Ahsoka (SPOILERS possible)

[Muftak]

Which books?  In Heir to the Empire the ysalimiri evolved to negate the Force around them to hide from the vorksnyrs who used the Force to hunt.  Thrawn used them as protection against Joruus C'Baoth and Luke Skywalker.

Yeah, I am referring to the Heir to the Empire Trilogy. Thrawn's master plan is to grow a Clone Army, and once he finds Wayland's location with its cloning facility he starts harvesting ysalimiri. He didn't know he would find C'baoth there, but had contingency plans if he ever discovered a Dark Jedi to team up with.

And I don't think he ever worried enough about Luke as the last Jedi to make a formal plan against him. The ysalamiri he carried around on Fleet ships were protection for the crew from crazy C'baoth as he learned to coordinate individual Imperial minds.

(In the end, I don't think the crates on Ahsoka have ysalamiri in them...that would have needed set up or referenced by Ezra in some way to work...)

[tmanthegreat]

Well that was an interesting episode tonight! Really wish this season wasn’t only 8 episodes though…

[Nicklab]

I think the "crates" are more likely to be caskets.  And that's because the place they were taken from was referred to as catacombs by Thrawn.  That's a ritual burial place.

I'm going to watch the episode again before offering more.

[Dave]

I think the "crates" are more likely to be caskets.  And that's because the place they were taken from was referred to as catacombs by Thrawn.  That's a ritual burial place.

I was kind of thinking the same thing after the zombie troopers respawned.  Maybe these are some kind of super-zombies that will be reanimated by the night sisters.

[StBrianOfMinneapolis]

I think the "crates" are more likely to be caskets.  And that's because the place they were taken from was referred to as catacombs by Thrawn.  That's a ritual burial place.

I was kind of thinking the same thing after the zombie troopers respawned.  Maybe these are some kind of super-zombies that will be reanimated by the night sisters.

Yeah, between generations of dead witches and deceased crew of the Chimaera there would be a lot of bodies to reanimate. I'm guessing not all of the crew had survived to this point in the timeline.

I had to look up troop size of a star destroyer...

Imperial I-class Star Destroyers had over 37,000 crew on board— 9,235 officers and 27,850 enlisted personnel. The complement of 9,700 stormtroopers added to a total of 46,785 crew and passengers.[1] With the bridge being located in the upper half of the ship, the officer's quarters were located right below it
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_I-class_Star_Destroyer#:~:text=Imperial%20I%2Dclass%20Star%20Destroyers,were%20located%20right%20below%20it.

[P-Siddy]

Well that was an interesting episode tonight! Really wish this season wasn’t only 8 episodes though…

I agree with this sentiment.  I felt that there wasn't much fear for Thrawn to die since he essentially just showed up in the series and is a main baddie.  With the way the Star Wars live action shows have been doing cross-overs, I feel Thrawn's plot will be resolved in an Endgame kind of way (isn't there a movie to come out?).
Maybe there needed to be one more episode... at least to flesh out what Baylan and Shin were doing instead of a quick montage of all the key players in the series at the end.  I was disappointed in their brief screentime because I enjoyed Baylan's story so far (and I'm not sure if we'll ever know the end of it now that Ray's passed) and was curious to see where Shin's path lies (is it still with Thrawn as Baylan suggested, even though she was left behind?).  I'm looking forward to see more of Ezra.  I enjoyed his character (humor and all).

[Dave]

Well that was an interesting episode tonight! Really wish this season wasn’t only 8 episodes though…

I agree with this sentiment.  I felt that there wasn't much fear for Thrawn to die since he essentially just showed up in the series and is a main baddie.  With the way the Star Wars live action shows have been doing cross-overs, I feel Thrawn's plot will be resolved in an Endgame kind of way (isn't there a movie to come out?).
Maybe there needed to be one more episode... at least to flesh out what Baylan and Shin were doing instead of a quick montage of all the key players in the series at the end.  I was disappointed in their brief screentime because I enjoyed Baylan's story so far (and I'm not sure if we'll ever know the end of it now that Ray's passed) and was curious to see where Shin's path lies (is it still with Thrawn as Baylan suggested, even though she was left behind?).  I'm looking forward to see more of Ezra.  I enjoyed his character (humor and all).

Totally agree.

The Baylan/Shin stories needed more meat to them.  Are we supposed to be worried about what Baylan is doing when we don't have the faintest idea what he is up to?  Why does Shin's character even exist if she is just going to be stuck in the other galaxy? She could have easily have been an Inquisitor if they needed another lightsaber wielding baddy.

I think the series has been decent - not great and not bad.  The Baylan part is probably the biggest head scratcher.

One other thing I was surprised that didn't transpire was getting Zeb involved.  I thought he might have come along with Carson's squad and then joined up with Hera, but even Hera didn't have much of a role.  Maybe it'll come in season 2 or in some other related series

[P-Siddy]

I was also perplexed by Hera's reaction to seeing Ezra again... no question about Sabine or Ahsoka's whereabouts.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

My take is that this is how they explain that we don't see or hear about Ashoka in the ST.  She and Sabine are now off elsewhere to continue their storyline with Baylan and Shin along with the leftover Elsbeth forces.

[Dave]

I watched the episode with my daughter last night (second watching for me) and she thought the season was way too short and/or not enough happened.  An unsophisticated viewer that I couldn't agree with more.

