(courtesy IMP Awards)
Ahsoka (S1, E6-8)
Talk about sticking the landing! After daring to take us deeper into the mystical otherworld of Star Wars via the dark magic of Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) – she and the Great Mothers of Peridea make the Sith look like rank amateurs on the dark side of the spiritual divide – and setting up a titanic effort by the titular hero Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her allies to thwart the evil plot to restore Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) to a position of power in a reborn Empire, Ahsoka went all out in its final three episodes to not only answer some questions but set up the portentous Great Mother of all cliffhangers. In episodes that owed more than a little to the likes of Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones (undead stormtroopers anyone?) and yes, even The Chronicles of Narnia (the final episode of the season is rather wonderfully titled “Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord”), we saw a brilliantly storyline that elevated what is stake, what needs to be done to stop it and how good only triumphs when good people aka Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and the BFF she set out to rescue from another galaxy, Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) choose to nothing. But, of course, they chose to do everything and while they didn’t stop ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- Thrawn and the Great Mothers from jumping back to the home galaxy of Star Wars, leaving the good guys and a couple of bad ones (Baylan Skoll, played by Ray Stevenson, and his apprentice Shin Hati, played by Ivanna Sakhno) stuck on Peridea, they did deliver some heavy blows, as well as spiriting Bridger onto Thrawn’s Star Destroyer, meaning someone can warn the good folks of the Republic. The good folks who, by the way, are desperately trying to minimise the threat although the wise ones such as General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) are all too aware that evil is mustering its forces once again and know that peace and justice are tenuous and they will have to fight once again to preserve them for the good of all.
In these three episodes, we once again see the often superlative ability of the Star Wars franchise to balance some mighty big storytelling with the intimate stories of people looking to restore their close bonds with each other. No, not the Great Mothers, Thrawn and Elsbeth who are bound purely by craven self interest – that becomes abundantly clear when the Grand Admiral, with barely a break in his voice ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- essentially condemns Elsbeth to death in a battle with Ahsoka, but Ahsoka, Wren and Bridger, with the help of ever faithful and archly sage Jedi droid Huyang (David Tennant) who in the midst of frequent battles, cement somewhat fractured bonds with each other and reaffirm that those on the good side of history are driven not simply by stellar ideals but a real care and concern for those around them. Its emphasises the very stark good vs. evil thread that has always run through Star Wars and which the writers and creator Ahsoka, Dave Filoni, have steadfastly held to in a narrative that owes much to classic franchise storytelling while echoing the stark morality and realpolitik that has found its way into the franchise’s more modern iterations such as The Mandalorian and Andor. It’s a potent blend and it absolutely delivers in the final three episodes as good battles ferociously against evil, all set up against the greys of life which are inescapable even on the edge of the galaxy. Another fine element woven into the narrative is the appearance of an indigenous underdog people, in this case the Noti, sentient, snail-like people who proved vital to Bridger’s survival on Peridea and whose nomadic, steampunk lifestyle grants an aesthetic to the series that it wears well. It also brings home that the central hero characters in Star Wars have always fought for those not able to fight themselves or whose ability to do is pales in comparison to the enemy forces arrayed against them. In that respect, the Noti and the Ewoks (Return of the Jedi) share a great deal in common, and it is the presence of the Noti in Ahsoka that emphasise the franchise’s ongoing role as the champion of the oppressed and the semi-powerless. Sure, they’re cute but they fulfill a role far beyond mere merch-ability, giving solid life to what it is Ahsoka and the others are fighting for in a season that ends superbly well and which, going into an almost-certain-to-be-confirmed second season, augurs promisingly for a continuation of the finest storytelling for the franchise in recent times.
Ahsoka is currently screening on Disney+
Only Murders in the Building (S3, E8-10)
(courtesy IMP Awards)
Alas, our third ten-episode cosy murder mystery hug courtesy of Only Murders in the Building is now over. It may seem strange to talk about the end of someone’s life like that since, murder is, you know, not generally the stuff of warm cocoa and snug moments in a comfy chair but there’s something about the cosy murder mystery genre in general, and Only Murders in the Building in particular, that makes you feel that even if the world is a nasty cruel place, and bad things happen to in this case a mostly unlovely person in the form of the victim, Ben Gilroy (Paul Rudd), that there’s a safe harbour in the friends we have and the bonds we form with them. Thankfully, the last three episodes see our intrepid gang back together as a podcasting trio – as you might expect, Charles Hayden-Savage (Steve Martin) manages to make the celebration of their reunion suitably cheesy and awkward, which is its own peculiarly funny delight – and the mystery solved though not without a few red herrings making their garishly fishy and overly distracting presence felt. While knowing who the killer was, and watching our threesome’s weird way of arriving at the naming of the guilty party, was a ton of fun, what really stands out in the run to the season’s finish line is that the thing we love most about the series, that three lonely New Yorkers of wildly divergent ages and background found each other and became friends, is BACK. Rather than three souls passing in the podcasting night, with Charles acting in Oliver Putnam’s strangely compelling musical, and Mabel (Selena Gomez) left to keep the podcast brand going alone, they were back together, brainstorming clues, plotting timelines and most importantly – no, not working out who the killer is though obviously that’s kinda key in a murder mystery – being the friends that give Only Murders in the Building its beating heart and soul.
Sure, the show was still entertaining and quirky but there was something missing when the three we love the most on Only Murders in the Building are all doing their own, sort of estranged thing. So, three cheers for friendship being restored and a mystery being jointly solved. What also stood out apart from the mother of all cliffhangers where someone most interesting was killed (with implications aplenty for who likely should have been killed) – and yes, season four has been confirmed so rejoiced and be glad! – is how much humanity was once again on display. Even with the focus firmly on who did what and to whom, Only Murders in the Building did the second thing it does best very well and let us peer into the broken, anxious, hurting hearts of its characters, major and minor, and mused on what it is drives some people to commit murders, others to stick with a career seemingly long past its use-by date, and still others, and you know who they are, to work hard to bring a little justice to a world that doesn’t have a lot of it. It manages to balance this baring of peoples’ souls with a lot of quirky, delightfully eccentric humour, a sense of the ridiculousness and a deep dive into the messily contrary business of being human. All of which underscored once again that quite apart from being a puzzle for the mind, which whodunnits most certainly are, they are, at their core, a beguiling exploration of what it means to be human and why what we have in our lives matters so damn much and how some of us will do whatever it takes to make sure this isn’t ever taken away from us. That is likely what appeals most about Only Murders in the Building – it serves up a rip-roaringly good mystery but it does so with an empathetic look at peoples’ brokenness and dreams, evoking them with drama and comedy, and ultimately, reminding us that being alive means that we make decisions, good and bad, that will profoundly change the course of our lives, and which can be redeemed by the simple fact that we have people that matter, really matter, alongside us. It’s those people, and this applies as much to the guilty as to the innocent, that make the world, and mysteries go round, and which, in the end, make Only Murders in the Building such a beautiful, warm and affectingly good show to watch and lose yourself in and one that makes our dark world seem a little more comfortingly quirky and brighter.
Only Murders in the Building is currently screening on Disney+