Easy isn't always simple.
Anakin and Ahsoka are in the slums of Coruscant searching for Car Affa, an arms dealer selling Republic weapons to the Separatists. They arrive at a bar where Affa is hiding, and Anakin instructs Ahsoka to wait outside while he apprehends the fugitive. When the patrons storm out of the bar, Ahsoka is jostled by the crowd and her lightsaber gets stolen. She wants to keep the loss secret from her mentor, so she goes to the library to try and track down the thief on her own, and ends up partnering with an elderly Jedi Master, Tera Sinube, who has decades of experience with Coruscant's criminal underworld.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: "The value of moving slowly is that you can always see the way ahead."
- Alliterative Title: "Lightsaber Lost".
- Bait-and-Switch: Before Ahsoka loses her lightsaber she spies a couple of Weequay pirates eyeing her nearby, complete with the same kind of Shoulder Pet as Hondo, implying that they will be the ones to steal her lightsaber, only for the following scene to reveal it was actually a short, aquatic alien.
- Call-Back: Yoda is seen teaching lightsaber skills to younglings again.
- Call-Forward:
- Among the pictures of criminals on the computer are bounty hunters Aurra Sing and Robonino, as well as Brea Tonnika, one of the patrons of Chalmun's Cantina on Tatooine during the events of A New Hope.
- Sinube's line of "Help you? Hmm?" calls forward to one of Yoda's first lines to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back.
- Continuity Nod:
- Ahsoka and Master Jocasta Nu are still on good terms from Ahsoka's brief stint as library security.
- Ahsoka mentions that Anakin is always telling her that her lightsaber is her life.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sinube lets a few quips out, making a pun about there being something "fishy" about the pickpocket, and getting a barb in at Ione's expense after she is captured.Sinube: You ran off in such a hurry. I trust you didn't mean to be rude.
Ione: I have nothing more to say to you, Jedi.
Sinube: Well, perhaps you meant to be a little rude. - Dirty Coward: Cassie turns and runs the instant she realizes that Ahsoka is a Jedi and threatens a mother and her child when cornered to try and force Ahsoka to back off.
- Evil Duo: Cassie and Ione, with a side order of Interspecies Romance and neither of them possessing the brains.
- Granny Classic: While there's nothing on her cooking skills, Jocasta Nu is glad to go out of her way to help Ahsoka try to track down the pickpocket and help her hide that she's lost her saber from Anakin. When her own search is going too slowly, she quickly points Ahsoka in the direction of someone who is an expert on the criminal underworld Ahsoka is looking through and who has a lot of time on their hands. She is in effect the exact opposite of the Scary Librarian.
- Hostage Situation: Cassie takes a Twi'lek mother and son hostage on the train to try and prevent Ahsoka from coming after her.
- Idiot Ball: It’s presented several times during Ahsoka’s pursuit of Cassie. Ahsoka could've retrieved her lightsaber using the Force. And yet instead, she chooses to chase Cassie all over Coruscant's busy skyline.
- Incredibly Obvious Bug: The tracker Master Sinube plants on Ione is large and has a flashing light on it. It's a wonder Cassie didn't notice it earlier.
- Interspecies Romance: Ione Marcy, a Salenga, is in two. She's the girlfriend of Trandoshan Nack Movers and is also in a relationship with Terrelian Jango Jumper Cassie Cryar.
- Ironic Echo: There was a billboard which showed Senator Palpatine decrying rumors of the Jedi starting the Clone Wars to gain more power over their government... that's a lot different than the story he sold later on.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Downplayed, but Ahsoka gets rather aggressive with Bannamu, telekinetically throwing him into a wall when he makes a remark about her being too young to be a Jedi.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Ahsoka and Tera pose as buyers to try and get information on Bannamu's whereabouts from a pair of black-market arms dealers. When the arms dealers realize they're dealing with Jedi, one of whom had their lightsaber stolen by Bannamu, they immediately decide it would be a bad idea to get in their way (and that they could get a favour out of it later on) and reveal Bannamu's location without protest.
- Lame Pun Reaction: This is how we're introduced to the elderly Master Sinube. He learns that the pickpocket was from an aquatic world and immediately realizes that Ahsoka sensed something fishy about him. Ahsoka is not impressed.
