The Mandalorian Review: Chapter 13: The Jedi (Season 2 Episode 5)

The Mandalorian  Season 2 Episode 5, “Chapter 13: The Jedi,” brings in a fan-favorite character to bring more of the larger lore into focus.

It’s hard to describe exactly how big of a deal it is for The Mandalorian to bring in Ahsoka Tano. Not only is she a beloved character from Clone Wars and Rebels, but, like Bo-Katan previously on the season, this is the first time that we are seeing her portrayed on a live-action setting.

At this point, Ahsoka is this major figure within the Star Wars canon who is almost as prominent as her film counterparts. To a large portion of the fanbase, this is like bringing in Obi-Wan or Han Solo. 

That’s also where we start to get to a weird space on this show. Not even that long ago, The Mandalorian was a show that you could just jump into regardless of your investment in the larger universe but, over the course of the last couple of episodes, that is starting to shift. 

While the non-initiated can still watch and enjoy this, it is starting to get deeper into the weeds, which is both a feature and a bug. While all of this is doubtlessly exciting and exhilarating for the fans, it also becomes a thing where people that haven’t watched both of the animated shows might start to feel a bit left behind. 

This was already true, to a lesser extent, when we were bringing in Bo-Katan, but even that was contained to the overall story of the series. This is a lot more intricate to the ever weaving mythology of Star Wars and is quickly becoming denser. People less informed on the lore might not get the significance of mentioning Thrawn or that the Magistrate has been building fleets.

That’s not so much a failure of the show, but, at the same time, it doesn’t feel compelled to connect any of those dots for people. Again, this is both a good and a bad thing. No one wants to have their hand held, but there’s also a difference between letting go of your hand and running in front of you, hoping you can keep up.

All of that aside, however, this is a very enticing episode. Partly, yes, because this is a lot of stuff that’s being carried over from Rebels, of which there are more than a few juicy morsels, but it’s also the novelty of seeing Ahsoka in the flesh for the first time.

Rosario Dawson, who portrays Ahsoka throughout this episode, does a really terrific job of stepping into this role. She both takes the intonations from Ashley Eckstein, who voiced Ahsoka on both of the animated shows, but also takes her own twist on that performance. 

It’s really excellent work at taking this character, who has only existed to us as lines and colors, and brings her to life in a remarkable way.

Let’s talk about one thing that we briefly touched on earlier: Thrawn. Without going too deep on this, Thrawn is a legacy character from the novels who has since served as a classic villain. When the canon was rebooted, he was brought over to Rebels and became the Big Bad of the series throughout the last season. 

His name being mentioned here is pretty crucial because it has been believed, based on how that series ends, that Thrawn was defeated and killed, along with the protagonist, Ezra. The implication that Thrawn is not dead is an exciting because it also implies that Ezra has survived, as well. 

Since Rebels ended with Ahsoka and Sabine, another Mandalorian, going off to find Ezra, that means that we could be seeing a live-action Rebels reunion in the future. 

One final thing: Baby Yoda’s new name is cool and everything but he will always be Baby Yoda to us. 

What did you think of this episode of The Mandalorian ? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Mandalorian  airs Fridays on Disney+.

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