The Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 7 Takes Us To A Dark Place And Is Exactly What The Show Needed

Spoilers follow for "The Mandalorian" Chapter 23 – "The Spies."  

The neon-lit underworld of Coruscant is where the new episode of "The Mandalorian" begins. A shadowy figure in a trenchcoat walks through the alleys until we see who it is. Elia Kane (Katy M. O'Brien), the "former" Imperial who sold out Dr. Pershing in the third episode of the season, and then convinced the New Republic to withhold help for Nevarro, turns a corner to see an Imperial probe droid. It puts her in contact with none other than Moff Gideon, who is angry at her for allowing Nevarro to be rescued by the Mandalorians, since Gorian Shard's attack was one of his machinations as well. He tells her to get back to work and goes to the Imperial Shadow Council, warlords and Imperials who are working to bring about the glory of the Empire in the era of the New Republic. Gideon asks for help and resources, and Admiral Pellaeon and Commandant Hux are eager to give it to him when he reveals the increasing threats of the Mandalorians and how dangerous it is that they would be taking back their homeworld of Mandalore.

Meanwhile, the people of Nevarro are rebuilding, and the two disparate tribes of Mandalore are ready to reunite ... mostly. There is tension between the Nite-Owls and the Children of the Watch, but they're able to put their differences behind them when Lady Bo-Katan Kryze reveals her plan: they will travel to Mandalore, retake the Great Forge, set a perimeter, and then bring the settlers to the planet, taking Mandalore back for themselves once and for all.

That seems to go well enough until they see a great sailing ship on the horizon, converted by some sort of starship, and three abandoned Mandalorians aboard. They've survived in the wastes for years, and are grateful to see Bo-Katan once more, pledging their allegiance to her. They knew she would not forsake them. After all of the Mandalorians trade information about themselves and their pasts and what exactly happened, this new group of refugee Mandalorians agrees to take Bo-Katan and her party directly to the Great Forge.

But that's when they're surprised by white-armored Imperial super-commandos: agents of Moff Gideon who wear jetpacks in armor that is a definite cross between a Stormtrooper and a Mandalorian. The Mandalorians battle them through the caves of the remnants of the great forge, shocked that they're wearing beskar armor, too. Finally, they're backed into a more robust, Imperial looking facility. A blast door closes, Din Djarin is captured, and Moff Gideon reveals himself in a new beskar Mandalorian-style costume that looks somewhere between Din Djarin and Darth Vader. He threatens the remaining Mandalorians, but Paz Vizsla covers their escape, sacrificing his life to three red Praetorian guards.

And that's when the screen cuts to black and we're left with just one episode left in the season.

There is so much story packed into the Imperial Shadow Council in this episode, primarily with the inclusion of two specific Imperials. The rest are simply nameless warlords, but the two relevant to the broader storytelling are Pellaeon and Hux.

Pellaeon was first mentioned in the new canon in "Star Wars Rebels" and was part of the contingent of Imperials under Thrawn's command. He featured prominently as Thrawn's right hand in the "Heir to the Empire" trilogy of books, written in the early 1990s by Timothy Zahn. He is acting as a go-between with Thrawn and the rest of these Imperials, pretending to be disparate, scattered remnants to hide their true strength from the New Republic.

The other is Commandant Brendol Hux. Brendol Hux (played by Brian Gleeson, brother of Domnhall Gleeson, who played General Armitage Hux in the sequel trilogy) is a key member of the First Order and its rise. We learn in other "Star Wars" material that he was the architect of the Stormtrooper training program that abducted people like Finn, and was likely in charge of (or at least aware of) the mission that kidnapped Lando Calrissian's daughter, as they tried to erode the next generation of the Rebellion's heroes.

Putting both of these characters on the Shadow Council is a portent of things to come, both with the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the near term, and the resurgence of the First Order in the longer term. They're setting stakes in the ground for all of the storytelling across the next 30 years of the timeline in one scene.

One of the most ridiculous and adorable things this episode, something to lighten it against the darkness of the rest of the plot, is the Mech-suit given to young Grogu by the Anzellans. They've refashioned IG-11 into IG-12, which is more of a suit that allows Grogu to manipulate objects, fight, and say yes or no — hilariously so —when he wants. It felt so right for the world, but so deeply absurd.

