One of the benefits of all the Star Wars content being on Disney+ is that it’s really easy to catch up on older content that you may have missed. Case in point, The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, two animated series from Dave Filoni which featured Jedi Padawan turned Rebel Ahsoka Tano. She’s Anakin’s apprentice who up until the second season of The Mandalorian, was exclusive to animation. But now she’s the protagonist of her own series, with Dave Filoni showrunning and Rosario Dawson returning in the lead role. But if you’re only familiar with the character from Mando and The Book of Boba Fett, you may be feeling that you need a bit more context around the character. So here’s a selection from the canon to get you caught up, as well as some elements from the old Legends continuity if you have the time.

The Clone Wars

The Clone Wars ran for seven seasons, so that’s quite a lot of content to catch up on before Ahsoka releases on August 23rd. Thankfully, each episode or “arc” features shifting protagonists, with some characters being entirely absent for long stretches. So focusing in on the essential Ahsoka episodes really isn’t that hard. She does make her introduction in the incredibly rough-to-watch feature film debut, but you can skip over that as long as you know that Ahsoka was assigned to Anakin, rather than him hand-picking her. In terms of important character stuff, you should consider watching the following:

Cloak of Darkness (season 1, episode 9)

The Mortis Arc (season 3, episodes 15-17)

The Onderon Arc (season five, episodes 2-5)

The Younglings (season five, episodes 6-9)

Ahsoka’s Trial (season five, episodes 17-20)

The Siege of Mandalore (season seven, episodes 9-12)

Tales of the Jedi

Tales of the Jedi are micro episodes focusing on the lives of both Ahsoka and Count Dooku over various parts of their lives. While I thought the Dooku episodes were superior, there’s still some great Ahsoka content to be had here. Her episodes are the first, fifth and sixth, the latter being an adaptation of the novel Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston.

Rebels

Ahsoka isn’t a primary character in Rebels, but as we’ve seen in the trailer for Ahsoka, many characters from that series will be making the jump to live-action. We know Sabine is a co-lead in the show, so watching some of the Rebels episodes focused on her would also be a good idea leading into this new series. These episodes focus more on Ahsoka and Sabine but I would encourage you watch more episodes to get to know the rest of the crew of the Ghost.

Season 1, episode 15 (she is only in it at the end of the episode, but still!)

Season 2, episodes 1-4, 10, 13, 18, 21-22

Season 3 Episodes 1-3, 5, 11-12, 15-16, 21-22 (Ahsoka doesn’t feature in season three at all but Sabine starts to take on a more centralized role as the show goes on. We also get the debut of Thrawn in episode five, who features in Ahsoka in some capacity and will likely be the big bad in Filoni’s theatrical movie, hopefully, titled Heir to the Empire).

Season 4 Episodes 1-2, 13 (which may be the most important if elements from this episode may their way into live action), 15-16 (this season abandons the episode-of-the-week structure and adopts a more continuous story, so ideally you should just watch it all, it’s the strongest season by far anyway and you’d get more out of it watching it all).

Live-Action

The Mandalorian season two episode five

The Book of Boba Fett episode six

Canon Novels

E.K. Johnston’s novel as previously mentioned is the one and only canon novel featuring Ahsoka. But I’d opt for the two canon Thrawn trilogies. The first trilogy is Thrawn’s time in the Empire, from his early days all the way through to the events of Rebels, with some Clone Wars-era flashbacks thrown in during book two as well. The other trilogy is about Thrawn’s time before the Empire, while he was still with his own people, the Chiss. These novels are very far removed from the core story and don’t even feel that Star Wars-y (I got Trek vibes more actually) but it’s still a great look at Thrawn in his element.

Legends Novels

While not as essential now, elements from the original Thrawn trilogy will surely come to pass in Filoni’s movie if he calls it Heir to the Empire, which is the first book in the trilogy. This was our introduction to Thrawn, who took control of the Empire after Palpatine’s death. While those books featured Luke, Han, Leia, Lando and Chewie (as well as new characters like Mara Jade), the new canon will likely replace them with the likes of Ahsoka and Din Djarin. Still, they are some of the best Star Wars content out there, regardless of the canon.

And that’s a selection of what I think are some good essentials leading into the Ahsoka show. You’ll naturally have some holes in Rebels if you only watch her episodes, as she’s not a leading character, which is why I’d recommend an even wider selection as the show appears to be a fifth season of Rebels in a way. Happy watching!