Serial Consumer celebrates and interrogates Evan’s relationship to franchised media and his addiction to purchasing its licensed products.

Ahsoka was an eight-episode nutfest. What am I gonna do every Tuesday night now when I don’t get 45 minutes of straight Star Wars nutting penned by Dave Filoni, the only guy who understands what this stuff is supposed to be in its most perfect form?

All these critics crying into their keyboards pretending like this isn’t the absolute raddest shit currently released this fall. Star Wars is on a roll here, with Andor and the most recent season of The Mandalorian and now this, a show where the finale involves three Jedi fighting through Stormtrooper zombies and kung-fu witches to stop Evil Moriarty from starting a war with his witch-majik army. Jesus, what a masterpiece.

I don’t know. What more do you want from me? The finale clearly sets up a second season in such a way that Filoni can avoid using Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) too much while still telling a new story about Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) that furthers their partnership. I’m so excited to see how all of this develops. I just want more of it. We’re in a golden age of Star Wars content. I want to live inside of it forever.

Some points:

  • The upgrade for Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) is great. Kinda sad the current release of her figure doesn’t reflect it; now I know what to wait for.
  • I love Ezra Bridger’s (Eman Esfandi) new saber. I love his conversation with Huyang (voiced by David Tennant) while building it and I simply adore how it reflects Kanan Jarrus’s blade, blue and all.
  • Glad to get some explicit information about Sabine and Ahsoka’s first breakup.
  • Thrawn is once again depicted perfectly here, his victory assured and meaningful.
  • Night Death Troopers.
  • Zombie troopers living up to Marrok’s setup earlier.
  • The moment where Sabine saves Ahsoka was well done! I love the entire fight between Ahsoka and Morgan, a great pay-off for someone who watched their episode of The Mandalorian like 40 times.
  • “Perhaps this is where a ronin such as yourself belongs.”
  • Obviously Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) must be recast, but it’s hard to imagine who could fill Stevenson’s shoes.
  • Perhaps Ahsoka will team up with him. I’d love for them to talk more.
  • Loved the use of the classic “the Force” theme when Sabine is pushing Ezra.
  • Is that a Mortis God statue that Baylan is standing on?
  • I was a little uneasy on the final shot as it happens, but it feels appropriate. Shadows in the starlight.

Consumer Report

As I mentioned last week, I had expected this to be a low-key collecting season. Somehow, I ended up getting at least one or more of my much-anticipated figures nearly every week. Things just worked out, and this last week has been no different.

First up is the Republic Commando. This is a Walmart exclusive my brother managed to snag me locally off-shelf, a fortuitous find given that Walmart-exclusive + army-building clone means he’ll be hard to find for quite a while. I never bothered collecting the Delta Squad commandos from the game Star Wars: Republic Commando — although they’re not impossible to find — but a plain commando as shown in the second season of The Bad Batch seemed like a good addition to my The Bad Batch shelf, which won’t be growing much larger given space constraints. I actually prefer their more colorful looks from this most recent season, but I already have their initial grey-scale armor and I don’t love the characters enough to invest in duplicates of them.

I also added a very long-awaited figure to my collection on Sunday with the release of the Target-exclusive Darth Vader: Final Duel from that Obi-Wan Kenobi show. I didn’t like that show, and I didn’t like that duel at all, but I really love it when Vader gets his face slashed to reveal Anakin (believe it or not, it happens all the time!), and immortalizing that still felt great on my shelf. I’m kind of disappointed in myself because, after opening, I realized his face-paint application is kind of fucked up: He looks pretty tired rather than angry. If I’d noticed at the store, I might have returned him and waited for a restock, but then again, I talked so much shit about Obi-Wan Kenobi that it feels appropriate for that show to disappoint me one last time. This concludes my Obi-Wan Kenobi shelf. Good riddance.

Coming in just under the wire: On Tuesday morning, I was at Target and happened upon a freshly stocked peg of 501st Commander Appo, the other new Target exclusive. Well, I kinda had to get one, especially with the Target Circle deal going around. I’m a big fan of Clones anyway, and he’s the first straight-up 501st Clone with the body mold introduced back in 2020. A great figure! Too expensive to army-build but neat to own. I’m excited that all the new Clones are seemingly going the removable-helmet route.

Shopping List

I want Ezra’s lightsaber now, too.

I want everything on this screen.