Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Star Wars: Ahsoka’s finale episode. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out IGN’s review of Ahsoka: Episode 8.
Star Wars: Ahsoka has ended its eight-episode run on Disney+, but if there’s one takeaway from the finale, it’s that his story is far from finished. We already knew that creator Dave Filoni is developing a live-action Star Wars movie that ties together the characters of Ahsoka, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. But based on the way the finale plays out, there’s a good chance Ahsoka is getting a Season 2.
While we wait to learn what’s next for Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka and friends, let’s take a closer look at the many loose ends from the Season 1 finale and how the series lays the foundation for both Filoni’s movie and a likely Season 2.
The Return of Grand Admiral Thrawn
Ahsoka ends its season on a relatively somber note. The worst-case scenario has come to pass for the New Republic. Grand Admiral Thrawn has escaped his exile and returned to reunify the Imperial Remnant. And with Ahsoka herself still exiled in another galaxy and few in the Republic even acknowledging the threat posed by Thrawn, there seems to be little standing in his way.
We already hypothesized that Filoni’s movie is going to draw inspiration from the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, and this outcome lends further fuel to that fire. Though part of the abandoned Legends continuity, Heir to the Empire is set in a similar time period (roughly five years after Return of the Jedi) and deals with a similar premise - Thrawn emerges from hiding to rally the Empire against the struggling New Republic. It seems more and more likely that Flioni’s movie will unite Ahsoka, the Star Wars Rebels crew, Din Djarin and the Mandalorians and potentially Graham Hamilton’s Luke Skywalker against Thrawn’s resurgent Imperial fleet.
That said, it appears there’s still some setup required before we get to that climactic showdown. The finale shows Thrawn and his crew arriving at Dathomir, but we don’t really know the next phase of his plan. The finale never addresses one of the bigger mysteries of the series - what was Thrawn transporting in those casket-like boxes? What has he brought back from another galaxy?
Presumably, this mystery will be one of the major throughlines in Ahsoka: Season 2 if it’s to happen. If Lars Mikkelsen’s Thrawn is anything like his Legends counterpart (and there’s little reason so far to believe otherwise), he’ll rely on a number of secret weapons to bolster his army as he attacks the New Republic. In Heir to the Empire and its sequels, Thrawn harnesses the Emperor’s hidden cloning technology to create new soldiers who can pilot a lost fleet of Clone Wars-era starships. He also relies on the deranged Jedi Master Joruus C’baoth to mimic Palpatine’s Battle Meditation, a phenomenon where the Emperor used the Force to make his troops more disciplined and effective in battle.
Thrawn may have similar plans in place in the Disney Star Wars timeline. We’ve already seen that he’s working with the Nightsister Great Mothers, possibly relying on their supernatural abilities the same way the Legends Thrawn relied on C’baoth. The boxes Thrawn transported may literally be caskets. They could house the corpses of ancient Nightsisters, corpses the Great Mothers will now resurrect on Dathomir. Thrawn could be building an entire army of Force-wielding witches to combat the New Republic.
We may also see Thrawn’s efforts to unify the divided factions of the once mighty Empire. The Mandalorian: Season 3 gave us a glimpse into the current state of the Imperial Remnant, a squabbling group of warlords fighting over increasingly small scraps. Only Xander Berkeley’s Captain Pellaeon still has faith in Thrawn’s return, and his faith is about to be rewarded. Filoni’s movie will likely show us the last gasp of the dying Empire as it flares out under Thrawn’s command. But to get to that point, we still need Ahsoka: Season 2.
Ahsoka and Sabine: Lost in Space
The clearest sign Lucasfilm is planning a second season of Star Wars: Ahsoka is Ahsoka herself. She and Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s Sabine Wren are left in a difficult situation as the first season wraps. They may have managed to send Eman Esfandi’s Ezra home, but now they’ve become marooned in another galaxy. They’ve effectively done nothing but take Ezra’s place, and inadvertently freed Thrawn in the process.
We doubt Filoni’s movie is going to have the room to deal with bringing Ahsoka and Sabine back to their own galaxy, so this open-ended conclusion seems to be directly setting up a second season of the series. Season 2 will explore Ahsoka and Sabine’s struggle to find some way of returning home.
Meanwhile, we’ll no doubt see Ezra and Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Hera continue to plead with the New Republic command to take the threat of Thrawn seriously. Ezra will surely be welcomed as a beloved war hero, but will he succeed where his friends have so far failed? Probably not. The New Republic senators are too busy doing their best impersonation of the mayor from Jaws right now. All of this seems to ominously foreshadow the Republic’s tepid response to the First Order decades later.
