– Spoiler Review –
After her revitalizing and mystery-filled return in The Bad Batch’s third season, Asajj Ventress fans have been left waiting for more and the time has come in Tales from the Underworld! More is exactly what fans get in Asajj’s time in the series, a delightful and expansion-worthy continuation of her return that puts us all right back where we were, hoping for more!
While I didn’t do it after The Bad Batch season three episode “Harbinger,” I think it’s past time to update my review of Dark Disciple with the news of Asajj’s return! The novel adapted several unproduced arcs of The Clone Wars and dealt with a big storyline for her and the Jedi Quinlan Vos, but it ended with her dying, and I let my frustrations show in my review as it, at the time, felt like fridging her for Vos’ story. I always enjoy when I’m wrong about things like this, as while Vos is integral in starting the Hidden Path, an underground network to hide Jedi from the Empire, Asajj has had a far more visible return and he’s only been mentioned a few times. Tales of the Underworld takes the time to reveal the story of her resurrection, which while part of its scene differs from Dark Disciple’s take on it, the overall gist of the idea is there and what comes next is far more important anyways, as her set of episodes wastes no time in picking up and taking us on a fun journey, one which feels ripe for expansion. Sure, Maul got his new show announced for 2026 at Celebration Japan 2025, but maybe there’s still hope Asajj has a show and/or novel on the way as well!
Anyways, let’s jump into each episode to cover what made her newest return such an interesting and fun time.
“A Way Forward”
Nightsister magick has always been seeped in mystery and surprising abilities, so after Asajj Ventress appeared alive and well post-Dark Disciple and the powers-that-be promised it would make sense with what came before, I was curious about how she was revived/it would be made to all fit. As Asajj floats in the waters Quinlan brought her to on Dathomir, Mother Talzin (Barbara Goodson) awakens Asajj (Nika Futterman, of course!) from death and while she tries to reach out to Quinlan and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but she’s in the Nightsister’s spectral realm. Talzin gives Asajj a choice: stay with them or give up what she loves to return to the land of the living. Talzin says Quinlan’s confession is a gift, so can their magicks use the connection and love between them to yank her back to the living, and that’s how it’s a gift? Yet what are the benefits of going spectral Nightsister, besides being with her family again? While this is left vague and unconvincing, Asajj takes the offer to return to the living, even once she learns the cost is her “heart’s desire,” which the episode implies is Quinlan. I was curious what giving up her heart’s desire would mean, as it wasn’t clear if she returned to the living right away or if some years had passed, time in the spectral realm behaving different perhaps, so I was wondering if she was deposited back to life in a time period after he died or she just would always be drawn away from him/know if she gets close, she might die anyways. Later in the episode we hear Quinlan’s name, though it’s not clear if he’s still alive, and by the end of her three episodes we never see him, so his fate and how this all works is left unexplored for now.
“A Way Forward” picks up some unknown time later, Asajj working security for a little shuttle company on some nowhere planet, living an as quiet and peaceful life as she likes, until a young man stumbles into the door and asks for help. Asajj has been on quite the journey since starting as Count Dooku’s assassin and her choice to become a bounty hunter, where she ends up helping Ahsoka Tano and others along the way, was such an interesting new direction during the Clone Wars, and now after her relationship with Quinlan she’s continued her growth. There’s still the rough exterior and strong, silent type attitude, but her initial decline to help the young man followed by changing her mind shortly after speaks a lot to her new caring and selfless demeanor, which she does her best to hide behind her usual persona, as she doesn’t seem to want to admit she’s changed. She’s not eager to babysit the kid for long, hoping to drop him off at a shuttle and call it a day, get back to her humdrum life, but an Inquisitor (Daniel Ross) comes along and changes everything.
While we don’t learn his name until the second episode, the young traveler is a Jedi who survived Order 66 named Lyco Strata and he’s looking for Quinlan Vos’ Path to hide from the Empire, which piques Asajj’s interest of course. Lane Factor voices Lyco and my wife and I became big fans of the actor after Reservation Dogs, and everyone else in the show, and much of what he brought to his character Cheese he brings to Lyco, a youthful exuberance with some wiseness beyond his years, which makes for a funny and interesting dynamic with Asajj, who doesn’t want to like him and want to help him but can’t help herself with her new outlook on life. When the Inquisitor shows up, Lyco clearly has run into and from him before, though we don’t unpack the revelation on how and why he’s come into the crosshairs of the Inquisitorious in these episodes. Either way, the fight between Asajj and the Inquisitor is as thrilling as they ever are in animation, and I like how Lyco gets to be the one who takes him out, before they flee again from stormtroopers and jump on the leaving ship.
