Ahsoka Season 2: Everything You Need To Know

It's been 84 years, or at least three, since "Ahsoka" last graced our screens, and it will be nearly three and a half by the time Season 2 actually premieres on Disney+ next year. "The Acolyte," "Skeleton Crew," and "Andor" Season 2 have all come and gone in that time, with none of them getting further installments, and "The Mandalorian" is likely dead in the water after "The Mandalorian and Grogu" fell short at the box office earlier this year.

That leaves "Ahsoka" Season 2 with a heavier burden than it might otherwise carry — the only live-action Star Wars show confirmed for 2027, and the last active property of the new era that "The Mandalorian" started back in 2019. The first season of "Ahsoka" came out to good, but not amazing reviews, but the first trailer for "Ahsoka" Season 2 looks very promising, teasing large-scale battles between the New Republic and the forces of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), all while Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) continue their search for an ancient source of Force power past the edges of the known galaxy.

If everything comes together, this could be a real triumph for Lucasfilm CCO Dave Filoni, and a high point for a Disney+ Star Wars era that seems to be nearly over. Let's take a closer look at what's been announced so far, and what we're likely to see when "Ahsoka" Season 2 finally arrives.

"Ahsoka" Season 2 premieres on January 20, 2027, nearly three and a half years after the end of season 1. The new season will be eight episodes, the same length as Season 1, all written by Dave Filoni. Season 1 premiered with two episodes, with a single episode following each week after for six weeks. It's unclear right now if that double-length premiere model will return for Season 2.

While Filoni is once again penning every teleplay, he is only currently credited with directing the first and final episodes of the new season. In Season 1, Filoni directed the first episode and Episode 5, "Shadow Warrior." The latter was easily the most talked-about segment of the first season, featuring the celebrated return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in a series of Clone Wars flashbacks.

The remaining six episodes will be split up evenly among three other directors — Jennifer Getzinger (who helmed Season 1, Episode 6, the big Thrawn reveal episode), Bryce Dallas Howard (who has directed a number of episodes across the Disney+ Star Wars landscape), and Anders Engström (a newcomer to the franchise whose past work includes "See" and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians"). By contrast, Season 1 featured six different directors, with four of them directing just one installment each. Hopefully, this new arrangement will lead to a bit more consistency across the eight episodes.

Most of the big names from "Ahsoka" Season 1 are back for Season 2, with two notable exceptions. Diana Lee Inosanto, who played Nightsister and Thrawn loyalist Morgan Elsbeth from "The Mandalorian" Season 2 through the end of "Ahsoka" Season 1, won't be returning (as far as we know), as her character dies at the end of the first season. Some Nightsister magic is always on the table, and "Clone Wars" fans will remember that Mother Talzin didn't let a little thing like apparent death keep her down, but the smart money is on Elsbeth being fully out of the picture this time.

The other main cast loss is much more tragic. Ray Stevenson, who played ex-Jedi mercenary Baylan Skoll in Season 1, passed away just months before "Ahsoka" premiered. The role has been recast, with "Game of Thrones" alum Rory McCann taking over the part.

Dawson, Bordizzo, and Christensen are all back for Season 2, alongside Ivanna Sakhno as Baylan's apprentice Shin Hati and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as New Republic general Hera Syndulla. For the moment, it seems that there won't be any huge new additions to the main cast, though Filoni may simply be holding back some twists. Eman Esfandi, who played Ezra Bridger in Season 1, is one returning star to watch, as the character is likely to have an expanded role this season. Esfandi was one of the highlights of Season 1, and Lucasfilm would do well to shine a bigger spotlight on him.

"Ahsoka" Season 1 was more of a mystery show. Ahsoka and Morgan Lesbeth race through the first half trying to find the route to Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger, which ends up taking them to a planet called Peridea in a separate galaxy. Then the back half of the season is more of a spirit quest, with Ahsoka connecting to her former master, Anakin, Sabine finding Ezra, and Thrawn ultimately escaping back to the main Star Wars galaxy with Ezra in tow as Ahsoka, Sabine, Huyang (David Tennant), Shin, and Baylan are left stranded on Peridea.

