Disney Plus’ live-action show Ahsoka finally delivers on the appearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra in “Part Six: Far, Far Away”. This episode is written by Dave Filoni and directed by Jennifer Getzinger. It premiered on September 19, 2023 on Disney Plus. 

Spoilers for Ahsoka abound in this article. Read with caution!

Ahsoka Episode 6 | Summary & Recap

Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Huyang (David Tennant) are traveling through hyperspace in the belly of a Purrgil. Huyang offers to tell Ahsoka a story about the space whales, but she declines. Ahsoka and Huyang talk about Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and her willingness to go with the enemy and what that could mean. Huyang reminds her that the Force could be working through her. She decides to hear one of Huyang’s stories which he begins with “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Sabine is in a holding cell on the Eye of Sion. Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) tells her that this is a good chance for reflection. She asks if he will keep his promise about finding Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), but he walks away while she yells after him. He returns to the bridge, complaining to Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) that Sabine is getting impatient and that her search for Ezra has blinded her. They arrive at Peridea, the ancient homeworld of the Dathomiri. The Witches of Dathomir were the first to ride the Purrgil to get to the other galaxy.

Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) brings Sabine to the surface along with Elsbeth and Skoll. They meet with three Nightsisters called the Great Mothers. The Mothers mention that Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is coming to the reflex point, bringing their search for Thrawn to an end. One of the Mothers takes Sabine away using these weird floating spheres with lasers because she is a Jedi. Hati and Skoll stay at the reflex point, reflecting on their journey and on Peridea. He calls Peridea the “land of dreams and madness”.

Sabine is back in her cell. She reaches out to the Force to try and destroy her confines. The cells rumbles. She’s doing it! Wait… No, it’s just a Star Destroyer arriving. It’s Grand Admiral Thrawn’s ship, the Chimaera. 

Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn?

Most of this series has been leading up to the reveal of Grand Admiral Thrawn. For those unaware of him, let’s take a short break and do a brief overview of the Chiss. Mitth’raw’nuruodo (Thrawn) hails from the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. These are places that the Republic and Empire did not explore. 

Thrawn is a Chiss, a blue-skinned alien species with bright red eyes that are known for ruthlessness in war and politics. The Chiss Ascendency is their government and also their family structure. The Ascendency is run by several high-level families which are allied with other lower families. There is a lot of fighting against each other, at least politically. Each Chiss takes the name of their family at the beginning of their name. Thrawn is part of the Mitth family, hence Mitth’raw’nuruodo.

Without going into too much detail, Thrawn was exiled from the Chiss Ascendency in order to spy on the Galactic Empire to see if they were a threat to the Chiss. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Empire, eventually attaining the title of Grand Admiral. Grand Admiral is the highest rank in the Imperial Navy, and Thrawn was the first alien to achieve that rank. Thrawn took a position at Lothal to quell the Phoenix Rebels in Dave Filoni’s animated series Star Wars Rebels. After seasons of hijinx, Ezra and Thrawn are taken by Purrgil to their current location.

Thrawn is a master tactician. He uses a culture’s art to discern their military capability and how their culture will respond to different battle strategies. He values his subordinates’ opinions but can be deadly when the need arises. The original creator of Thrawn, Timothy Zahn, made him out to be the only true heir to the Empire.

Ahsoka Episode 6 | Summary & Recap Continued

A squad of Night Troopers chant “Thrawn! Thrawn! Thrawn!” as they stand at attention. Thrawn steps out with his Captain of the Guard, Enoch. Thrawn and Elsbeth talk about a cargo transfer that will take three rotations. At this point, two guards bring up Sabine, and Skoll says that he thinks she will be of use to him. Thrawn remarks that he remembers Skoll from his time in the Jedi Order. Once Sabine is introduced, Thrawn smiles and agrees that she will be of great use. He thanks her for her help in his escape from exile. He has Enoch take off her restraints and promises to give her provisions, a mount called a Howler, and the last known location of Ezra. He is helping her cause, as she helped his.

As the assembled villains watch her go, Hati says that Sabine is going on a fool’s errand. Thrawn tells the two Force-users that they can follow her at their own pace. Even though Thrawn agreed to honor the agreement, he only allowed her to leave so Skoll and Hati could kill them both.

Sabine is attacked by bandits as she searches for Ezra. She defeats all of them with her blaster and lightsaber, but her scanner breaks and the mount escapes. She continues on as Skoll and Hati mount their own beasts to follow her. 

On the Chimaera, Thrawn allows two squads of troopers to support them. Elsbeth wants to send more, but Thrawn worries about his dwindling forces. He says that it doesn’t matter if Sabine and Ezra live or die, and the same goes for Skoll and Hati.

Sabine’s mount comes back, and he berates it for running away. It follows her with its head down, remorseful. The howler leads her to a puddle where a rock/turtle creature called a Noti appears. It sees the starbird on Sabine’s pauldron and shows her the necklace it has with the original design, the one she created for Ezra. She asks the Noti to show her where Ezra is. It agrees, summoning a bunch of other Noti. They beckon her to follow them.

