The second episode of our Ahsoka and the Sombra Sisters arc brings us what is probably the weakest episode of this season so far. However, its ending does set up an intriguing follow-up next week, so hopefully the arc’s resolution will make this weaker episode worthwhile. In the words of everyone’s favorite Italian plumber, here we GOOOOOO!!!!!
This episode, Ahsoka is still staying with her new friends, hopeful freighter pilot Trace and her sister, super-bad-at-crime Rafa. Rafa reveals that she has a contract that she needs Trace and her ship for considering her previous pilot backed out in a totally not-suspicious turn of events. Trace eagerly takes the opportunity to fly her beloved ship, and Ahsoka tags along as well, much to Rafa’s displeasure. Rafa, apparently forgetting last week when Ahsoka not only saved her sister’s life from gangsters but also prevented them from going down for a rogue droid destroying the city, is suspicious of Ahsoka and why she’s being so nice to Trace. This is where my initial liking of Rafa starts to wear off and she really starts to out herself as a straight-up bad person. Rafa refuses to divulge any details of the contract (because she sucks) until they are flying right into Kessel.
Once at Kessel, we learn that Rafa took a contract from the Kessel government to transport spice to a location that Rafa again refuses to reveal (because she sucks) to be “made into medicine.” Ahsoka, the only character in this episode with any common sense, brings up the fact that spice is often used for things much less savory than medicine and that they will probably be the target of pirates looking to hijack any transport coming out of Kessel. Rafa, the silver-tongued wordsmith, tells her not to worry about it and also that she doesn’t like her very much. It’s only on the way to their destination that Rafa reveals they are delivering the spice to the Pyke crime syndicate (because, again, she sucks). During a turbulent ethical debate about what they should do with the spice, deliver it to the Pykes or use it to actually make medicine which is about as ethically gray of a decision as any choice you make in a Telltale game, Queen of Impulsive Decisions Trace dumps the cargo for fear of the Pykes taking her ship. Ahsoka, quite confident now that the Pykes will take their ship and probably their lives since they can’t deliver the spice, must devise a plan which bafflingly lacks the decision to simply not go to the Pykes’ homeworld.
Ahsoka, who apparently has been hanging out with the Sombra Sisters so much that it’s affecting her reasoning skills, hatches a plan in which they deliver empty canisters saying they’re filled with spice and Jedi mind-tricking the Pykes into paying them and letting them go. Seeing as how Ahsoka cannot mind trick every single one of the dozen Pykes that meet them for the drop-off, the plan goes poorly, and the episode ends with the Pykes capturing their ship and presumably taking them prisoner.
So far, I’m divided on how I feel about this arc. It’s great to have Ahsoka back, and it feels like Trace and Rafa could be very interesting characters but suffer from common character tropes and plot-based stupidity. While the attempt to write a story within the context of their morally gray underworld is intriguing, it often falls flat simply because 1) the characters are so dislikable and 2) the grayness feels very on-the-nose with its approach. Hopefully, this arc has more to offer and we get to see Ahsoka go Jedi Frank Castle on some Pykes to break up this last episode’s boredom.
