This review contains full spoilers for episode seven of Ahsoka, now available to watch on Disney+.
For the first time in a few weeks, Ahsoka’s trio of leading characters all have significant screen time in a single episode, during “Dreams and Madness,” the somewhat inscrutably titled Episode 7 of the series. What’s more, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) all have something major to do, although Hera is confined mainly to the cold open, where she faces reprimand from the senate – specifically Senator Xiono, who wants to court-martial her.
When Hera tries to justify her disobedience, Xiono’s skepticism picks up on a thread from last week’s installment: While Ahsoka and Huyang (David Tennant) expressed some meta-textual wonder over the power of “long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” storytelling in Episode 6, Xiono notes with disdain that Hera’s report about the various goings-on of the series so far “reads like a child’s fairy tale.” In other words, all the galactic lore that Ahsoka (both the character and the series) are steeped in sounds a bit woo-woo and implausible to him. It’s hard to tell whether series creator Dave Filoni is then finding further dramatic irony in immediately saving Hera from a worse fate via a literal deus ex machina: None other than C3PO himself arrives at Hera’s hearing, letting everyone know that Princess Leia actually approved Hera’s mission, legitimizing it (somewhat after the fact, Hera later admits privately).
These winking elements seem to signal a settling of Hera, Ahsoka, and Sabine into their more familiar grooves – especially Ahsoka, who’s feeling retro enough to watch one of the holo-videos Anakin recorded for her during the Clone Wars as she practices her lightsaber moves. Something about Rosario Dawson’s physical performance in Episode 7 looks more like the animated version of Ahsoka than ever; the more reserved bearing that she carried earlier in the season (and that isn’t always a great match for Dawson’s skills as an actor) has loosened a bit, and become more energized. Her banter with Huyang, too, has a little more of that ol’ Snips zip.
She needs it, because this episode is largely about moving the Ahsoka piece around the board: Into the mysterious other galaxy, through a space battle, hiding in a debris field, and then locating her apprentice Sabine, who has in turn succeeded in finding Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi). Despite the moment with virtual Anakin early on, Ahsoka isn’t really going on an emotional journey here; she’s back to help her friends, reinvigorated and less conflicted than she was earlier in the season. Sabine, too, is on the move and not really making any big revelations. (She fills Ezra in on the events of the past five years–though not really the most recent threats to the New Republic–offscreen, in between episodes.) The extended sequence with Sabine, Ezra, and the Noti (the little snail/turtle guys Ezra has been hanging out with) getting attacked by Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and her makeshift crew of bandits is an amusing reminder that Star Wars is, after all, a space western; it’s basically a scene where enemies literally circle the wagons on the prairie.
The fun Filoni has layering this sequence, initially cross-cut with Ahsoka dueling Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) before Ahsoka and Huyang team up for deus ex machina action of their own, is a reminder that he’s the guy who seems most committed to making George Lucas-style Star Wars. That’s often a stranger and more difficult task than it appears, and the bits of business with the Noti firing slingshots and throwing spare parts at their attackers show mastery of the silly stuff a lot of filmmakers would probably feel sheepish about including.
If most of the primary action of the episode is pure action-adventure stuff that gets the characters in the right place for a more unified finale, the real intrigue in “Dreams and Madness” comes from whatever is being saved for next week. Grand Admiral Thrawn is ultimately unfazed by Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra notching a temporary victory against his intervening troops, because it’s bought him the time he needs to load some mysterious cargo from the Nightsisters’ catacombs onto his Star Destroyer. What is he hoping to bring back from his exile? (There is a Clone Wars storyline that might provide a hint for the less spoiler-averse.)
Perhaps more interesting, though, is a smaller gesture from Baylan, a character who has started to feel underutilized, given how great the late Ray Stevenson is in the role, and how prominent Thrawn has become in the narrative. Baylan’s ex-Jedi background, reddish lightsaber, and Maul-like near-silent apprentice give him the broad contours of a Sith, even if he doesn’t quite qualify. This draws particular attention to his points of departure from Sith orthodoxy. For example, while most Sith/apprentice relationships we’ve seen end in bloodshed of some sort or another, Baylan calmly dismisses a confused Shin from his command, leaving her to battle Ahsoka and company, and claim whatever glory she can.
Baylan may not be planning a pivot back to Regular Jedi status or anything, but he’s clearly more contemplative than purely power-hungry. Ahsoka, meanwhile, perhaps with her old master Anakin in mind, extends an offer of help to Shin, who looks rattled by the very idea of a Jedi attempting to make peace. She wordlessly rejects Ahsoka, but the impression of a dark master and an apprentice lost in a bigger villainous plan that may have use for them still lingers; in a neat reversal, they feel like fallen Sith as much as fallen Jedi, leaving them as potentially adrift as Ahsoka at the beginning of the series. Whatever stories we’ve been told about the dark side of master-apprentice relationships in the past seem primed for a rewrite.
