Highlights

The Ahsoka finale delivers stunning Star Wars action with Force leaps, sword-wielding witches, and zombie Stormtroopers, leaving viewers impressed.
While the series had a rocky start, Ahsoka has delivered some of the best Star Wars in recent memory, with flawed storytelling but flawless action sequences.
The Ahsoka finale may not provide a conclusive ending, but it offers a satisfying climactic battle and stunning visual effects, setting up future storylines for the series.

Warning: This review contains spoilers for the Ahsoka finale.

Although it’s hardly a definitive conclusion to the series, the Ahsoka finale is an eye-popping display of sharply directed Star Wars action. Titled “Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord” (in a fun play on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), the Ahsoka finale sees the titular ronin joining forces with Sabine and Ezra to stop Grand Admiral Thrawn from returning to the main galaxy. While it doesn’t provide a conclusive ending to the story at hand and leaves the show on a cliffhanger, there’s so much cool stuff in this episode – Force leaps, sword-wielding witches, zombie Stormtroopers – that it’s hard to complain.

The first four episodes of Ahsoka were strangely dull and disjointed, and got the series off to a rocky start. But after that, it started to pick up. From the Clone Wars flashback to Thrawn’s terrifying entrance, Ahsoka has delivered some of the best Star Wars in recent memory. “Part Eight” is far from a sufficient ending, but it’s not really trying to be an ending. It’s not like Ahsoka’s final episode attempts to conclude its story and bungles the ending; it postpones the ending for a future storyline. “The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord” fits the bill for the general consensus of the series: flawed storytelling punctuated by flawless action sequences.

Ahsoka and Huyang in the cockpit in Ahsoka episode 7

Ahsoka Episode 7 Review

The penultimate episode of Ahsoka refocuses on the title character and continues to raise the stakes with plenty of action in a galaxy far, far away.

The actual resolution of the story – or lack thereof – may not be 100% satisfying, but the climactic battle provides all the action that Star Wars fans could ask for. Since working on The Mandalorian, director Rick Famuyiwa has gotten very adept at creating mind-blowing action sequences that deftly convey the scale of the villains’ threat and the glory of the heroes’ victory. The battle begins with a wonderful western-inspired scene in which Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra ride up to Thrawn’s location on horseback, weaving in and out of cannon fire from the giant Star Destroyer looming overhead, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this episode’s action.

The horseback chase is followed by a high-octane Stormtrooper massacre, which would be an awesome, intense set-piece in its own right. While it was interesting to see Ezra’s Force-based combat last week, it’s a joy to see him with a lightsaber back in his hand. This massacre ends on a triumphant money shot of Ahsoka, blades akimbo, slicing and dicing the last two Night Troopers standing. Then, it suddenly turns into a haunted house movie when all the undead Night Troopers reanimate and chase Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra up a winding staircase in a gloomy castle.

This sets the stage for a riveting rematch between Ahsoka and Morgan Elsbeth. While Ezra Force-leaps onto Thrawn’s Star Destroyer, Sabine stays behind to fend off the Night Troopers and give Ahsoka enough room to properly defeat Elsbeth. Much like their initial duel in The Mandalorian, this rematch has the beauty and elegance of a Kurosawa samurai standoff – except this time, Elsbeth has been imbued with witchy powers and armed with the magical Blade of Talzin.

As with the last seven episodes, the Ahsoka finale has stunning visual effects seamlessly blended into the live-action photography. The VFX shots are sharp and seamless, with realistic lighting and engaging camera movements. Dave Filoni has a long history working in animation, so he’s well-versed in telling stories with computer-generated images. He also makes great use of the classic scene transitions, and even incorporates the scene transitions into the blocking. As Sabine and Ezra follow Ahsoka off-screen, a diagonal wipe follows Ezra out of the frame to reveal Thrawn in all his grandeur.

“The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord” isn’t a disappointing ending, per se, but it is somewhat anticlimactic as it leaves a lot of storylines unresolved. It’s still unclear what Baylan Skoll was up to this whole time (although there is a really cool shot of Skoll literally standing on the shoulders of a giant) and Shin Hati still hasn’t been swayed to the light side. For a series that went out of its way to present as a limited series as opposed to a season 1, this felt an awful lot like a season 1 finale teeing up a more exciting season 2. Of course, if that is the case, season 1 has gotten the show off to a promising start and season 2 is certainly a welcome prospect.

That’s not to say that the finale is entirely lacking in closure. There is some closure in that Ahsoka and Sabine managed to get Ezra back home to his own galaxy, but now they’re stranded in the wrong galaxy. This episode essentially flips the ending of Rebels on its head; Ezra is once again left to face Thrawn while his friends are stuck in another galaxy – it’s just that they’ve switched galaxies. There’s also some closure with Ahsoka reconciling her mixed feelings about Anakin’s many mistakes by remembering his best quality: no matter what, he always had her back – even when no one else did. This inspires her to stick by Sabine, and Anakin’s ghost watches proudly from afar (Filoni couldn’t have ended the season on a higher note than ghostly Hayden Christensen observing his resourceful apprentice with a warm smile).