- Laughing at Your Own Jokes: Tera laughs after making a pun about Ahsoka saying there was something fishy about the thief.
- Meaningful Background Event: See Suspiciously Specific Denial.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Ahsoka, when she realizes that someone in the crowd of people who pushed past her stole her lightsaber.
- Cassie, when she realizes that Ahsoka is a Jedi and the original owner of the stolen lightsaber.
- Old Master: Master Sinub. He may fall asleep in the library and move (and drive) at a snail's pace, but he is an expert on Coruscant's criminal underworld and has all the wisdom one would expect of such an elderly Jedi on top of being skilled with a lightsaber.
- Le Parkour: Cassie and Ahsoka's chase scenes feature a lot of freerunning. Cassie, being a Terrelian Jango Jumper, is particularly skilled at it, and Ahsoka is only barely able to keep up by using the Force.
- Percussive Pickpocket: This is how Bannamu steals Ahsoka's lightsaber. There were multiple people running by her and bumping into her, so she didn't take particular notice of him.
- Possession Implies Mastery: Averted; Cassie seems to assume that simply having a lightsaber makes her as deadly as an actual Jedi, but it takes her several minutes to even figure out how to turn it on, and when Sinube crosses blades with her, Cassie is disarmed almost instantly.
- Prepare to Die: Subverted and Played for Laughs when Cassie pulls out the lightsaber, says this trope almost word for word, and tries to activate it... but she can't figure out how to turn it on.
- Pull the Thread: Sinube realizes there's something odd about the tale of the young woman in Nack Movers' apartment, so he begins probing to see what's going on.
- Roof Hopping: Ahsoka ends up chasing Cassie across the rooftops of Coruscant.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Cassie pulls this when she realizes she's face to face with the Jedi whose stolen lightsaber she's holding (and that she can't turn said lightsaber on). Ione pulls this as well once Master Sinube realizes she was in on Nack Movers' death, but Sinube saw that coming a mile off and had already planted a tracking device on her.
- Senior Sleep-Cycle: Tera falls asleep while reading, and claims he was just resting his eyes when woken.
- Smug Snake: Cassie is very confident in her ability to use a lightsaber, believing it makes her as powerful as a Jedi. Not only does it take her several minutes to even figure out how to activate the weapon, but her dialogue also implies that she doesn't know much about the Jedi (she doesn't identify Ahsoka as one at first and describes the well-known Jedi Mind Trick as a "Jedi Force trick").
- Spotting the Thread: Ione initially claims that several men killed Nack Movers, but Sinube catches on to the lie when Ahsoka reports encountering a female assailant.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: During the rooftop chase to recover her lightsaber, Ahsoka ends up in midair, clinging to the face of a huge billboard of Chancellor Palpatine denying that the Jedi started the Clone Wars in order to gain more power over the Republic. Obviously, it's not true... but this is Palpatine we're talking about. It’s double triple reverse psychology and all that. It doubles as a Call-Forward to Palpatine accusing the Jedi of attempting a coup to justify their outlawing and extermination and the reformation of the Republic into the Empire in Revenge of the Sith.
- Sword Cane: It turns out that Master Sinube's lightsaber is the handle of his cane.
- Take Me Instead: Subverted. When Cassie takes hostages on the train, Ahsoka offers herself to go in their place, pointing out how much she is worth to the Jedi. Cassie refuses, pointing out that Ahsoka could just use the Force on her the instant she gets close.
- Tracking Device: Master Sinube plants one on Ione Marcy to follow her and Cassie.
- Underestimating Badassery: Ione thinks of Sinube as a slightly crazy old Jedi and not much of a threat. Then, he figures out her secret, tracks her to the train station, anticipates her arrival at the next platform, and disarms her in under five seconds flat. Ahsoka has much the same reaction when they first meet.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The episode is based on the classic Akira Kurosawa film Stray Dog, with Ahsoka in the Murakami role and Sinube as an Expy of Sato.
- Would Hit a Girl: After disarming Cassie, Sinube knocks her out with his cane.
- Would Hurt a Child: Cassie threatens a mother and child when Ahsoka corners her.