Just going off the trailers, Season 2 looks to be much larger in scale. We've already seen glimpses of major space battles in the style of the original trilogy, as Thrawn gathers strength and clashes with the New Republic. "This season is massive," Rosario Dawson said at D23 (via StarWars.com) earlier this year. "The stakes are higher, the battles are bigger, and the threat of Thrawn looms large for Ahsoka, her crew, and the entire galaxy."

While that battle grows, Ahsoka and Sabine will be trying to find a way home to help, though Baylan's mysterious mission to find an ancient Force power may force them to stay on Peridea a while longer.

We don't know what exactly Baylan Skoll is seeking on Peridea, but we know that it likely has something to do with Mortis, the mystical Force planet first introduced in Season 3 of "The Clone Wars," back when George Lucas was still helming Star Wars. The so-called Mortis Gods loom large over the mythos of the franchise these days, and they appear in effigy at the end of "Ahsoka" Season 1, suggesting that whatever power Baylan is searching for is tied to them.

That also fits with his proclaimed goal of ending the cycle of light-vs-dark that plunges the universe into ceaseless conflict — from his perspective. A new order, in the truest sense, is what he's looking for, and Ahsoka and Sabine will have to figure out just how bad that could be. Some fans also suspect that the villain and dark Force god Abeloth, a major player in the final years of the old Expanded Universe, could be brought back into canon with this storyline.

Mortis and its god-like denizens remain one of the biggest unanswered questions in all of Star Wars, and if Filoni is finally ready to make good on 15 years of teases, "Ahsoka" Season 2 could do some really interesting things with the deep lore.

When Anakin Skywalker first appears in Episode 5 of "Ahsoka" Season 1, it's not entirely clear what we're seeing. Ahsoka has fallen into the transdimensional realm known as the World Between Worlds, and it's hard to tell if the vision of her old master is merely a projection of her own memories, or the real Force ghost of the man himself. By the end of Season 1, though, it's pretty clear that it's the latter.

Anakin features prominently in the trailer footage for Season 2, suggesting he may have an even more direct role in the story this time, perhaps helping Ahsoka and Sabine stop whatever Force apocalypse Baylan seeks to trigger. But while that may sound exciting to prequel fans, it also brings up some questions and that Filoni and company will have to contend with.

Some fans already disagree with how much Anakin is featured in the show, given his total absence from the lives of his children after his death (he does appear to Luke, in limited contexts, in some extraneous but canonical books). For his ongoing role to feel earned, and not just the adrenaline shot of pure uncut fan service that Season 1, Episode 5 was, we'll need to know a bit more about the actual stakes here, and what knowledge he's bringing from beyond the veil. Force ghosts have meddled in the affairs of the living before, but it's uncommon. This is a fine line for "Ahsoka" to walk, but Anakin's presence certainly provides some fun opportunities.

While Ahsoka and crew are chasing ghosts and gods on Peridea, Thrawn will be taking the fight to the New Republic, bolstered by some shadowy allies in the Nightsisters of Dathomir. Though that particular family of Force witches was mostly wiped out during the Clone Wars, Thrawn's exile on Peridea unites him with a trio of ancient Nightsisters who rally to his cause.

He ends Season 1 by returning to the main Star Wars galaxy, and to Dathomir specifically, with a Star Destroyer full of mysterious boxes that certainly look like they might hold the bodies of dead witches (purely speculation, but hey). On top of that, we know from "The Mandalorian" Season 3 that a large contingent of the shattered Imperial Remnant has been eagerly awaiting the Grand Admiral's return, meaning that his traditional forces should be much more imposing than the ragtag crew we see in Season 1.

