The ending of Ahsoka Season 1 certainly left us with more questions than answers. We don’t fully know what Baylan was seeking (Mortis gods from The Clone Wars, perhaps?), nor do we know the importance of Thrawn’s cargo, or why the trip to Dathomir was so important. But, most shockingly, we don’t even know if Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren will ever return to the original galaxy, far far away.
Instead, it seems they’re stuck in the new even father-away galaxy. The biggest twist in Ahsoka’s finale Season 1 episode isn’t really about anything too specific. Instead, it’s the simple fact that at least one version of Star Wars has an utterly brand-new setting. And this twist ending feels like, in every way, a very real reboot for the Star Wars franchise.
Ahsoka’s ending, explained
After successfully helping Ezra Bridger leap onto Thrawn’s Star Destroyer, Sabine went back to help Ahsoka fight off Morgan Elsbeth. Ahsoka and Sabine won the day — and Huyang repaired their ship — but they still weren’t able to catch up with Thrawn, and thus, we were stranded in this distant galaxy. Although we get small glimpses of what’s going on in our “home” galaxy, including the reunion of Ezra and Hera, the episode decidedly makes us think that it’s very possible Ahsoka Season 2 — and perhaps other Star Wars stories — could take place in this entirely new and different galaxy. Baylan and Shin are still around, sulking with their orange-hued lightsabers, their true intentions still obscured from the audience. Meanwhile, Ahsoka tells Sabine that it’s “time to move on,” which could mean they have to accept their fate. She also says that they are where they “need to be.” As the episode ends, we see the Force Ghost of Anakin Skywalker looking on as if to say, “Yes, this galaxy is where Ahsoka and Sabine are supposed to be.”
From an in-universe point-of-view, Ahsoka did little to explain what all of this means for the existing timeline that will result in The Force Awakens about three decades later. (Does it even matter if Thrawn is back since we know he’s out of the picture by the time the First Order rises up to destroy the New Republic?) But it’s also possible that the long game here wasn’t about the original galaxy. Instead, Ahsoka’s endpoint was all about leading us here.
Ahsoka Season 2 and a New Star Wars Galaxy
The ultimate twist of Ahsoka Season 1 was simply that, although Sabine and Ahsoka rescued Ezra from his exile in this galaxy, they got stuck here instead. But at no point does the ending of this episode lead the audience to believe that a hypothetical Season 2 will be about a return to the original galaxy. Instead, the vast majority of the main characters — including the villains! — remained in this new galaxy, while the secondary characters returned to the more familiar one.
Does this mean Ahsoka Season 2 will 100 percent take place in this galaxy? Well, maybe not. But, more broadly, what creator Dave Filoni did was slightly more pointed. He just took several great Star Wars characters — with a rich legacy connected to the rest of the franchise— and put them in an entirely new setting in which anything is possible. Ahsoka Season 1 has only shown us one planet in this new galaxy. Meaning, in a hypothetical Season 2, Ahsoka and Sabine could travel...literally anywhere. Imagine it: A new Star Wars adventure in which everything was brand new and nothing relied on stories we’d heard before.
On top of that, Ahsoka Season 1 made it clear that several legends of this distant galaxy established various things about the more familiar Star Wars galaxy. So even in telling new narratives, future adventures in this galaxy could make the original galaxy more interesting. Baylan believes a greater power lies here, and it seems that the Force-wielding Nightsisters’ dark “majick” originates in this galaxy, too.
But even with all this dot-connecting, any future Star Wars adventures set in this galaxy would be almost totally unburdened by existing canon. Whether or not Ahsoka Season 1 successfully told its own story may be up for debate, but as a gateway into a hypothetically refreshing and exciting reboot for the entire franchise, it seems that Star Wars just took its first step into a much larger world.
