship to her former Jedi Master, Filoni’s vision for the character's turmoil is as elegant as it is haunted. Clone Troopers spectacularly manifest like ghosts and beseige Ahsoka, who for long stretches of this episode appears younger (played by an actual child actor, Ariana Greenblatt, instead of machine learning buffoonery). I recognize there were whole seasons of The Clone Wars starring a teen Ahsoka, but in live-action, the cherubic face of an alien child on a battlefield is jarring and uncomfortable, to great effect. With its title protagonist, Ahsoka finally exposes some of the darkest corners that Star Wars hasn’t quite kept hidden but never registered as morally tragic. We know younglings were massacred in the Clone Wars. How many more were participants?

The thrill of the journey

Not since The Last Jedi has Star Wars so wondrously maximized its frames to tell a story. And not since select episodes of Rebels has Star Wars compellingly poked and prodded at confused Jedi, a warrior class more beholden to their faith in the Force than their swords. 'Shadow Warrior' is easily Ahsoka’s best episode to date, but even better as an almost stand-alone short film focusing on one of the franchise’s most exciting characters. If only it didn’t have the dead weight of everything else not related to Ahsoka or Anakin.  

The Disney era of Star Wars has produced genuinely spectacular works within this sandbox, but there have been some serious duds, too. Time will tell where Ahsoka ultimately lands, but every passing week indicates improvement with increasingly mesmerizing direction and execution that politely demands our attention. 'Shadow Warrior' marks a turning point for Ahsoka’s trajectory where the old tricks that made Star Wars magical in the first place successfully synergize with the jagged edges of today’s standards. Two weeks ago I complained that Ahsoka was taking a bit too long to feel like it was going anywhere. Now, I’m more excited by the thrill of the journey. 

New episodes of Ahsoka drop every Tuesday in the US and Wednesday in the UK on Disney Plus. For more on the Star Wars show, check out our guides to:

• Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn?
• Who is Hera Syndulla?
• Who is Sabine Wren?
• Who is Ezra Bridger?
• Who is Jacen Syndulla?
• The purrgil explained
• Explaining the mystical realm of the World Between Worlds
• Why Anakin calls Ahsoka Snips
• Everything you need to know about Star Wars Rebels
• The Ahsoka end-credits clues explained
• The Nightsisters of Dathomir explained
• Who is Clancy Brown playing in Ahsoka?
• Huyang explained
• Who is Inquisitor Marrok in Ahsoka?
• Where have we seen Morgan Elsbeth before?
• The Ahsoka timeline explained
• The Ahsoka release schedule