Thrawn has typically been more interested in military conquest than in anything connected to the Force, so his alliance with the Nightsisters is likely one of simple convenience. But that doesn't mean that the so-called Great Mothers might not also have their own sinister schemes brewing.

The first trailer for "Ahsoka" Season 2 focuses on the big storylines we've already broken down: Thrawn's war against the New Republic and the search for an ancient power on Peridea. The footage shows Ezra reuniting with Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum) and joining the fight both in space and on the ground, even crossing blades with Thrawn's mysterious Stormtrooper, Captain Enoch. Another scene shows a spirit flashback or vision of some sort, in which a young Ahsoka faces an assailant with a double-bladed lightsaber in a snowy glen, alongside Anakin.

Other clips show Nightsisters facing off against New Republic soldiers, a massive fleet battle, and some ancient ruins. Anakin says that the power Baylan seeks "could end wars," which is pretty vague and doesn't really sound all that bad. Shin Hati, meanwhile, is shown alone on Peridea after being abandoned by her master in the last season. One moment shows her attacking the Jedi droid Huyang. Will the fan contingent shipping Shin and Sabine get their wish? We can only hope.

From the jump, "Ahsoka" has been pulling from the most famous Star Wars Expanded Universe story — Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy – in small ways, paying homage to one of Dave Filoni's favorite pieces of EU Star Wars. That trend looks to continue in Season 2 as Thrawn launches a new but familiar campaign against the New Republic, evoking memories of those '90s novels in the minds of longtime fans.

Similarities to "Heir to the Empire" are likely to stay superficial, as the context of this conflict and the one in that book are quite different, due to the surrounding changes in canon. That said, we're right around the same point in the Star Wars timeline, and Filoni is too much of an EU fan to not include at least a couple of targeted homages.

The Mortis Gods also got more material in the EU, also known as the Legends timeline, which could play into this season. While they weren't ever fully explained there either, the last few years of Legends novels built out a bit more mythos for their connection to the Cosmic Force. Depending on how definitive "Ahsoka" wants to be in Season 2, we could finally get some closure on those late-EU teases.

There remains a massive elephant in the room when it comes to Ahsoka Tano — about nine years worth, to be exact. At the end of "Star Wars Rebels," which takes place right before the events of "A New Hope," Ezra Bridger saves Ahsoka from Darth Vader by pulling her into the World Between Worlds for the first time. And then, well, she shows up in "The Mandalorian," nearly a decade later.

Years after Dawson's debut in the role, we still have no idea where Ahsoka was during the original trilogy (not with the Rebels, that's for sure), or in the years afterward. We know that at some point, she attempted to train Sabine in the Jedi arts, but there is no canonical accounting for her during those first three films.

The obvious reason for that is material, and not narrative: Ahsoka did not exist when George Lucas made the original trilogy. You can only retcon so hard before your ramjet begins to overheat. But that's no excuse to just not tell us what she's been up to for almost a decade, especially when that decade clearly changed her severely into the more stoic character seen in her self-titled show.

Given the long wait between Seasons 1 and 2, it's reasonable to wonder if this next installment will also be the end of "Ahsoka." The last seven years of Star Wars streaming series have resulted in more premature cancellations than stirring success stories, and the multi-pronged attack of the "Mandalorian" project now has but one prong left.

"You never know," Dave Filoni said in an interview with ScreenRant earlier this year when asked about the potential of a Season 3. "Everything works as planned, and I know where the story goes and where it should tie up. And so, I'm not really worried about that."

Given Disney's larger moves around their streaming platforms, though, the odds don't seem great. Both Marvel and Star Wars seem to be moving back to a big-screen focus these days, with a less direct connection between Disney+ and the franchises' theatrical releases. There could be big plans behind the scenes that just haven't been announced yet, but with so little on the distant release calendar for Star Wars right now, it feels more likely that "Ahsoka" Season 2 will try to wrap things up.