This week on Ahsoka, we found out what happened to Ahsoka. Mostly. We didn't really find out how she ended up in the World Between Worlds or why--or if that even actually was what that was--but in any case that situation was dealt with.
Warning: This article will be full of spoilers for the fifth episode of Ahsoka, "Shadow Warrior."
This week's episode contained two main threads. The first is that of Ahsoka, going on a little bit of a spiritual journey with Anakin in the World Between Worlds. The second is Hera Syndulla and co. trying to find her while she's doing that.
While I suspected last week that the World Between Worlds, which had been a real, physical space when it appeared on Rebels, would be a way for Ahsoka to follow Sabine and her captors to the other galaxy where Thrawn is, that didn't turn out to be true. That's because Ahsoka is not in the World Between Worlds--she's unconscious, floating in the waters of Seatos, and having a vision. And this is a textbook example of the TV trope where a dying character has an epiphany about wanting to live while in a coma, like Tony Soprano's coma dream after he got shot by Uncle Junior in Season 6 of the Sopranos.
During her vision, Ahsoka reverts to her younger self and takes a trip through the Clone Wars with Anakin. Over the course of the episode, Anakin transforms from understanding mentor to something more menacing--eventually we get the creepy villain lighting and Anakin goes full Darth Vader and attacks Ahsoka. Defeating him, and not killing him, was her final test, apparently, and she tells him that she's decided to live.
While all this is happening, Hera is trying to find Ahsoka. We know that Ahsoka's vision isn't just a dream because lil Jacen can hear the clash of lightsabers from the real world. And they eventually find her body right around when she wins the fight, naturally. But the job isn't quite finished. Ahsoka wakes up back in the real world, and now she has to figure out very quickly how to follow the bad guys to the other galaxy.
Fortunately, one of those hyperspace-traveling space whales is visible above at that moment, making it a fairly easy problem to solve. Ahsoka uses the Force to ask the biggest whale for help, and it lets them hitch a ride in its belly to whatever place it is they migrate to from here--hopefully everybody's going to the same place here. We don't find out this week--the fifth episode of Ahsoka ends the same way the fourth episode did a week ago, with somebody jumping to hyperspace, and us not finding out what's on the other side of the jump.
So in the meantime, let's take a look at the episode's collection of Easter eggs and references. And while you're here, don't forget to check out our previous Easter egg guides to Ahsoka.
1. Shadow Warrior
The title of the episode comes from the Japanese term for a human decoy, a la Padme's handmaidens pretending to be her for security reasons during the prequels, a term popularized in the West by the 1980 Akira Kurasawa film that carries that title. In this case, the shadow warrior is Anakin, since it's a vision and not actually him.
2. "You look old"
In her opening chat with Anakin, Ahsoka tells him he looks the same as he did before, and he replies that she looks old. This is a nod to when Ahsoka was reunited with the clone Captain Rex on Rebels after a couple decades. In that Season 2 episode, Rex, with his full white beard, ironically quips that Ahsoka "got old."
3. "I won't fight you"
Anakin tells Ahsoka that it's time to complete her training, and then pulls out his lightsaber. "I won't fight you," she tells him. "I've heard that before," he replies, referring to Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi.
4. Senator Organa
While Hera and the others are searching for Ahsoka, the pilot Carson Teva says they need to hurry things up, because "Senator Organa can only give us cover for so long" because this group went on this mission without orders to do so. The Senator Organa mentioned here is Leia--an odd reference because she hadn't previously been mentioned as being a part of this at all. It makes you wonder if there's a version of this show where a CGI Leia popped up.
5. Non-CGI clones
None of the previous on-screen depictions of the Clone Wars were truly live-action--the Clone Wars series is obviously animated, and both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith might as well have been. Fun fact: Every single clone trooper in those movies was a CGI creation. But in Ahsoka's vision, we see real, human actors wearing physical clone trooper armor, which is likely a first for the franchise.
6. The Siege of Mandalore
One of the battles Ahsoka revisits during her vision is the Siege of Mandalore, which took place while Anakin and Obi-Wan were fighting the Battle of Coruscant in Revenge of the Sith. We saw this battle during the revival season of Clone Wars that aired in 2020.
7. Captain Rex
During this portion of her vision, one of the clone troopers turns to Ahsoka and says, "Nice work, commander. We'll secure the perimeter." This is the previously mentioned Captain Rex.
8. A different galaxy far, far away
While Ahsoka is communing with the space whales, Jacen looks on from Hera's ship. "It's just like the stories you told me," Jacen says to his mom. "How the whales took Ezra and the bad guys far, far away." Since the whales apparently actually took Ezra and the bad guys to a whole other galaxy, that makes this is a meta reference to the "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" text that opens every mainline Star Wars film.
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