Still, the Force works in mysterious ways. There’s surely a reason Ahsoka and Sabine have found themselves marooned on a faraway world. That much is signified by the appearance of Morai, Ahsoka’s bird companion who always shows up at key moments in her story.
Season 1 has hinted at deep mysteries and a hidden power on Peridea. Ahsoka will need to get to the bottom of those mysteries before she stands a chance of returning home. One way or another, it probably ties back to her connection with The World Between Worlds and the ghostly presence of Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker.
This exile will probably also serve as an opportunity to advance Sabine’s Jedi training. We saw Sabine take some important steps in the finale, using the Force to both retrieve her lightsaber and help propel Ezra aboard the Star Destroyer. By the time she returns to her home galaxy, Sabine may be a full-fledged Jedi Knight. The galaxy is certainly going to need all the Jedi it can get in the months ahead.
The Fates of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati
The Ahsoka finale is strangely uninterested in continuing the story of Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll and Ivana Sakhno’s Shin Hati. These two Dark Jedi only appear at the very end of the episode, which establishes that they, too, are marooned on Peridea for the foreseeable future. Shin doesn’t seem all that happy about the prospect, but Baylan seems perfectly content with his solitude.
This is another sign that Lucasfilm has a second season of Star Wars: Ahsoka planned. There’s simply too much ground left to cover with Shin and Baylan, and the Filoni movie hardly seems the place to tie up those loose ends.
The finale sets up Shin to become a warlord on Peridea, rallying the scavengers and raiders of this harsh world to her orange-bladed banner. It seems safe to assume a rematch between Shin and Sabine is inevitable. Along the way, we’ll hopefully learn more about her past and what led her to become Baylan’s apprentice in the first place.
As for Baylan himself, we last see him standing atop a series of massive statues as he seeks out the planet’s hidden source of power. Those statues depict the Ones, a family of Force gods who dwell on the planet Mortis. As seen in a pivotal story arc on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, these characters serve as living embodiments of the Force itself. The Son (Sam Witwer) is the Dark Side. The Daughter (Adrienne Wilkinson) is the Light Side. The Father (Lloyd Sherr) represents the balance between the two. Ahsoka, Anakin and Obi-Wan encountered these three beings when they traveled to Mortis, and Anakin was given a brief glimpse of the monster he later became.
Clearly, Peridea also has a fundamental connection to the Father, Son and Daughter. It’s also worth remembering that Morai herself is tied to the Daughter, and may even be a reincarnation of that character. Baylan senses the great powers at work on Peridea and seems determined to harness that power for himself. Whether that means he’s still an enemy to Ahsoka remains to be seen, but she’ll likely have to follow in his footsteps and come to terms with the power at the heart of Peridea.
The main thing we’ve learned about Baylan Skoll in Season 1 is that he values strength and continuity. Whether Jedi vs. Sith or Rebellion vs. Empire, Baylan has grown disillusioned with the endless series of wars and power struggles that define the galaxy. He seeks a truer, more lasting form of power that can end conflict once and for all. He may have seen Thrawn as a piece of that puzzle, but Baylan’s true goal seems to be communing with the Ones and unlocking a new level of mastery in the Force.
Unfortunately, this also means that Lucasfilm will have to recast the role of Baylan Skoll for Season 2, following Stevenson’s untimely passing. This character’s story is far from finished, and like Shin, we hope Season 2 will reveal more about his past and what caused his disillusionment with the Jedi.
Over the course of his Star Wars TV work, Filoni has introduced a number of fascinating ideas that expand on our understanding of the Force and how it binds the galaxy together. Star Wars: Ahsoka now seems to be working to tie those threads together, connecting Mortis and the Ones to the World Between Worlds and Force Ghosts. There’s a deeper mythology at play here, and Ahsoka is at its center. It’s just as well that her live-action journey seems to be only just beginning.
Does Ahsoka Have a Post-Credits Scene?
Given all the lingering questions that remain after the credits roll, you might think the finale would be ripe for a post-credits sequence. But unfortunately, there’s no mid-credits post-credits scene in the Ahsoka finale.
Lucasfilm had been making a point of including small teases at the end of each season of a live-action Star Wars show. The Mandalorian: Season 1 ends with Moff Gideon wielding the Darksaber, while Season 2 features a stinger setting up The Book of Boba Fett. That spinoff, meanwhile, ends with a mid-credits scene of Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth healing in a bacta tank.
However, this trend seems to be at an end. Neither The Mandalorian: Season 3 nor Star Wars: Andor included a post-credits scene, and neither does Ahsoka. We’ll just have to wait for future announcements detailing the future of the Star Wars franchise on Disney+.
For now, check out our full breakdown of all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
