Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7 Episode 8 ‘Together Again’ Recap/Review

Last week, Ahsoka and the Martez sisters made a daring escape from the Pyke Syndicate stronghold only to be recaptured. This week, they give it another go.

Wicked Trickery

The episode opens with Ahsoka, Trace, and Raffa back in a cell within the Pyke Syndicate stronghold. After a brief argument about the circumstances that got them here, Ahsoka announces that she has a plan to get them out. Unfortunately, it also carries a ‘Whose Car Are We Driving?‘ clause, requiring the Martez sisters to trust Ahsoka without any explanation about what she’s doing.

As you might imagine, Raffa is not thrilled about this.

A group of Pyke guards come and take the trio for an audience with Marg Krim. Instead of torturing/killing them, he firmly requests that they hand over the spice he believes they’re hiding while only threatening to torture/kill them if they don’t.

Ahsoka unexpectedly requests to cut a deal, claiming that the Martez sisters are not her friends and that they’re hiding the spice on another planet. She asks Krim to give the sisters one day to retrieve the shipment and return with it. If they don’t, then she will reveal the location of their (non-existent) families so that he can go after them–all for her (non-existent) cut of the delivery profits.

Surprisingly, Krim agrees to the terms and sends the Martez sisters off to get his spice while ordering Ahsoka back to her cell. After everyone leaves, his consigliere (Fife) points out that this is a ridiculously obvious deception. Krim says he’s aware, but doesn’t have any other options. If he doesn’t get his spice shipment, then his boss will kill him

Eyes All Around

As the Silver Angel takes off from the stronghold’s landing platform, the trio of Mandalorians from last episode notice that Ahsoka was not with the Martez sisters. Bo-Katan Kryze instructs Ursa Wren and her other compatriot to keep a lookout for the former Jedi padawan.

Back inside the stronghold, Ahsoka once again uses the force to open her prison cell. After evading some guards, she manages to find an armory and loads up with a healthy amount of explosives. While planting them around the stronghold, she notices Krim on a holocall with our old friend Maul, who is laying into the Pyke Syndicate leader for losing his latest spice shipment. After almost noticing Ahsoka, the Shadow Collective leader threatens to sic Crimson Dawn (one of their member organizations) on the Pyke Syndicate if they fail him again.

If the name “Crimson Dawn” sounds familiar, it’s because they were the primary antagonist in Solo: A Star Wars Story–which you may remember was revealed to be led by Maul in a surprise cameo near the end of the movie. It’s a cool easter egg that may also help wrap up a storyline from a recent movie.

But I digress…while Krim is lamenting his situation, a Pyke guard announces that Ahsoka has escaped. After everyone rushes toward the prison block, she manages to sneak into a room with a terminal with access to the stronghold’s transmission logs. She places a few more explosives, then does a little snooping, which reveals that Maul was calling from the planet Mandalore (*loud squealing noises*).

Before Ahsoka can learn anything more, Krim and his guards burst in and surround her. She attempts to fight back, but is severely outnumbered. Krim quickly deduces from Ahsoka’s fighting and use of the force that she is a Jedi before having one of his guards stun her.

Don’t Be Suspicious

Meanwhile, Trace and Raffa land to make repairs and figure out their next move. A bewildered Trace expresses her dismay at what Ahsoka did/said, requiring Raffa to explain to her that it was all a ruse–and that they are going back to rescue her since she put herself on the line for them. When Trace asks how the hell they’re supposed to do that without getting captured (AGAIN), Raffa replies that they’ll simply steal some spice from the mining operation on Kessel and bring it back to them.

As you might imagine, Trace is skeptical of this extremely dangerous plan.

Nevertheless, the sisters head back to Kessel, where Raffa manages to talk their way onto the landing dock. The mine is primarily staffed by Toongs, which are one of the least intimidating aliens species in the Star Wars universe. The Toong foreman lives up to this, stammering and bending at Raffa’s confident insistence that he should go check with his boss while she begins loading her unregistered “special request” delivery.

By the time the spice is loaded onto the Silver Angel, the foreman has returned to weakly insist that his manager says their delivery pick up is not authorized or legitimate. Raffa decides to go full Karen and insists that the manager either show up in person or let them do what they want. Unfortunately, the manager is standing right behind her…and a Trandoshan.

