Disney Plus’s series Star Wars Ahsoka, Season 2 Episode 2, called “Toil and Trouble,” explores the story of Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Huyang (David Tenant) learning of the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelson). They are on a mission to locate Thrawn’s location to not only eliminate Thrawn as a threat but to find their friend Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), who likely survived alongside the Grand Admiral during the aftermath of the Battle of Lothal during the Age of the Rebellion. However, the Dark Jedi mercenary Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson), Baylan’s apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), Nighsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), and Inquisitor Marrok (Paul Darnell) seek to bring Thrawn back as Heir to the Empire. Therefore, the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant are on a race to find Thrawn, and the fate of the Known Galaxy lies on who reaches the Grand Admiral first.
The episode begins with Ahsoka meeting a recovering Sabine in a Lothal medbay. Sabine tells her former master that the Star Map showed two galaxies and a pathway between them. To Ahsoka’s disappointment, Wren didn’t decipher the map before Shin stole it. Ahsoka leaves frustrated because Sabine let herself and the Star Map be in a vulnerable location to be taken by Shin and Baylan’s HK Assassin Droids. Ahsoka leaves for Sabine’s home and uses psychometry to learn what happened the previous night: Sabine dueling Shin in a lightsaber fight. When entering Sabine’s room, Tano decapitates a surviving HK droid and brings its head to Sabine so the latter can analyze its memories. Wren gathered data on the droid’s head and discovered the droid originated from Corellia. Ahsoka remembers Morgan Elsbeth had factories on Corellia, and Hera, via hologram, tells the former Jedi Knight she will meet Ahsoka at Corellia.
At the world of Seatos in the Denab System, Baylan and Shin arrive at Seatos’ Star Map reflex point, and the latter contacts Morgan about their arrival at the site, not before hearing the cries of what seems to be Purgill Whales. Later, Morgan arrives at the reflex point and explains to Baylan and Shin an ancient people from another galaxy made the reflex point. The Nightsister then activates the Star Map and the entire reflex point with magick, displaying a gigantic spherical Star Map showing many galaxies, including the Known Galaxy. Thrawn is in one of the several unknown galaxies, one inhabited and surrounded by Purgill Whales. In the Unknown Galaxy, Thrawn is currently in “Peridea,” an extragalactic location many, including Baylan and the Jedi, regarded as a myth. The Star Map reveals the Pathway to Peridea, which Morgan and the group could use to reach Thrawn and bring him back to the Known Galaxy to lead the Imperial Remnants. Later, Morgan receives a telepathic call from Thrawn across time and space. After hearing the call, Elsbeth tells Baylan and Shin to prepare the Eye of Sion ship’s safe arrival to Seastos, with Baylan assuring Morgan that Marrok would complete his task, retrieving the final hyperdrive the Eye of Sion needs on Corellia.
When the Nightsister left the reflex point, Shin questioned her master about what would happen if they found Thrawn. Baylan vaguely tells his apprentice that Thrawn’s return to the Known Galaxy would start a new war between the New Republic and the Imperial remnants and a “new beginning” for the Known Galaxy. For the two Dark Jedi, Thrawn’s return would bring them power, but what type of “power” remains unknown. Baylan then tells Shin to head to Corellia and assist Marrok in the final transport of the last hyperdrive that needs to be installed in the Eye of Sion when it arrives at the Denab System.
In Corellia, Ahsoka meets with Hera at a shipyard where Morgan’s factories are. The two meet with Myn Weaver (Peter Jacobson), who says, “All Imperial assets were dissolved and redistributed, including those held by Morgan Elsbeth.” Because of Hera’s rank as a New Republic general, she was able to grant her and Ahsoka access to Morgan’s former facilities. The facilities Elsbeth used to own used to build hyperdrive generators for Imperial-class Star Destroyers for the Galactic Empire. Today, the workers are taking the hyperdrives apart to power the new ships in the New Republic’s defense fleet. To Ahsoka and Hera’s nervousness, the facilities still employ ex-imperials. Many ex-imperials work at every level of the New Republic government because “an Empire does not become a New Republic overnight.” Hera questions the workers’ loyalties, with Weaver assuring her that they do not care about the nuances of galactic politics and are loyal if paid well.
