Ahsoka – Season 1 Episode 2 “Toil and Trouble” Recap & Review

Toil and Trouble

Episode 2 of Ahsoka starts with Sabine recovering in bed. We know that lightsaber stabs through the gut are canonically not fatal anymore, and she seems to be on the mend. She tells Ahsoka that the Star map shows a route between two galaxies but the starting point for this is unclear and the droids have destroyed all records of what she’s found.

Baylan has the map though and he’s even figured out the starting point, way ahead of our Jedi. He has his Apprentice contact Morgan to let her know. When she arrives to oversee proceedings, Morgan points out that the temple created was not done so by the Jedi, but by an ancient race from a distant galaxy.

Morgan uses her powers to manipulate the star map, showing off what it holds. A large sphere projects around them, showing their exact destination, which happens to be where Thrawn is located. It’s a pathway to Peridea.

At the same time, Ahsoka slowly (and I mean slowly) wanders around the comms tower investigating the remnants of the fight Sabine had. Thankfully, the other droid from the attack happens to be waiting in ambush and Ahsoka slices its head clean off.

She brings the remains back to Sabine in hospital, who figures out that the droid originated on Corellia, the New Republic Shipyard.

Ahsoka decides to head off and investigate with Hera, but she refuses to let Sabine go with her. Hera gives some words of encouragement to Sabine in private though, and tells the former apprentice of Ahsoka that they both need one another here. And while Ahsoka is there, Baylan also tasks his Apprentice with going there too to oversee the final transport.

Before the Apprentice shows up, Hera probes Ahsoka over the idea of bringing Sabine back on as an Apprentice. Ahsoka is not too enthused by the notion, while Hayun talks to Sabine about her training, and specifically how she’s not being keeping up with it. Hayun also gives the brutal truth that Ezra was the better Jedi and she’s not particularly apt with the Force. But of course this could be just what Sabine needs to prove him wrong.

Back on Corellia, Ahsoka and Hera learn that there are assassin droids being repurposed after a rather lengthy section of journeying through the shipyard. And as it happens, one of those droids happens to be on a ship taking off right now.

Hera decides to follow, while Ahsoka squares off against another Sith wearing a full coat of armour. The Sith manage to get away though, with Ahsoka coming out empty-handed. Hera does not. She’s managed to place a tracking device on the transport ship.

With a new mission on the horizon, Sabine gets herself ready too, with new clothes and a new haircut, one that honours Ezra. She meets back up with Ahsoka, just as Hayun arrives with good news. A transmission from General Syndulla confirms that the transport ship has been traced to the Denab System, where it has remained in orbit around the planet Seatos.

As the pair head off, we cut to the transport ship once more, which holds Morgan onboard. She’s confident that they’ll be ready to make the final hyperdrive soon. Baylan warns that Ahsoka is a formidable adversary and she’s coming.

The Episode Review

Ahsoka returns with another episode, as the fetch quest starts to take shape now and actually materialize into more of a fully-fleshed out mission to take out the Sith before they reach Thrawn and potentially start another war.

However, the sprinklings of bad writing show up too as we get a huge contrivance with that droid just waiting at Sabine’s. If it wasn’t for that droid, they’d have no way of getting to the shipyard. Not only that, but once they get there, there’s a whole big sequence that feels more like an excuse for Hera to flex her power and authority than driving the narrative forward.

In fact, it takes a long time before anything actually happens here, as we instead get a trip around the shipyard. That’s not good when the acting is still a big point of contention and lines are delivered flat and with little expression.

There’s some good actors in here, so it really feels like a Direction problem rather than the actors themselves. This would make sense, because the editing is quite poor at times, and some scenes drag on far longer than they need to.

I’ve already mentioned the shipyard but the entire time Ahsoka is investigating Sabine’s place, it goes on for so long and could easily have been edited down to pick up the pace. This lethargic pace is not a good sign, given we’re 2 episodes in and very little has actually happened. Thankfully, we’ve now got a solid way forward and hopefully that goes some way to pick things up.