‘Ahsoka’ Episode 3 Easter Eggs

Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Ahsoka Episode 3.

Things are kicking into hyperdrive, or hyperspace, in the third episode of Ahsoka. With Rosario Dawson front and center as the fan-favorite titular Togruta, the latest Star Wars series from creator Dave Filoni is off to a beyond-satisfying start. When we left off last week, Ahsoka reunited with old allies Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), eventually agreeing to resume training with Sabine as her Padawan learner. Still bent on investigating the dark shroud surrounding the rumors of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return, Ahsoka and friends trek through space, encountering plenty of Easter eggs and references along the way. Here’s everything you might have missed!

RELATED: Can I Watch ‘Ahsoka’ Without Watching Any Other Star Wars Shows?

Zatoichi, Blind Jedi Training

Zatoichi, a common aspect of a Jedi’s training, has been seen throughout Star Wars since the beginning. In Star Wars: Episode I — A New Hope, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is the first we see undergoing the intentionally-blinded form of Force-sensing training. In the prequel trilogy, you’ll remember the younglings doing the same. Moreover, and more closely connected to Ahsoka, Kanan Jarrus used a form of this practice when training Ezra in Star Wars Rebels. Star Wars canon gets the name for this form of training from Japanese novelist Kam Shimozawa, whose stories of a blind swordsman have long been a popular component of Japanese fiction.

Anger Leads to Hate

With Ahsoka acknowledging her training under Anakin coming to an early, ill-fated end and her refusal to train Grogu, it’s evident why she’d have apprehension around resuming Sabine’s training. However, while aware of Sabine’s bullish nature, Ahsoka seems to be pulling from a page of Master Yoda’s playbook, calmly addressing the dangers of allowing anger and frustration to take the reins of one’s emotions. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” In Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, Yoda (Frank Oz) spoke these words to a young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd); now Anakin’s Padawan is keeping the sentiment alive in the training of her own Padawan.

A Droid’s Unwanted Input

Droids are often giving their dry, matter-of-fact input at the worst possible moments, and Huyang (David Tennant) is no exception. It’s less of an Easter egg and more of a long-running joke, but Huyang’s persistent mentioning of Sabina’s poor performance as a Jedi candidate feels like a less than subtle reference to many droids before him. Especially reminding us of the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sabine even remarks on missing Huyang’s unwanted input when he’s out temporarily shut down during this episode’s star fight.

Chancellor Mon Mothma, Senator Hamato Xiono, and the State of the New Republic

This episode gave us a greater look at the state of the New Republic following the Empire’s defeat in Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, with glimpses of its fleet and an insider view of its political inner-workings. This brought forth the interesting inclusion of Senator Hamato Xiono (Nelson Lee). He’s a Senator from Hosnian Prime, which will eventually become the New Republic’s capital by the time of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens. He’s the father of Kazuda Xiono, who is the central character of the animated series, Star Wars Resistance, which takes place between Ahsoka and the sequel trilogy. The tentative attitude toward fighting Imperial remnants that Senator Xiono expresses in this episode of Ahsoka could likely be a key part of what leads to the rise of the First Order (and the eventual destruction of his planet in The Force Awakens).

Of course, we also have the inclusion of Chancellor Mon Mothma, played once again by Genevieve O’Reilly, who has become a staple of Star Wars media across all eras. First appearing in a deleted sequence from Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, Mon Mothma has since made appearances in Rogue One, Andor, and now again in Ahsoka.

Jacen Syndulla

Making his live-action Star Wars debut, Jacen Syndulla (Evan Whitten) popped up just after General Hera’s meeting with the New Republic representatives. The son of Hera and a Jedi Knight named Kanan Jarrus, Jacen was a mainstay of the Star Wars Rebels animated series. Although he never knew his father, as he died in combat during the Galactic Civil War just before Jacen was born, the Jedi aspirations live on in this young human/Twi’lek hybrid. He tells his mother that he wants to be a Jedi, which Hera lovingly acknowledges, potentially foreshadowing this character’s future in Star Wars media.

Ahsoka’s Space Walk Fight Calls Back to ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ and ‘The Clone Wars’

In the animated Star Wars series, The Clone Wars, we saw Ahsoka don a space suit with a large, clear helmet surrounding her entire head. Now, in Ahsoka, she’s got a live-action version of her suit, straying from The Clone Wars‘ design in its color and by making the helmet’s visor cover only her face, with her lekku fitted into a specially designed wrapping.

During Ahsoka’s untethered space fight, one particular move calls back to Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker. When she leaps across the ship’s wing, dodging and deflecting lasers, she slices through one of the enemy fighters as it whizzes past. If you recall one of The Rise of Skywalker‘s earliest teaser trailers, you’ll know which scene this references. When Rey (Daisy Ridley) runs across the desert floor with Kyle Ren (Adam Driver) racing up to her, his starfighter hovering at near-ground level, she dodges at the last possible second. Leaping over Kylo and slicing a wing from his ship, it’s one of the film’s most visually stunning sequences, making for an immediately recognizable call back in Ahsoka.

Purrgil, the Star Whales of Intergalactic Travel

So many of us like to call them space whales, and though they’re referred to as star whales here, that’s not likely to change. The purrgil were first introduced in Star Wars Rebels, and here they are making their live-action debut in Ahsoka. We caught a faint glimpse of their silhouettes in the most recent season of The Mandalorian, but this is the first time we’re seeing them in all their glory, witnesses just how massive they truly are.

The purrgil, with their spread of many tentacles and bulbous heads, are a species of massive, semi-sentient whale-like creatures that inhabit deep space. In Rebels, they played a part in thwarting Grand Admiral Thrawn, the elusive villain of Ahsoka. With this episode confirming their intergalactic ability to travel the universe, they’re sure to be a key part of the series going forward.