For the first time since the series premiere, a Jedi has appeared in The Bad Batch.
In the most recent episode of the animated series, “Tribe,” the squad stumbles upon a Wookiee Jedi named Gungi who is struggling to get home to Kashyyyk in the months following Order 66. They help him return home, and once there, help him fight off Trandoshan slavers allied with Imperial forces.
It’s pretty cool to see a Wookiee Jedi, and the episode handles it well. We know this particular Jedi, but if you watch The Bad Batch without knowing who this is, you can follow along perfectly fine. That’s the way nods like this can work best, as it means even more for those who understand the connections but isn’t confusing or distracting for those who don’t.
If you’re one of those people who don’t know who Gungi is, however, and are looking to learn a bit more, you’ve come to the right place!
Gungi was introduced in The Clone Wars‘ fifth season, playing a major role in the four-episode youngling arc. In the arc, a group of younglings travel to Ilum, where Jedi younglings find their lightsaber crystals, with Gungi among them. The kids are accompanied by Ahsoka Tano and on Ilum learn from Grand Master Yoda, and they experience adventures in the crystal caves before each one of them retrieves their lightsaber crystal.
Aboard their ship returning to Coruscant, the group gets to work building their lightsabers… but their ship is attacked by the pirate Hondo Ohnaka, who wants the kyber crystals for himself. Their ship was damaged and Ahsoka was captured, by they escape. The kids decide to finish their lightsabers and then go rescue Ahsoka. They travel to the pirate headquarters on Florrum and infiltrate the base, rescuing Ahsoka. But before they can escape, they are once again apprehended by the pirates, only to discover that the droid General Grievous had launched an attack on Florrum due to a separate feud with the pirates. Ahsoka, Gungi, and the other younglings joined together with the pirates to fend off the Separatists long enough to escape.
We don’t really know what Gungi was up to from that point through Order 66, but we now know that he survived the Purge and made it back to Kashyyyk. That doesn’t exactly provide an optimistic outlook either, since Kashyyyk winds up under Imperial occupation, but it will be interesting to see when Star Wars decides to continue his story.
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