‘Ahsoka’ Episode 2 Recap: Factory Made

It’s an improvement, I’ll give it that. Visually, anyway. Directed by Steph Green, taking the reins from series creator and writer Dave Filoni, the second episode of Ahsoka (“Part Two: Toil and Trouble”) puts together enough thoughtful, pretty shot compositions to make you believe they didn’t just happen by accident. The opening fade in from white. Baylan and his apprentice approaching an ancient Stonehenge circle in a convincingly autumnal dusk. The white of Sabine’s hospital room, used as a little diorama for a visit from Ahsoka or the acceptance of a lightsaber from Huyang. Sabine kneeling before her Mandalorian helmet in golden light. The unique particulate look of the hologram through which Baylan appears to Morgan near the end of the episode. The final shot of Morgan standing at attention, gazing through the viewscreen of yet another massive round space station. The show has taken a little time and effort to look like it’s taken a little time and effort, and I appreciate that. 

There’s an element of the story I appreciate as well: That Stonehenge circle was apparently built by an alien civilization from a whole other galaxy, presumably even more far, far away than the main Star Wars one. Moreover, that’s the spot where the lost Grand Admiral Thrawn is supposedly in hiding. While I’m not familiar with Filoni’s other shows in the setting, I’m certainly enough of a nerd to know that as sprawling as it seems, the Star Wars galaxy is self-contained. The thought of stepping beyond its boundaries is, frankly, kinda thrilling to me. Like much of Filoni’s work, from what I can gather, it also has its roots in the franchise’s largely abandoned Expanded Universe, in which an invading horde from another galaxy forced ex-Rebels and ex-Imperials to band together in defense. If that’s what they’re doing here, hey, cool idea!

At any rate, this has forced our villains to build a spacecraft capable of getting to him, which kicks up another compelling side plot. To reach the next stage of their hunt, the heroes and villains converge on a factory whose owners and workers are still secretly Imperial sympathizers, providing massive hyperdrives for the bad guys’ scheme. The whole sequence reads like a sharp little dig at capitalism’s historical game of footsie with fascism, particularly thanks to the lively (if woefully underwritten) presence of veteran character actor Peter Jacobson as the factory foreman. I’ll take this kind of thing over Ahsoka doing a Zelda shrine quest in a forbidden temple anytime. 

In the end, the bad guys get away with the help of a mysterious masked wielder of a double-bladed lightsaber. (That’s right, the Darth Maul special.) I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s Ahsoka, Sabine, and General Syndulla’s old Jedi pal Ezra, gone bad. But Sabine has cut her hair, donned her armor, and signed up to train with Ahsoka once more, so it’s not all bad news.

I really do wish the same could be said of this show. It’s more fun to like things than to not like things, especially where a fictional universe you loved so much you tattooed one of its symbols on your body is concerned. And as I said, there are glimmers of hope in this episode: stronger visuals, a slightly more pointed exploration of Empire than calling it evil and calling it a day. I was particularly impressed, unsurprisingly, with Ray Stevenson, who makes an absolute feast out of statements as simple as saying it would be a shame to kill Asohka, simply because there are so few Jedi left. Just in his inflection, in the way his voice hitches, you can tell that whatever he’s become, he still regards the Order with affection. I could spend time with a character, and an actor, like that.

Instead, though, most of our time is spent with Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo. Man, I just do not know what’s going on there. Winstead’s delivery is completely undistinguished — où sont la Swango d’antan? — and Bordizzo and Dawson sound like someone forgot to wake them up. I don’t want to oversell this, mind you, it’s not like I’m outraged or appalled or upset, I’m just confused. I know these actors. How did this happen? 

And the show still displays absolutely zero facility for action or suspense, an absolute dealbreaker for the setting. I’m trying hard not to constantly compare Ahsoka to its predecessors, but the heist of the hyperdrive by the bad guys has an apples-to-apples comparison in the form of the heist in Andor, while the double-bladed two-on-one lightsaber battle Ahsoka has with a droid and that mystery assailant is straight-up Duel of the Fates stuff. In neither case is the comparison a flattering one. It’s an embarrassing one, is what it is.

I just want to note for the record that I have no objection to really Jedi/lightsaber/Force/lore-heavy Star Wars stories. If we accept that Disney is the master now and Star Wars is a product line rather than the vision of one weird guy who exchanges holiday cards with Spielberg, Scorsese, and Coppola, we ought to accept that it’s gonna be a pretty big product line; that leaves room for a variety of approaches, and “fanservice for the hardcores” is one such approach. And like I’ve said before, this isn’t a particularly impenetrable or confusing show even if you aren’t in that hardcore target demographic. The issue is that it this isn’t a particularly good show, even if you are in that demo. Either way, you deserve better.

(This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.)

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.