“Essential” Star Wars Animated Episodes

Way back in 2020, immediately prior to the release of The Mandalorian season 2, I put together a list of essential episodes from the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels, focusing mainly on Ahsoka Tano and on the history of Mandalore and the Darksaber. I shoved that into a Google Doc that I shared around to prep people who had never watched the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels with a quickstart guide for characters making their live-action debut in The Mandalorian.

With the release of The Book of Boba Fett and the Disney+ slate of upcoming series, apparently one each for just about every character in the Star Wars universe, I’ve updated the list with a few more characters.

A few notes

• This list contains episodes which I personally think are important or interesting. Other people who have also sat through a bajillion hours of these shows and movies are entitled to make their own lists.
• For table entries with multiple episodes, the episodes comprise a story arc.
• I use the season.episode number convention. (Example: episode 3 of season 1 would be 1.3. An arc of episodes 12-14 from season 2 would be 2.12-14)
• Main characters/entities for an arc are in bold.
• Currently supported characters/entities
  • Ahsoka Tano
  • Mandalore
    • Bo-Katan Kryze
    • Darksaber
  • Boba Fett
  • Asajj Ventress (Clone Wars series villain)
  • Maul (oops, spoiler)
• Disney+ lists The Clone Wars in their original release order, which does not correspond at all with the actual story chronology until the final seasons. The list below conforms to the proper order.
• Bad Batch season 1 features many supporting characters we’ve seen in other series. I haven’t added any of them here, although that may change.
• Rebels has a more linear, self-contained storyline. You can watch the whole thing or not. Warning: Ezra Bridger is just so ducking annoying.

The Clone Wars

Season . Episodes(s)	Featured Characters	Importance	Notes
Movie	Ahsoka, Asajj	High	Introduces Ahsoka as Anakin Skywalker’s new padawan Introduces villain Asajj Ventress
1.2-4	Ahsoka	Medium	Fills in Ahsoka’s background and explains her character Ahsoka is only a major character in 1.2 and 1.3
1.9-10	Ahsoka, Asajj	Medium	Ahsoka and Asajj are only major characters in episode 1.9
1.13-14	Ahsoka	Low
1.17-18	Ahsoka	Low
1.19	Ahsoka	Medium	Ahsoka learns important lesson
2.1-3	Ahsoka	High	Major ties to future SW plots
2.17	Ahsoka	Low	Introduces Hondo Ohnaka, who makes frequent appearances in future plot lines
2.6-8	Ahsoka	High	Introduces a pivotal character for Ahsoka’s future
2.11	Ahsoka	Medium
2.12-14	Mandalore, Darksaber	High	Provides important background for Mandalore and also Bo-Katan Kryze, although she does not appear
2.20-22	Boba Fett	Medium	Catches up with Boba Fett after the death of his “father” in Episode II
3.5-6	Ahsoka, Mandalore	Medium
3.7	Ahsoka	Low
3.10-11	Ahsoka	Medium	Introduces an important character for Ahsoka’s future
3.12-14	Asajj	Medium	Asajj’s backstory and her relationship with another major villain
3.15-17	Ahsoka	Highest
3.21-22	Ahsoka	Medium
4.11-13	Ahsoka	Medium
4.14	Ahsoka, Bo-Katan Kryze, Darksaber	High	First appearance of Bo-Katan
4.19-20	Asajj, Boba Fett	High	Boba Fett only appears in 4.20
4.21-22	Maul	High	Maul really hates Obi-Wan Kenobi This arc’s storyline is picked up later in 5.1
5.2-5	Ahsoka	Medium	Important character development for Ahsoka, also introduces Saw Gerrera from Rogue One
5.6-9	Ahsoka	Low
5.1	Maul	Medium	Maul really, really hates Kenobi
5.14-16	Maul, Bo-Katan Kryze, Mandalore, Darksaber	High	Maul really, really, really hates Kenobi
5.17-20	Ahsoka, Asajj	Highest	The most critical turning point in Ahsoka’s life Asajj appears in 5.19-20
6.1-4		High	Important background for the clone troopers and Order 66
6.10-13	Yoda	Low	Not vital, but shows origins of an important piece of Jedi mythology
7.5-8	Ahsoka, Bo-Katan, Maul	High	Bo-Katan and Maul briefly appear in episodes 7-8
7.9-12	Ahsoka, Maul, Bo-Katan, Mandalore	Highest	The final gut-punch episodes Also, Maul still really hates Kenobi

Must-see The Clone Wars story arcs for selected characters (Ahsoka, it’s all Ahsoka)

Rebels

Season . Episode(s)	Featured Characters	Importance	Notes
2.1-2	Ahsoka	High	Catches up with Ahsoka after the fall of the Republic
2.3-4	Ahsoka	Low	Ahsoka appears only briefly in both episodes but it focuses on an important character from her past
2.10	Ahsoka	High	Ties with Clone Wars episodes 2.1-3
2.13	Mandalore	Medium	Introduction to Mandalore under the Empire
2.18	Ahsoka	High
2.21-22	Ahsoka, Maul	Highest	Maul also really hates the Emperor
3.7	Mandalore	Low
3.11	Darksaber	Low
3.15-16	Mandalore, Darksaber	High
3.20	Maul	High	And Maul just still really hates Kenobi
4.1-2	Mandalore, Bo-Katan, Darksaber	High
4.15-16	Ahsoka	High

Must-see Rebels story arcs for selected characters (as much Ahsoka as possible)

Viewing chronology

1. Theatrical Episodes I & II
2. A few stray episodes from The Clone Wars
   1. 2.16
   2. 1.16
3. The Clone Wars animated movie
4. Lots of Clone Wars episodes totally out of order
5. Final 4 episodes (Season 7, episodes 9-12) of The Clone Wars. This arc overlaps with the film Episode III. (Arguments can be made for a different viewing order, but this is the one I like.)
   1. CW episode 7.9
   2. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
   3. Remaining CW episodes: 7.10-12
6. Star Wars Bad Batch
7. Star Wars Rebels
8. Films: Rogue One, Episodes IV-VI
9. The Mandalorian
10. The Book of Boba Fett jumps around in time but seems to take place immediately after season 2 of Mando
11. Star Wars Resistance: animated series leading up to Episode VII (I couldn’t watch past the first season)
12. Episodes VII-IX

References

• Chronological list of Clone Wars episodes
• Wookieepedia