Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian season three, episode three, “Chapter 19: The Convert.”
Last week’s episode of The Mandalorian ended with a cliffhanger after an action-packed episode that saw Din Djarin redeem himself and bathe in the living waters of Mandalore. This week picked up in the immediate aftermath while returning to some familiar faces.
This is the Way
After bathing in the living waters, Din (Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) were quickly beset by TIE interceptors that forced them to take shelter in the Mandalorian covert.
While most of the episode focused on other characters, the episode ended with Din and Bo-Katan being relieved of their apostate titles and accepted into the Children of the Watch.
It’s clear that much of this season will focus on the conflicting beliefs in Mandalorian culture. After Bo’s run-in with the Mythosaur in last week’s episode, it’s likely she will question more of her long-held views of her home, especially while living with the Children of the Watch.
Meeting the Mind Flayer
The majority of the episode followed the New Republic’s Amnesty Program for former employees of the Empire, primarily Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) as he struggled with whether to secretly continue his cloning research within the confines of the Republic’s bureaucracy.
After Pershing reunited with fellow former employee of Moff Gideon, Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian), she encouraged him to continue his research for the good of the Republic. But when Kane led Pershing to the outskirts of Coruscant, it ended up being a set-up where Kane was revealed to be a New Republic officer.
As a treatment for his impulses, Pershing was subjected to the mind flayer, a terrifying piece of Imperial equipment that they assured him would simply take away any remaining memories of his time with the Empire.
However, the final moments of the sequence saw Kane secretly turn up the frequency of the machine, either completely wiping Pershing’s mind or killing him.
It’s unclear what her exact motives were–whether she is still loyal to Gideon and didn’t want Pershing to share his research with the Republic, or whether she’s now loyal to the New Republic but has a radical view that Pershing is too dangerous to have his sanity.
Either way, it’s clear that the clone plot is a larger ongoing theme in Star Wars that will likely play out this season.
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