Skoll and Hati discover the remains of Sabine’s battle with the bandits. Hati asks if Skoll knows about Ezra. He doesn’t, as he is called a Bokken Jedi, one who was trained in the wild after the fall of the Order. She asks if he misses the Order. He misses the idea of it, but not the failings and weaknesses of it. She wonders if there is a future for them on Peridea, but Skoll fears that the witches want to leave the planet for some unknown reason. Bandits approach them, but they do not fight.

The Noti eventually lead Sabine to a settlement by a lake. Ezra comes out of a house. The two embrace, Ezra joking that it took her long enough to find him. He asks how she found him, but she dodges the question. He is excited to go home.

At the Nightsister fortress, the Great Mothers tell Thrawn that another Jedi is coming. Thrawn asks if it is Ahsoka, but Elsbeth says it’s impossible as she was killed by Skoll. He tells her that deception by death is common among the Nightsisters and Jedi alike. If a Purrgil approaches Peridea, it is to be destroyed by the Great Mothers and their dark magick.

Ahsoka Episode 6 | Review & Analysis

Performances | 10/10

This episode had some great performances all around. Tennant’s delivery of the iconic “Far, far away” line gave me goosebumps. Was it completely fan service? Oh absolutely. Was it great? Definitely. Although the scene was ultimately quite pointless, it provided a good interaction between Dawson and Tennant.

It was good to see Bordizzo and Sakhno again after not seeing them in the last episode. Sakhno especially had a revelatory performance. She asked a lot of questions about Skoll and why they are doing things the way they are. It feels like she’s getting set up for a redemption arc or at least a noble sacrifice. 

The standout performance is, of course, Lars Mikkelsen as Thrawn. He was also the voice of Thrawn in Star Wars Rebels, so there’s nice continuity between the two series. His voice, his stature, his posture, they all screamed “Thrawn”. He brought the required gravitas to the character that has been promised from the first episode of this season. Thrawn is one of the main reasons Star Wars remained so popular when there were no movies coming out. Zahn’s books were so impactful to the series that Thrawn was widely speculated to be the main villain of the sequel trilogy when it was first announced. Mikkelsen gave Thrawn what he needed to pop on screen.

Esfandi used his charms to accurately capture Ezra’s character. He feels distinctly Ezra, even though he’s older and only has a few lines. He looks great, the beard is top-notch. 

Direction | 9/10

Getzinger took us to a new galaxy in this episode and, boy, did it look great. The first thing we see outside of hyperspace is the planet’s ring, made of massive bones from the space whales. It's a graveyard of Purrgil. It’s a bad omen, to be sure. Does this represent the death of our heroes? Skoll? Thrawn? Or is it just a cool shot?

Like a good leader, Thrawn made the Stormtroopers his own on Peridea. The Night Troopers look so cool. The armor is dirty and scraped up. There are red bands around different parts, representing the Nightsisters. Are these actually undead troopers that the Nightsister resurrected for Thrawn? Who knows! It was an excellent choice to make the troopers so distinct from previous iterations. The chanting as Thrawn exited the ship shows how far away from the old Empire they are and how powerful Thrawn actually is. 

Also, Enoch and his gold mask? Get out of here, that is awesome!

Speaking of the Nightsisters, we see them in their full garb in this episode. They wear all red robes with pointy hats. These witches are creepy. One thing that bothered me about them was the echoey effect over all of their dialogue. I get why it was done, there are three of them, and they have magic, so it’s supposed to be disorienting. However, it did make it hard to understand a lot of the time.

Finally, this episode also introduced two new creatures: Howlers and Noti. The Howlers have a scary design, but the personality of a dog. Another excellent decision was giving the Howlers a sense of shame. The scene where Sabine was scolding the Howler was hilarious. The Noti are adorable. I will for sure buy a plush of this creature. Return of the Jedi had Ewoks, The Last Jedi had Porgs, and Ahsoka had Noti and Lothcats. Star Wars is a veritable treasure trove of cute animals.

Ahsoka Episode 6 | Final Thoughts & Feelings

I really hope that the entire Star Wars universe is actually just a big story that Huyang has been telling the Jedi younglings of the future. It lends credence to my theory that Star Wars is just a modern fairy tale. Ahsoka has done nothing but reinforce that theory for me. It has good knights dueling evil knights, witches, magic, a quest, and an evil overlord gathering forces in the dark to attack the light.

This episode was another absolute banger. The introduction of Thrawn was hyped beyond belief by Star Wars fans, but they pulled it off. It was his debut in live-action, so it had to be perfect. 

Now that Ahsoka is almost to Peridea, the tensions are mounting. There are only two more episodes left in the season and a lot of ground to cover. I’m almost positive that everything won’t be wrapped up nice and neat by the end of Episode 8, but we shall see soon!

Final Score | 9/10