Ultimately I mostly enjoyed the show.  Some thoughts:
- I like that it had a general plot that you could follow without giant plant holes or total randomness.  Some plot points (Baylan/Shin) still don't make any sense, but weren't critical to the story.  BoBF and Mando season 3 were pretty messy from a plot perspective, so I was glad to see the execution on this was better.  It was no Andor, but it was solid.
- I agree with my daughter that the pace was a bit slow at times and not a lot happened.  I don't need non-stop action sequences, but it would have been nice to have the story move at a faster clip and/or have more episodes to tell a bigger story.
- The show was called "Ahsoka", but at times it really felt like the show didn't have much to do with her character development and spent more time on Sabine and other characters.  Or at the very least I'm not sure we had an "Ahsoka" struggle/character journey that played out very well.  At the beginning of the show it was Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.  Quickly we pulled in the training abandonment of Sabine as a main theme, but that theme wasn't well maintained throughout the show.  They kept coming back to Ahsoka stopped the training because Sabine might use her training for the revenge of Mandalore, but they didn't really show what has changed and if Sabine had the right motivations.  And at the end of the show it seemed to just be back to Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.

I'm not sure what to think about a season 2.  Do we want Ahsoka and Sabine to get back to the "real world" and Ahsoka to be a major player in this timeframe, or do we want her to be in limbo in the other galaxy?  Do we think she survives to the time of the sequel trilogy but remains off the table somehow?  Do we want Mando and the New Republic to take up the battle on their vs. Thrawn in the other series without Jedi help other than I guess Ezra and maybe Luke?  The stories they're trying to tell in this timeframe are tough when they keep major players off the table, which is why I think a show like Andor works so well. 

[Matt_Fury]

Which books?  In Heir to the Empire the ysalimiri evolved to negate the Force around them to hide from the vorksnyrs who used the Force to hunt.  Thrawn used them as protection against Joruus C'Baoth and Luke Skywalker.

Yeah, I am referring to the Heir to the Empire Trilogy. Thrawn's master plan is to grow a Clone Army, and once he finds Wayland's location with its cloning facility he starts harvesting ysalimiri. He didn't know he would find C'baoth there, but had contingency plans if he ever discovered a Dark Jedi to team up with.

And I don't think he ever worried enough about Luke as the last Jedi to make a formal plan against him. The ysalamiri he carried around on Fleet ships were protection for the crew from crazy C'baoth as he learned to coordinate individual Imperial minds.

(In the end, I don't think the crates on Ahsoka have ysalamiri in them...that would have needed set up or referenced by Ezra in some way to work...)

Thrawn picked up the Ysalimiri because he knew (or at least had a strong suspicion) that Emperor Palpatine had left a dark side force user to protect Wayland.  Thrawn used the cloning cylinders to clone his best troops so he could crew the dark fleet quickly.  He made a bargin with Joruus C' Bayoth to use battle meditation to help coordinate his troops and offered up Luke Skywalker as a psooible apprentice for him.

As far as the caskets, I'm wondering if they are more night sisters.  Thrawn mentioned waking up the three mothers shortly after his arrival on Peridia.

[Dave]

As far as the caskets, I'm wondering if they are more night sisters.  Thrawn mentioned waking up the three mothers shortly after his arrival on Peridia.

One of the final shots was of Thrawn showing up at Dathomir, so whatever plan he has probably revolves around night sisters, dark magic, etc.

[Muftak]

Thrawn picked up the Ysalimiri because he knew (or at least had a strong suspicion) that Emperor Palpatine had left a dark side force user to protect Wayland.  Thrawn used the cloning cylinders to clone his best troops so he could crew the dark fleet quickly.  He made a bargin with Joruus C' Bayoth to use battle meditation to help coordinate his troops and offered up Luke Skywalker as a psooible apprentice for him.

As far as the caskets, I'm wondering if they are more night sisters.  Thrawn mentioned waking up the three mothers shortly after his arrival on Peridia.

You are not wrong. Thrawn wore a ysalamir down to Wayland to protect himself from whatever Guardian was there. He did promise to deliver Luke, Leia, and the twins as apprentices too.

Nevertheless, Thrawn's ultimate plan for the ysalamiri was to negate the Force around the cloning cylinders to allow accelerated Clone production. At the climax of The Last Command, C'Baoth kills all the ysalamiri in the Wayland Clone chamber while our heroes are in there trying to blow it up, and they are specifically attached to the cloning tanks.

[Muftak]

After the first 2 episodes, it was clear to me that Ahsoka was not going to be a weekly episodic story kind of show, but rather an extended single story broken up into chunks ki d of show, so I waited to give an opinion until the end of the season.

Alas, the end of the season did not wrap anything up, the Monopoly game is still I full swing even if the pieces have all been moved to other spots on the board. I was holding out hope it was in fact going somewhere, but I find it the heart of arrogance on Filoni and Lucasfilm's part to feel so assured they will have the opportunity to continue this into another season, or show, or film in the future.

In the end I wasn't very satisfied with what this season did, and will probably sit the next one out, as I did the later seasons of Clone Wars and Rebels, and all of Resistance and Bad Batch. Just not my kind of storytelling going on here unfortunately.

[GrandMoffNick]

I'm not thrilled with the amount of loose threads this season ended with, but the idea that we needed 10 tidy neat packages is also obnoxious to me. I'm super curious to know what ending for Thrawn people wanted? Especially when they could continue this at some point in some way. I think anything definitive with Thrawn at this point wouldn't be fair to his character.

As I'm typing this I'm remembering that Muftak and I do not agree on how storytelling needs to work.

I'll give the show a 7.5 of 10. I'm happy with that. Hope we get more. If not I'll wonder what happened to some of these characters for sure. And I'll be arrogant with Filoni and assume Ahsoka and Thrawn will get more story eventually.