Star Wars: Visions season 1, episode 5 recap – “The Ninth Jedi”

By Jonathon Wilson
Published: September 22, 2021
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Star Wars: Visions season 1, episode 5 recap - "The Ninth Jedi"
3.5

Summary

“The Ninth Jedi” employs a very traditional story structure, but a clever twist gives it some freshness and edge.

This recap of Star Wars: Visions season 1, episode 5, “The Ninth Jedi”, contains spoilers.


Star Wars is synonymous with the Hero’s Journey. But thus far Star Wars: Visions hasn’t really attempted to replicate that age-old storytelling mould. “The Ninth Jedi”, though, is the closest the anthology series has come to a “classic” structure, combining the ascension of a plucky young hero with a clever twist and framing device to very solid effect.

Star Wars: Visions season 1, episode 5 recap

The timeline for this story is reminiscent of the Original Trilogy; the Jedi Order is all but extinct, their signature lightsabers gone, what they stood for sullied. The Dark Side rules, both literally and morally, but hope can be glimpsed in Margrave Juro, the steward of a planet named Hy Izlan, who intends to harvest Kyber crystals and rebuild the weapons of the Jedi to reform the Order. It’s a compelling proposition for both the Light Side and the Dark, all of whom are lured by emergency transmission and assemble in a temple.

The big dramatic question of “The Ninth Jedi” is what Juro’s endgame is – can he be trusted? Is he really able to make lightsabers, so long thought to be an extinct weapon? Quickly, though, we shift perspective to Kara, the young daughter of Zhima (Simu Liu, now a megastar thanks to Marvel), the sabersmith who has been tasked with crafting the weapons for Juro. She’s the Luke Skywalker, the Rey, of this story. Her task is to deliver the sabers to the temple, but when goons show up to punish Zhima for illegally crafting the weapons, she’s forced to use one of them, which looks suspiciously like the Darksaber, to get away unscathed.

When Kara hands the sabers over to those in attendance in the temple, they all ignite red. They are Sith, sent to impersonate the Jedi and determine if Juro was true to his word. Luckily, though, Juro is hidden among them as a droid and is able to turn the tide of the battle with his few allies, including Kara and a boy named Ethan. These warriors together, with Kara as the titular ninth Jedi, can help to rebuild the Order and begin to fight against the evil that has the galaxy in a stranglehold.

By emulating a traditional Star Wars structure, delivering a neat twist, and leaning into this particular portion of the timeline, “The Ninth Jedi” delivers a quintessentially on-brand experience. It isn’t aesthetically or narratively daring as some episodes have been, but it’s the kind of story long-time fans will likely be pining for.

You can stream Star Wars: Visions season 1, episode 5 exclusively on Disney+.

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