'Ahsoka' shocks viewers with the return of an iconic 'Star Wars' character, plus a cliffhanger ending

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the fourth episode of Ahsoka.

The final seconds of this week’s action-packed episode of Ahsoka ended on a cliffhanger while revealing a classic character, and it all sent fans into a frenzy.

The fourth episode, titled “Fallen Jedi,” marks the halfway point of the season and definitely set up more questions than answers. Here's a recap of what went down.

The episode picks up with Ahsoka and Sabine Wren still broken down on the planet Seatos, so they venture off to find the planet’s home base where dark Jedi Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati are standing between them and the map needed to find the evil Grand Admiral Thrawn.

In the episode’s final lightsaber battle between Skoll and Ahsoka, the latter is ultimately tossed off the side of a cliff and not seen or heard from until the episode’s final moments. After things play out with Sabine retrieving but then giving up the map to Skoll, the bad guys — with Sabine as their prisoner — set a course and blast off for what seems to be a whole other galaxy. More on that in future episodes, no doubt.

Meanwhile, viewers eventually see Ahsoka not hanging from the side of a cliff or at the bottom of the water, but rather (most likely) in a place known as the World Between Worlds. It’s like an endless void of sorts that once appeared in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. The fan site Wookieepedia describes it as “a mystical plane within the Force that served as a collection of doors and pathways existing between time and space, linking all moments in time together.”

It’s there that Ahsoka wakes up to the sound of a familiar voice: her former master Anakin Skywalker, aka the Jedi-turned-Darth Vader. After he says “Hello, Snips” and “I didn’t expect to see you so soon,” she turns around to see a young Anakin (think Episodes II and III), played once again by Hayden Christensen after also doing so in the prequel trilogy, and the series Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Anakin gives Ahsoka a little smile, and she just stands there staring at him with a look of wonder, awe, amazement and who knows what else, all impressively portrayed by Rosario Dawson. And then the credits begin to roll.

The ending left viewers on social media stunned, excited and thankful to series creator and writer Dave Filoni.

The episode also gives fans another blast from the past in the form of a classic Star Wars line, re-delivered yet again after being uttered in many of the films. Here, it's spoken by the Force-sensitive Jacen, played by Evan Whitten, who is the son of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Hera Syndulla. After they arrive in the space above planet Seatos near the end to try and help Ahsoka and Sabine, Jacen says:

“Mom… I’ve got a bad feeling.”

New episodes of Ahsoka are released Tuesdays on Disney+.