After unsuccessfully attempting to talk her way out of things, Raffa tries to fight the Trandoshan and completely gets her ass kicked. Instead of simply killing her, however, the reptilian manager opts for the James Bond villain method and has one of the Toongs lift them up on a loading platform that he can throw Raffa from into the mining pit.

When he picks her up to do this, however, she’s able to jump out of his grasp and climb up the loading platform’s frame. After bidding the Trandoshan a pithy farewell, Raffa kicks the platform off its frame, unhooking it and sending the manager to his death.

Back on the ground, Trace has managed to easily beat up or scare off the other Toongs, allowing she and Raffa to board the Silver Angel with their stolen spice and head back to Oba Diah.

Don’t Get Cocky.

Ahsoka is about to be executed when Trace and Raffa walk into the Pyke stronghold and declare that everything is good now that they’ve delivered the spice. To their surprise, Krim responds by accusing them of working with the Republic and “this Jedi.”

After the Martez sisters express their shock at Ahsoka’s true background, Krim politely gives them a few seconds to have some standard “Why didn’t you tell us” dialogue before ordering them all to be executed. Before that can happen, though, they are blessed again with perfect timing when all the bombs Ahsoka planted detonate, allowing them to escape.

The group boards the Silver Angel and takes off with a trio of Pyke aircraft in pursuit. A gorgeous/thrilling chase sequence ensues.

The group manages to take out all three of their pursuers with Trace playing a risky game of chicken to get the last one. They leave Oba Diah’s atmosphere and head into space to return to Coruscant. Unbeknownst to them, the trio of Mandalorians that had been keeping tabs on Ahsoka are following close behind.

Closure and Unrest

After landing back on the Martez’s platform in the lower levels of Coruscant, Raffa snidely asks Ahsoka if she’s going to arrest her for being a spice smuggler since that’s “what Jedi do.” Ahsoka responds that she’s not going to arrest her and that she is not a Jedi anymore.

Raffa counters that Ahsoka acts the way Jedi should: Caring about others and doing whatever they can to help people no matter who they are or where they’re from. Trace agrees, telling Ahsoka that she considers her a true friend.

Before things can get too sappy, Bo-Katan and the other Mandalorians show up, immediately putting Ahsoka on guard. Bo-Katan assures her that Death Watch is no more–and that they share a common enemy: Maul.

She asks Ahsoka for assistance, giving her 5 minutes to decide. The Martez sisters insist that she help the Mandalorians just like she helped them. Ahsoka decides to go, but also keeps her bike with the sisters so she’ll have a reason to see them again.

The Verdict

If you read opinions online about this story arc, then there seems to be two options for how you’re supposed to feel about it:

1. It’s the worst Clone Wars story ever and has completely ruined the last season.
2. It’s fantastic and if you don’t like it, then it’s because you’re a toxic Star Wars fan.

Here’s my hot take: This was a mediocre story arc with both good and bad moments. It also did a nice job bridging Ahsoka’s personal journey after leaving the Jedi Order to commanding a Republic force on Mandalore.

‘Together Again’ had some severely predictable story beats along with multiple instances where Raffa and Trace made you want to rip your hair out–and don’t even get me started on the slapstick fight between the Martez sisters and the mining crew.

At the same time, the sisters actually got some time together away from Ahsoka, which led to some of their best moments. Meanwhile, Ahsoka was her usual badass self (although I still think she could have taken on more Pykes than it took to subdue her). We also got some really cool links to Maul’s activity throughout Star Wars canon along with a BEAUTIFUL pursuit/dogfight sequence.

I understand the frustration with a mediocre four episode arc in the middle of a twelve episode final season that we’ve waited almost six years for. But if you’re judging ‘Ahsoka’s Walkabout’ on its own merits, then you can hardly call it a failure. We needed to explore Ahsoka’s time away from the Jedi Order before she partially returned in the ‘Siege of Mandalore.’ It definitely wasn’t perfect (or even great), but it still had plenty of good/fun moments and served as a solid bridge for the final chapter of the series.

That being said, I think we can all agree that EVERYONE is all types of excited for next week’s episode to finally arrive.