Back in the Lothal medbay, Huyang meets with Sabine. The ancient Jedi droid notices Sabine’s lightsaber, but she reminds him it belonged to Ezra. Huyang knows it and tells Wren it is still her lightsaber since Ezra passed it down to her and Sabine modified it. Huyang and Sabine argued about her returning to Ahsoka to train as a non-Force-sensitive Jedi again. Although Huyang makes many annoying logical facts about Sabine’s non-Force sensitivity, he still scolds Sabine for wasting time and not dedicating time to carry on “Ezra’s legacy” as a Jedi, Force-Sensitive or not.
Weaver brings Ahsoka and Hera to the control center of Morgan Elsbeth’s facilities on Corellia. Hera notices a hyperdrive core in a distant shipyard, but it looks too big for the New Republic’s defense fleet. In response, Weaver, secretly an Imperial spy, attempts to stall and distract Hera from the hyperdrive by wasting time on unlocking “classified” information about the hyperdrive core’s purpose. When Ahsoka asked about HK Assassin Droids, the red protocol droid C-1 said that an HK Assassin Droid, with high-level security clearance, prevented her from cataloging inventory of arriving transports for hyperdrive core shipments.
When C-1 discloses her belief the HK Assassin Droid is in the transport ship carrying the hyperdrive core, the workers, secretly Imperial spies, in the control center attacked Ahsoka and Hera. Ahsoka defeats the Imperial spies and tries to stop the transport while Hera goes to her Phantom ship to help Tano with her task. Marrok and an HK Assassin Droid confront Ahsoka. During their duel, Hera and her droid Chopper managed to get a tracker on the transport ship before it jumped into hyperspace. The fight ends with Marrok escaping with the help of Shin Hati from Corellia. In the aftermath, the New Republic arrests everyone working in Morgan Elsbeth’s former facilities. Hera questions the workers’ decisions and loyalties, and Ahsoka says greed motivated them to continue working with the Imperial remnants.
In Lothal, Sabine returns home to wear her Mandalorian armor and cut her hair short. Suited and ready, she calls Ahsoka via hologram. Wren wants to join her former master’s mission to find Thrawn and Ezra. Ahsoka accepts and reunites with Sabine and compliments her former apprentice’s haircut. Huyang informs Ahsoka and Sabine that Hera learned from her tracker that the transport that held the hyperdrive core is in the Denab System. With information, Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang enter hyperspace, not before Ahsoka calls and acknowledges Sabine as her padawan once more.
In the Denab System, the transport arrives and installs the hyperdrive core in the Eye of Sion, a massive circular ship with nine hyperdrive cores now in total. At the Eye of Sion’s command bridge, Baylan, Shin, and Marrok contacts Morgan, and the latter tells the three that the installation of the final hyperdrive core in the Eye of Sion will be complete, allowing them to head to Thrawn’s location in the Unknown Galaxy and bring him back to the Known Galaxy. Troubled by Ahsoka’s presence on Corellia, Baylan senses, in the Force, that Ahsoka’s presence in the Force is elusive and believes she will come to the Denab System, to Morgan’s frustration. Baylan remarks, “To kill her will be a shame. There are so few Jedi left.” Baylan, Shin, and Marrok end the call and prepare to confront and kill Ahsoka and Sabine on Seatos.
The Eye of Sion
In Ahsoka Season 1, Director Steph Green and Writer Dave Filoni added more mystery and nuance to the Star Wars lore in the second episode. A new galaxy far, far away from the Known Galaxy the Skywalker Saga takes place in is massive. The revelation is incredible, considering there could be many new species, worlds, powers, and mysteries in the galaxies far from the Known Galaxy. Though known in legends, species and creatures like Abeloth, the Yuuzhan Vong, the Rakata, and many others are yet to be adapted.
Regarding the Rakata, in Legends, the Rakata and their Infinite Empire developed the earliest hyperdrive technology, and they had similar Star Maps to the one Morgan used on Seastos. The ancient civilization that created the Seatos’ Star Map reflex point might be the Rakata due to similar structures and technology the Rakata used in the Knights of the Old Republic games. The Eye of Sion likely utilizes old Rakata Hyperdrive technology and techniques to mimic the Purgill Whales’ hyperdrive-like ability to travel to different galaxies and systems across time and space. The Rakata in the past were Dark-Side oppressors that predated the Sith and fought the Jedi during its infancy as the ancient Je’daii Order.
Rating: 9/10