“Friends”
After revealing her history and identity to Lyco at the end of the first episode, “Friends” sees the two cautiously allied, Asajj hoping an old contact will have information to get them to the Path and get Lyco off her hands. The old contact is Latts Razzi (Clare Grant), still hanging with the droid C-21 Highsinger (David Acord), and she’s only willing to provide information if Asajj and Lyco help them on a mission to steal from the Imperials and give to some rebels. Latts and Highsinger are two characters we’ve not seen much of since their minimal appearances in The Clone Wars, but their time in Tales of the Underworld’s “Friends” make a strong case for more. Highsinger has always been a neat design and his deadly skills and cool spinning trick are a visual delight, but it’s Latts which whets my appetite for more of these two, as she wastes no time trying to drive a wedge between Lyco and Asajj and doesn’t hesitate to attempt taking him for ransom when they loose what they came for…plus, her grappling boa is just really cool. She provides the wanted intel when Asajj shuts down the kidnapping attempt and I like the idea that despite all their history, and now this incident included, these two could still end up working together, so here’s hoping that if Asajj is getting a show herself soon, Latts will make some contentious appearances, while I’ll be interested to learn who or what rebellious group she was trying to steal for!
There’s a really fun action sequence when the group attempts to steal a vital part of the shipbuilding process for the Imperial Star Destroyers, as things escalate and don’t stop doing so after Highsinger’s found sabotaging things. The sequence centers around the Star Destroyer shield generator domes, which Asajj ends up cutting loose from its platform and it begins to roll away, forcing characters to navigate inside and top of it while it moves, as well as the Imperial response needing to adapt, and it felt very Star Wars for the constantly adjusting situation, but also a little Pirates of the Caribbean too in the way characters had to climb around it. While stormtroopers appeared in the first episode, something about them here, in an Imperial facility, made them feel like a great middle-ground from their live-action movie appearance and how they were animated in Star Wars Rebels.
“One Warrior to Another”
Following up on Latts’ intel, Asajj and Lyco explore an arid desert planet for the Hidden Path, and after the events of the last two episodes, a friendship takes shape between the two, whether Asajj likes it or not, while the rapport in this episode hints how they could make a great team and even, dare I say it, a Master and Apprentice duo? She’s quick to listen to him and allows him to take the lead, all while still imparting her feelings and own ideas for what to do next, as they encounter an old Separatist, some silly cute raiders, and maybe finally find the Path.
Separatists are having a comeback, as while both sides of the Clone Wars had it wrong in the end, there was some legitimate criticisms and goals by the Separatists that, while haven’t always been discussed or covered, are being revisited in different projects over the last several years, from the battle droids the Ghost crew deals with in Rebels to Mon Mothma’s dealings with their various Senators as they are being reintegrated with the Imperial Senate in Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear novel. Despite how long it’s been, this old man hasn’t been able to let go of the war, seeing it in everything, and Asajj telling him both sides were wrong gives us a window in how much she understands about her role and what the bigger picture actually was back then. His unwillingness to let go puts him in conflict with the raiders, who turn out to be a cute new species whose water he’s stealing, and how she talks him down, helps him see a way forward without conflict, without death, says even more about her new outlook on life and what type of person she’s become. However, the biggest takeaway she gets from this interaction seems to be learning to let go, as when they find the Path, she decides not to go with Lyco, letting him, and therefore Quinlan, go and she sets off to chart her own path, so to speak. At least that’s how I took her decision, as while part of me wonders if she doesn’t want to take the chance something bad will happen if she does find Quinlan due to the magick which brought her back, this felt more like someone who was doing her best to move on and be whatever she wants to be next, which sounds like a fascinating start for a show of her own! Let’s go Lucasfilm!
I’d enjoyed Lyco in the first two episode, but “One Warrior to Another” was his shining moment, as his empathy, while used for a joke in “Friends,” is pivotal to ending the conflict between the raiders and the old man and his granddaughter. As angry and confrontational as old man is when they come back with the raiders, calling them animals or saying he can’t talk with them so therefore there’s no point, sometimes the Jedi didn’t stop and ask the other side when they waded into conflicts, so it speaks a lot to Lyco that he sees the harm they are doing, despite what comes off as a normally heroically coded sequence, and does what he can to mitigate it. The episode plays with our expectations too, with the old man injured and his only protection his little granddaughter so it seems like they are being treated poorly, and when the raiders appear, their armor and immense numbers make them intimidating and deadly, so it makes Lyco’s actions land with greater surprise. And while Asajj and Lyco part ways when they find the Path, the episode lingered too long for something else not to happen, though I was somewhat surprised it was Lyco choosing to stay with Asajj, though her calling him friend earlier and her sarcastic wish he was on the ship instead, it seems she wasn’t as surprised as I.
Here are a few other things:
- I’m under the assumption these episodes might be set before the events of Asajj’s appearance in The Bad Batch, but then that would leave questions about Lyco’s whereabouts, so we’ll have to wait and see when they clarify such a detail.
- Tony Amendola voices the grandfather, but fans might know him better as Eno Cordova in the Jedi games!
- Futterman spoke to the official site about returning again for the role and her own hopes for more!
Tales of the Underworld doesn’t disappoint with Asajj Ventress’ episodes, showing us the character’s growth and new lease on life, introducing an enjoyable new character in Lyco, and setting up for what surely feels like more to come.
+ The growth of Asajj Ventress continues
+ Lyco makes his own impact
+ Selflessness and learning to let go are something everyone can benefit from
+ Animation wows as ever, if not more so, while Futterman and Factor bounce off one another really well
– They didn’t announce her own show already?!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on and the website on Bluesky and Instagram @mynockmanor.
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