Ahsoka review: Episode 5 reveals the show’s true ‘villain’

WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS for Ahsoka Season 1, Episode 5.

Ahsoka Tano continues to be one of the most dynamic, complex characters in Star Wars. This week’s episode of her live-action series finally hit the emotional beats that connect viewers back to the character many fell in love with years ago.

If you’re watching Ahsoka and haven’t seen her in any other projects, does the emotion still weigh as heavily on your soul? One measure of a good story is whether or not you can feel the characters’ joy, anger, guilt, sadness, relief — does it leap off the screen? Do you feel it through the pages?

As someone who has watched The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels in their entirety, I cannot accurately answer these questions. I see Anakin and Ahsoka together again and I feel hopeful. I see Hera and Ahsoka saying goodbye (again) and I fight back tears.

When the purrgil leave the atmosphere and prepare to jump to unknown space, there are knots in my chest. I do not know what to expect next. I know everything these characters have been through — together and apart — and Ahsoka is going off on her own again, and no one (except Dave Filoni) knows who or what she will find.

Now that we’re five episodes in, the pacing of this show makes a lot more sense. At the start, Ahsoka was not ready for this journey, but she didn’t know she wasn’t ready until that status changed. She is ready now. So are we.

For what? We’re not supposed to know; that’s the point. If we could predict every detail that’s about to happen in a Star Wars story we haven’t yet seen, this wouldn’t be fun anymore. Theories are flying. I’m particularly fond of my own — that we’re not going to see Thrawn until the tail end of Episode 8, both because it’s going to make some people mad for the wrong reasons and because I think, for this show, it would make total sense.

Ahsoka’s greatest antagonist right now is herself.

She can butt heads with Thrawn later. Right now, her greatest obstacle to overcome is letting go of her past mistakes and failures and embracing what she can learn from them. How she can be better. How she can still save the galaxy.

I did not doubt that Episode 5 would raise the stakes, deepen the lore, and finally start to prompt me to care about this story on a deeper level. There is a reason I reserve real judgment for a show until the season or show in question is over. We cannot understand a beginning until we know the ending. And we do not yet know how this ends.

But if this week’s installment is any indication, it’s going to end in a big, important way.

Also, space whales were cool before, but now they’re my favorite. I love them. I would die for them. I am invested. There is no turning back now.

New episodes of Star Wars: Ahsoka drop Tuesdays exclusively on Disney+.

Make sure to check Dork Side of the Force after Ahsoka season 1 episode 5 releases for updates and news about the series!