“If there is no path before you, create your own.”
Hello and welcome to Laughing Place’s weekly recap of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was recently revived on Disney+ for a seventh and final season. In this week’s installment, entitled “Gone With a Trace,” we finally catch up with former Padawan Ahsoka Tano (voiced by Her Universe founder Ashley Eckstein) in the wake of her abandoning the Jedi Order after she was wrongly accused of treason.
Riding a swoop bike into Coruscant’s underworld, Ahsoka nearly meets her demise when her vehicle malfunctions, but she manages to bring it to a semi-safe landing at a fix-it garage. There she meets Trace Martez (Brigitte Kali), the shop owner and mechanic. Ahsoka doesn’t have money to pay for her bike’s repairs, so Trace offers to let her stay in the garage and do the work herself.
Trace reveals she’s souping up a Nebula-class freighter in the garage, and Ahsoka begins work on her bike but tensions run high between the two at first. “No sense in keeping you here if you’re gonna be miserable,” remarks Trace. Ahsoka steps out to get some air and Trace starts fixing the bike for her. Their interplay cools a bit and Ahsoka begins to tell her new friend a little about her past, defending the Jedi when the topic comes up, but not quite revealing she was training to be part of the Order.
Lowering her guard as well, Trace says that she and her sister Rafa (Elizabeth Rodriguez) were saving up with the intention of making enough money to get away from the war and the Jedi. Just then, an alien named Pintu Son-El (Bobby Moynihan) comes in to collect a debt from Rafa, who he can’t find elsewhere. Trace attacks him and his goons with a pipe, and a scuffle breaks out. Trace tells Ahsoka to stay out of it, but then changes her mind when she loses the upper hand and asks for her help.
Of course Ahsoka kicks the hooligan’s butts, and Trace is stunned by what she witnesses in the brawl. She asks “Where did you learn to fight like that?” But Ahsoka doesn’t give up her secret quite yet. They find Rafa stealing from her own customers at the laundromat she apparently operates. Introductions are made, and Ahsoka is still guarded about her history: “I’m from topside. Your sister’s been helping me out,” is all she offers as a greeting. Trace is upset that Rafa has been dealing with Pintu, and the sisters have it out until a Twi’lek comes into the storefront to inquire about having custom droids built.
Ahsoka helps Trace in refurbishing the droids, but one of the Binary Loadlifters– which Ahsoka says are repurposed demolition droids prone to violence– suddenly attacks the two women. Fortunately they’ve already attached restraining bolts to the droids, and Ahsoka uses a remote to deactivate the defective one, but it somehow shakes the bolt loose and runs rampant. Trace and Ahsoka run through the city streets in pursuit, and Rafa is naturally upset at what’s transpiring when they race past her.
Ahsoka uses a tracking device to follow the escaped Loadlifter, which is now wreaking havoc on the underworld. She and Trace manage to pin it down with a forklift, but it breaks loose and climbs a building with Trace precariously dangling from its back. A young bystander helps out by pressing a button to deactivate the droid, but it topples backward and almost drags the forklift to its doom– with Trace attached. Thankfully, Ahsoka decides to reveal her Jedi powers and uses the Force to save her new friend. “See? Nothing to worry about. We had it all under control,” jokes Trace.
Rafa refuses to dismantle the rest of the Binary Loadlifters and gets into a heated argument with Ahsoka, but promises Trace she’ll do the right thing. Then Trace and Ahsoka have a meal together at the wharf, where Rafa meets them and says she sold the droids to the Twi’lek and used the credits to pay off Pintu, with enough left over for Trace to buy new tools. Trace is bothered by this decision but chalks it up to her sister being her sister. Trace wants Ahsoka to stick around, but the former Padawan insists it’s time for her to finally fix her bike and leave. “I think it’s for the best,” she concludes, as the pair head back to the repair shop.