"Dare to be cute" was an axiom that George Lucas wielded throughout the production of "Return of the Jedi" and no one quite knew what to do with it. When Lucas kept pushing the cuteness of the Ewoks, even Ralph McQuarrie felt he'd gone too far. But if you talk to folks now, Ewoks are a beloved cornerstone of the balance between the absurdist space fantasy of "Star Wars" and the grimness it provides. Grogu already felt like a natural extension of George Lucas's 40-year-old advice, and putting the darling creature inside of a walking bounty hunter droid suit on his path to become a Mandalorian feels like a step right to the edge of the line. It does solve some problems, though. Grogu now has a limited bit of vocalization. It also solves the problem of how they're going to give Grogu a helmet. They can put the helmet and the normal sized-armor on IG-12, and just let him be like Krang, the brain in the center of the suit.

It's perfect, really.

I imagine kids are going to eat this up and, frankly, that's who "Star Wars" is primarily for.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Paz Vizsla's sacrifice at the hands of the Praetorian Guards in this episode. Paz Vizsla has been largely a minor character across the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," but this third season has really fleshed him out into something incredible. But that's what happens when characters sacrifice themselves in heroic ways for the good of others. And after his vibro-blade fight against Axe Woves earlier in the episode (Axe Woves accused him of cheating at a chess-like game), it shows a lot of character for this guy to sacrifice himself for Bo-Katan and a united Mandalore.

Moments like these make "The Mandalorian" something fun to watch, rather than just cheap pablum. Do I think there is better written "Star Wars" out there? Absolutely. With writers like Rian Johnson and Tony Gilroy working in "Star Wars," not every show is going to meet their level of writing perfection. But Jon Favreau is playing with his toys and offering compelling yarns that are on a different end of the scale of what "Star Wars" can be.

This episode dropped a lot of tidbits that sow future story seeds. We've already talked about Pellaeon and Brendol Hux, but another sequel trilogy villain appeared in this episode. That was the Praetorian Guard, the elite enforcers and bodyguards of Supreme Leader Snoke. Moff Gideon asked for three of them for protection and he got them. It was fascinating to see their costumes reverse-engineered in the design a little bit, and incorporate more of that sequel-era design into this show. They're really bridging those two trilogies and I couldn't be happier about it.

Naturally, there was a gasp of recognition when Elia Kane stepped up to an Arakyd Viper probe droid, first seen in "The Empire Strikes Back." She uses that to communicate to Moff Gideon in a scene that feels like it's plucked right out of "Blade Runner." The noir vibe, the coat, and even her silhouette scream "Blade Runner" and that's not a bad thing at all.

Another cool flourish in this episode that feels like it's meant to give a nod to Thrawn is the paint job of a mythosaur on the bottom of their Imperial cruiser. For fans who remember "Star Wars Rebels," Thrawn had a mythical chimaera painted on the bottom of his flagship, the Star Destroyer Chimaera. Is this another subtle foreshadowing of the Chiss Grand Admiral's return? I think that's a very likely, intentional choice.

The last big thing I'd point out is the history of the white-armored Imperial super commandos in Moff Gideon's employ. We saw white-armored Mandalorians in "Star Wars Rebels", working with the Empire. And that's really what they started as in early designs for "The Empire Strikes Back." All of this stuff has a long history in "Star Wars" and it's super cool to see it all paid off.

This episode might be one of the best episodes of "The Mandalorian." Last week on the /Film Daily Podcast we talked about how they were going to have to introduce the big threat immediately in order to get any gravitas out of the situation to retake Mandalore, and this episode paid that back in spades. The structure of this episode reverses most of the rest of the episodes this season. Normally, we'd bookend an episode with an introduction of Bo-Katan and Din Djarin and then end with them advancing the story with a tangentially related story told in between. This time, we start and finish with Moff Gideon, and this is a really strong start and an incredibly strong finish.

It would take director Rick Famuyiwa making a major misstep in the finale episode to undo all the great work he did here, and something tells me he won't. In one fell swoop at the end of this episode, he gave us a Moff Gideon more dangerous than he's ever been and put everyone we love on the edge of annihilation once more. This episode, more than any of the others this season, has some of the best storytelling and the coolest imagery. We're spoiled right now with "Star Wars" and I never want it to end.

"The Mandalorian" is streaming only on Disney+. The season finale premieres next Wednesday.