Ahsoka Episode 5 Review: Columbo
Many will love this episode. This review is for people who did not
Dave Filoni’s directing style can be a little ponderous. Characters pause after speaking proper nouns. They look ominously into the distance.
This solemnity betrays his reverence for the source material, much of which he created. As someone who considers Genndy Tartakovsky’s version “my” Clone Wars, however, I’m often left cold (like when Cad Bane made his live action debut in a very long shootout).
Filoni’s approach works in one key scene this week, in which little Jacen Syndulla looks out at the water and hears Ahsoka dueling Anakin Skywalker—either in her subconscious, or in another plane of reality, or both. Jacen invites his mom, Hera, to close her eyes and hear the battle, which she can, after some effort.
Filoni’s vision of the Force has always emphasized nature. His stories often involve people putting their trust in animals. (Thrawn’s two big defeats in Rebels came from deus ex machina creature interventions.) He’s thrown the ideas of Transcendentalism into the spiritual stew of his “Buddhist/Methodist” mentor, George Lucas. Jacen’s intuitive child mind—with its innate connection to nature— proves more powerful than all the scanning machinery of the New Republic. The lesson is repeated at the end of the episode when Ahsoka realizes it’s easier to simply be the whale than spend billions of credits imitating its power.
Jacen’s peaceful sit by the water contrasts the horrific upbringing of Ahsoka Tano, displayed in several Clone Wars flashbacks. Anakin Skywalker has a lesson to teach Ahsoka, and it involves reminding her of what an iffy father figure he was. (Luke and Leia probably dodged a blaster bolt.) She feels guilty that Darth Vader raised her. Anakin wants to remind her that they were thrust into a bad situation together—but they themselves are not all bad (something his son famously reminded him).
She emerges from the incident lighter, figuratively and literally, smiling and joking in an all-white outfit. I saw more than a few people complaining online this month that the Ahsoka of this show was not the character they remembered from the cartoons. It’s her series, though, and she needed an arc. In the history of Ahsoka the character, there is probably no bigger episode of television.
But like I said from the get-go, I’m not coming to the show as a huge Clone Wars fan. I’m a Star Wars movie guy who likes the Thrawn books and has mixed feelings about the entire prequel era. The B-plot of this episode did not follow our delightful trio of villains into wild space. Instead, we watched Ahsoka and Hera try to figure out what happened in the previous episode. But I’ve already seen the previous episode, and this ain’t Columbo.
The fan service in this episode will please many, but the story has stalled. These eight-episode seasons don’t leave a lot of room for a flashback episode that’s tangential to the plot. I’m afraid I’m watching a five-hour trailer for the Filoniverse movie.
The Rating
Three Choppers out of five
Meme of the Week
Random Thoughts
I mostly enjoyed live action Clone Wars, but the Phase I clone troopers just look goofy in live action, I think because the original CGI helmets were kind of impossibly small for actual human heads.
Did they build the nose of the Ghost for those shots on the planet’s surface? Looked cool.
Huyang holding Sabine’s Mandalorian helmet like Yorick’s skull is funny. I’m sorry.
Captain Rex makes a cameo. We don’t actually see any clone faces, however. I’m hoping Temura Morrison recorded his dialogue from the Polynesian spa.
Seeing Ahsoka’s naked head without her headdress was kind of jarring.
The shots of Ahsoka in all white, walking in the clouds, looked great. I was just depressed at that point that the Thrawn stinger clearly wasn’t coming.
Must be wild for Ewan McGregor to watch a Star Wars episode that’s mostly Hayden Christensen and his wife.
#VantoWatch
Might as well call it Thrawn Watch at this point. We’re so screwed.
