“Chapter 13 – The Jedi” was written and directed by Dave Filoni. Still following the information given to them by Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), Mando (Pedro Pascal) and The Child journey to Corvus to find the Jedi, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson).

After 12 years, the long awaited debut of Ahsoka in live-action is finally here and this episode starts out with a bang, wasting no time for you to see her. Back in 2008, in “The Clone Wars” movie, Ahsoka was an insufferable character; it’s incredible how far she’s developed and how much she’s changed since then. Rosario Dawson brought this character to life in such a phenomenal way that many other female action heroes haven’t been able to succeed, female Disney Star Wars characters in particular. This week’s episode has made me truly realize that this show doesn’t care about filler. I probably should’ve used a different term describing last week’s episode because it technically wasn’t filler; I just felt that the information given to us could have been threaded into another episode. I still stand by the fact that it was only an excuse to bring back familiar faces. Overall, it’s taken both of the seasons in this show so long to rev up, I’m not sure casual fans would want to stick around for the long haul.

Dave Filoni also had near full control on making this episode. If you’ve seen the behind the scenes series they had released on Disney+ for “The Mandalorian” you may know that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He directed episodes one and five last season, the latter he wrote as well; but he’s the guy behind “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels” animated shows.  He’s never directed anything live-action before in his life, and I did feel that those two episodes were fairly weak. But I’d be lying if I said he didn’t level up his abilities to an incredible level. I might even say that this episode was the best Star Wars anything since “Rogue One.” How could he not direct the episode that had Ahsoka in it, and I’m honestly surprised that he didn’t try to make her the center of attention for the remainder of the season (which is exactly what he did with both of his animated shows.) You can see his fingerprints all over this. I felt the action and style of storytelling is very reminiscent of “The Clone Wars.” The cinematography in this episode by Barry Idoine, who was a director of photography on “Rogue One,” is just stunning. It is probably the first time in the entirety of the show where I was fully convinced that I was watching a movie.

Ahsoka is only on the planet of Corvus because she is on a quest as well. The city of Calodan on the planet has been under the rule of Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and Lieutenant Lang (Michael Biehn) roughly back through the Clone Wars and she has been working for the Empire ever since the fall of the Republic. Biehn’s appearance also whittles down the remaining information we have to piece together the remaining episodes as the trailers only presented scenes that were in the first half of the season. 

Ahsoka wants to know the location of the Magistrate’s master, possibly to wipe out the remaining stragglers of the Empire ever since the destruction of the second Death Star. As Mando arrives in the town, the Magistrate offers him a Beskar spear to kill the Jedi. As we know, that is not what will eventually happen. He was sent here to have The Child’s powers explained to him and have him be trained to control them. Also, The Child now has a name, Grogu, so let the internet backlash ensue. He was raised and trained on the Jedi Temple on Coruscant prior to Order 66, therefore making him one of the few Jedi that survived the event. Ahsoka Tano agrees to this but only if he helps her liberate the town.

So again, we have yet another week that is only a side quest with a guest star that gives us a small piece of information that will lead us to the next side quest and so on. But as I said, it’s made me realize that this show doesn’t care about the destination, it’s all about the journey. While some episodes may be utterly pointless, such as episode two this season, its only plan is to have the audience along for the ride that Mando and Grogu are on.

Now, Ahsoka did have doubts about training Grogu, saying that his attachment to Mando presents flaws in his emotions and that she has seen this before. Anakin’s relationship with Padmé is what brought him down the path to the dark side. He only thought about her and when he had visions of her dying he tried to do anything to prevent it, ultimately having anger overcome him. If this show goes down that same route with Grogu, I’m totally down for it as long as it executes itself properly. Ahsoka does say later on to go to a Jedi Temple on Tython and have Grogu reach out to the Force and a Jedi will find their way to him. And to complete the Dave Filoni set of characters, I bet it’s Ezra Bridger from “Rebels.”

Ahsoka and Mando infiltrate the town and big action scenes commence. After killing all of the expendable guards, Ahsoka has a duel with the Magistrate “Kill Bill” style while Mando and Lang are just outside having their own western-cowboy showdown. As they hear the Beskar spear fall, Lang fakes a surrender and tries to shoot Mando but fails and that whole idea backfired on him. I don’t know why he even attempted to be “smart” because even if he did succeed in hitting Mando it wouldn’t have done anything to his Beskar armor, it was disappointing how Michael Biehn was wasted on such a throwaway character in which he gave so much with very little to work with. This guy was in “The Terminator” and “Aliens,” and I don’t know why his popularity went nowhere throughout time.

Now, I knew Ahsoka was going to show up at some point in the show, same as Bo-Katan, Boba Fett, and Cobb Vanth in previous episodes (odd how this season just seems like a launching pad for other possible spinoff shows). I knew they would give “Baby Yoda” a name eventually, but it’s all about that name drop that happens after Ahsoka defeats the Magistrate that I couldn’t believe. Grand Admiral Thrawn is going to be on the show. Now, this show has so many storylines occurring at the same time, very loosely connected. The plot revolving around Moff Gideon and the Darksaber is still going on, we still don’t know what is going to be the future of Grogu so there’s no way Thrawn is going to show up in this season and I doubt Ahsoka is coming back either. All in all, this episode left me with anticipation, much higher this week that is, for what is to happen next episode.