Main cast: Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine Wren), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Hera Syndulla), Ray Stevenson (Baylan Skoll), Ivanna Sakhno (Shin Hati), Diana Lee Inosanto (Morgan Elsbeth), David Tennant (Huyang), and Eman Esfandi (Ezra Bridger)
Director: Steph Green
Part Two: Toil and Trouble plays its hand and it’s not a pretty one.
There is a running joke that is fast becoming a tinfoil hat theory, that any character that is played by an actor that halfway resembles Kathleen Kennedy is going to take center stage as the ultimate-st, most-est, girl bossiest chosen one type that will bend and break all canon to ensure that she will get to run around all over the place like some out of control fly buzzing around everyone’s ear.
Dave Filoni of course will go along with this, because that guy has only one trick up his sleeve: his personal harem of waifus running over whatever sandbox he gets to play in and shining like the only superstar of the show in the process.
Sadly, there is no amount of alcohol or pharmaceutical substance in the entire galaxy to make Rosario Dawson look even a little like Kathleen Kennedy, so Ahsoka Tano isn’t the star of the show named after her.
No, it’s Sabine Wren, played by someone that Ms Kennedy would love to imagine she resembled when she was a hot 30-year old.
That’s right, that wretch survives a lightsaber stab like it’s nothing. Oh, there’s only a scab on her stomach now, because this show actually goes all out to have Ahsoka and a few other characters point out to the audience that Kathleen Wren is super special. She’s a Mandalorian warrior turned Galactic Girl Boss with sass and quips as her secondary +10 defense should the unthinkable 0.000 000 000 001% crap happen and her +9,001 plot armor somehow fail to activate.
Seriously, I don’t know why we need an entire season of this show just to see Ms Kennedy and Mr Filoni do that “let’s link our pinkie fingers together” thing and make a loud and probably obscene moan of pleasure in unison. Surely a 10-second TikTok clip would suffice?
My objection to this whole nonsense is due to how badly handled this is. Sure, let Kathleen Wren survive, but at least make it believable? Maybe put that character in critical condition for a few episodes, at least? No, this wretch doesn’t even look halfway badly wounded in her sick bed—she even has full make-up on, for the love of Exar Kun. The actor playing her can’t even put on a pained voice, just talking in her usual girl boss manner.
It’s all so stupid, and there’s no excuse for Mr Filoni to be this inept as it’s not like he’s one of the blue-haired land whales hired by Disney solely because he is some non-binary BIPOC that ticks all the items on the checklist of the Disney DEI department. Has his cowboy hat gained sentience and eaten his brain or something?
Meanwhile, Baylan Skoll walks around with his apprentice and they scowl and glower menacingly at the camera, but who knows what they are doing.
Likewise, Ahsoka Tano glowers and scowls a lot, but the bulk of the episode is devoted to Kathleen Wren, certainly unfazed by something as minor as a lightsaber wound, up and about showing everyone how smart and special she is. Is Natasha Liu Bordizzo always this annoying or is she a talented actor that channels the annoying girl boss trope way too well? I’m too annoyed to care.
Oh, right, the plot. Ahsoka and Baylan and friends all wander around the screen, following the map that will lead them to Thrawn, or whatever the mutated permutation of that character is going to be because present day Lucasfilm has completely lost the plot in the deepest reaches of Kathleen Ray-Wren-Helena-Whoever-That-Wretch-in-Willow-Is Kennedy’s egomania.
This show is now officially stupid.
