This week on Ahsoka, Sabine tries and fails to use the Force, Hera visits an iconic Star Wars location and learns that the New Republic is a big waste of taxpayer money while she's there, and Ahsoka herself pulls maybe the silliest move in live-action Star Wars history.
Warning: This article is full of spoilers for the third episode of Ahsoka, "Time to Fly."
Last week, the series premiere episode of Ahsoka was 57 minutes long, and it was followed by the 44-minute second episode. This week, we've got the third episode clocking in at 37 minutes--but it's under 30 if we don't include the credits or "previously on" segment.
While it's tempting to complain about the short length, this episode from director Steph Green is much better than last week's two-part premiere. The length is actually immaterial to the comparison, though--while episode three, "Time to Fly," is short, it's paced well, has a nice rhythm, and manages to still have room to breathe despite the length.
There are basically three major scenes/sequences in this episode. When we pick up with Ahsoka and Sabine, they're on their way to Seatos, that creepy planet with the red trees that the bad guys were hanging out on at the end of last week's pair of episodes. On the way, Ahsoka tries to give Sabine some Jedi training, and it goes okay, but Sabine can't feel the Force.
Hera Syndulla, meanwhile, tries to petition the New Republic--and Mon Mothma specifically--for a task force to send after Morgan Elsbeth and her unaffiliated Dark Force user allies. The New Republic is as useless as the Old one was, though, and they offer zero support of any kind.
And that means Ahsoka, Sabine and Huyang are on their own for this mission, and the remainder of the episode is spent in battle. Ahsoka flies the ship against subfighters--two of which are piloted by bad guys Shin Hati and Marrock--while Sabine is on the turret. But after a long battle, Ahsoka's ship is disabled.
It's a situation that calls for drastic measures, so Ahsoka did something drastic while Sabine does repairs: She put on a space suit, walked out onto the surface of the ship, and used her lightsabers to deflect any lasers fired at them. Maybe they should have tried shooting at the side of the ship she wasn't standing on. This scene was truly ridiculous
But Sabine manages to get the ship working well enough to land it on the planet, and the episode ended with Baylan Skoll sending out his forces to look for them.
While this episode was very short, it had more than its fair share of Easter eggs and references to all sorts of stuff. Let's dive in.
1. Blind sword training
In the first scene, Ahsoka gives Sabine a little bit of a training session by having her wear a helmet that prevents her from seeing anything, and then Ahsoka quietly walks around her poking her with a stick--Sabine is supposed to learn to track Ahsoka's movements without her sight. This is, first, a nod to the original Star Wars film, in which Obi-Wan puts Luke through a similar exercise.
But in this scene, Ahsoka refers to this training as the "Zatochi technique," and that makes it explicitly a reference to something else as well.
2. Zatochi Technique
This is a nod to the long-running Japanese Zatoichi film franchise about a blind swordsman. Star Wars has always been inspired by those sorts of roaming swordsman stories from Japan--it's Obi-Wan Kenobi's entire deal in the first movie. But the franchise has also specifically had an affection for Zatoichi, with Chirrut from Rogue One, Rahm Kota from The Force Unleashed video game, and Kanan Jarrus from Rebels all being Zatoichi homages.
3. Bokken saber
The wooden swords they use during this scene are called bokken sabers--Jedi training sabers seen briefly on both Clone Wars and Rebels.
4. Blue Squadron
Before Hera Syndulla's lone scene in this week's episode, we see an establishing shot in space of the New Republic fleet, and a flight of A-Wings painted with a blue stripe tears through the shot. This is likely a broad homage nodding in a few different directions, with the most relevant here being Ahsoka's Blue Squadron of clone pilots from the Clone Wars. And Blue Squadron A-Wings can also be seen in Return of the Jedi during the Battle of Endor. Speaking of which…
5. Battle of Endor briefing room
It's likely not a coincidence that behind those A-Wings is Home One, Admiral Ackbar's flagship during that same battle in Return of the Jedi. When Hera makes her case to a New Republic Senate committee to send a task force after Morgan Elsbeth, it's on Home One, in the briefing room where Mon Mothma, General Madine and Admiral Ackbar laid out their multi-pronged plan for the assault on the Death Star. This time, Mon Mothma and her new pals are using the room to lay out their plan to not do anything. This is a rare Easter egg with some actual thematic heft.
6. Senator Xiono
Hera's request for a task force is shut down by a Senator Xiono, who thinks she's grasping at straws in hopes that Ezra Bridger is still alive. There's a reason this senator gets a name and the others don't: This guy is the father of Kazuda Xiono, the main character of the animated series Star Wars: Resistance.
7. Jacen Syndulla
The son of Hera Syndulla and the deceased Jedi Kanan Jarrus, Jacen was introduced very late in the run of Rebels. But he himself is not the Easter egg--his name is. Jacen gets his name from Jacen Solo, one of the sons of Han and Leia from the old defunct Expanded Universe timeline. Jacen Solo obviously doesn't exist in the Disney continuity, with Ben Solo being Han and Leia's only kid, but his name lives on.
8. Shin Hati's odd starfighter
During the big space battle in this episode, the dark apprentice Shin Hati is piloting an odd ship that looks like a sort of pieced-together hot rod version of a Naboo starfighter that Anakin Skywalker flew in The Phantom Menace. It's basically the same form, but all the pieces are different. It's hard to tell if there's anything significant about that, or really if this is even a for-sure reference, but with the Mandalorian Dinn Djarin flying around in one of these lately, and with the possibility that Shin and Baylan are Kylo Ren-style Anakin fans, it's hard to ignore.
9. Purrgil
Late in the battle, when Ahsoka and Sabine flee toward the surface of the planet, they encounter a fleet of space whales called purrgil and have to navigate past them very dramatically with Shin Hati in hot pursuit, a la the asteroid field chase in The Empire Strikes Back.
Once they're safe on the ground, Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang weigh the situation. They discuss the massive hyperspace ring that Morgan Elsbeth has assembled and whether it would even be possible to fly to another galaxy. Huyang says yes, the Jedi archives mention "intergalactic hyperspace lanes between galaxies which used to follow the migration pattern of space whales."
It's quite strange that nobody on Ahsoka has thus far actually said out loud what happened to Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger. During the Battle of Lothal on Star Wars Rebels, Ezra summoned some purrgil that grabbed Thrawn's flagship and pulled it into hyperspace to an unknown destination--presumably this place they're racing to now. Given that fact and the info Huyang gave our heroes, the appearance of the purrgil in this episode tells them that they're on the right track. But you'd have had to watch Rebels to know that, since nobody has discussed those details on Ahsoka--for some reason.
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