Ahsoka S1E3: Time to Fly
by thethreepennyguignol
Well, thank God for that.
After a wobbly start last week, Ahsoka seems to have found it’s feet in the third episode, Time To Fly; it feels like such a quintessentially Star Wars episode of television, and, more than that, a quintessentially Filoni episode, it’s hard not to love it (even if the runtime was surprisingly short for an episode this early into the show’s run).
When I say this felt like a Dave Filoni episode, that is to say that I loved it. So much of this felt like it could have been lifted straight from The Clone Wars and into a live-action execution; Ahsoka is in full Disaster Lineage mode here, climbing out on to a ship in the middle of a space dogfight to engage in hand-to-hand combat with airborne crafts, this is the brash, bold side of the character I truly cannot get enough of. I really adore what Rosario Dawson is bringing to this version of Ahsoka, but this reminder of her indelibly thrill-seeking approach to combat is Snips behaviour, through and through, and it’s perfect.
In fact, this whole action sequence is really good, even if it does take up too much of the episode. One of the things I felt was most lacking in the opening two-parter was this storytelling and character work taking place through action – but Time to Fly goes a long way to fixing that, especially with Sabine’s mini-arc in this episode. The obvious Luke Skywalker training callbacks are clever enough, but she communicates best through combat, and watching her and Ahsoka navigate their relationship as they take on attacking forces is a really smart and streamlined way to build on their dynamic as we move into the meat of the season as a whole. I’m not one-hundred-percent convinced on their approach to her Jedi training thus far, but it’s at least a different take than we’ve seen before, so that’s something (plus, the brief reference to Zatoichi is your sign to watch The Blind Swordsman series if you haven’t already. You won’t be disappointed).
I also really enjoyed Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati a lot this week, even if most of her screentime was dedicated to Leaning and Looking in a cockpit; it’s so easy to slip into that looking really silly and strained, but she had this mad focus to her that sold her hunt for Ahsoka and Sabine.
Elsewhere, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is making every case imaginable for her casting as Hera; I think she’s probably one of my favourite characters to make the jump from animation to live action, even despite the heavy make-up and prosthetics – it’s hard to notice the fact she’s fully green, just because Winstead brings so much to her. She’s got this controlled focus to her presence, a blend of maternal care and the military discipline, that I’m interested to see the show deconstruct over the next few episodes as she potentially goes rogue to search for Ezra, and she totally holds her own in her brief scenes this week. Am I crushing hard? Forever and always.
While I was a little let-down at how abruptly this episode comes to an end, it feels like Ahsoka is finally getting it’s feet, finding the tone of the shows that preceded it in Clone Wars and Rebels. I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing where the next few episodes take us (to the inevitable reveal that the mysterious Inquisitor is Ezra? Probably, but I am holding out delusional hope that Asaj Ventress is under that helmet, for the sake of my mental and emotional wellbeing), though I hope it’s going to be paced a little better than Time to Fly. If the show can balance it’s tones as well as it did this week, though, I’m confident we’re in for a pretty damn great ride.
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(header image via The Laughing Place)
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