Chapter 19: The Convert

This episode starts off right where we ended off last episode with Mando and Bo Katan on the shore of the living waters. Mando wakes up and says that he didn’t know the waters would be that deep, and Bo says that they weren’t always that way. All of the bombs and explosions from the empire’s bombardment on Mandalore created tremors in the mines, opening them up a lot more than they used to (this could explain why the mythosaur is now accessible to Bo, since the tremors and quakes opened the ground up, revealing at least one mythosaur below the surface. There could very well be more down there). Bo asks Mando if he saw anything down in the waters, anything living, to which Mando responds that he was passed out by the time he reaches the bottom. The fact that Bo didn’t say anything about the mythosaur doesn’t sit right with me. She obviously wants to try to tame it herself and doesn’t want anyone getting in the way of that. I think Grogu knows or can sense that something is up, and will find a way to warn Mando about it. Mando takes a little bit of the water in a little flask as proof that he visited the living waters (I was a little confused how this water is actual proof since he could just get regular water and claim it to be the living water, but as we found out later in the episode, the living waters have magical properties which make effects when it mixes with regular water). The two leave with Grogu and return to Mandalore.

Once they get back to Kalevala, they are attacked by a group of Tie Interceptors (the more advanced version of the classic Tie Fighters). Katan drops Mando out of the Gauntlet and he jetpacks to his ship. Bo and Din take on the interceptors over the rocky shore of Kalevala and win in an epic dogfight. They approach the Clan Kryze castle, which is in the process of being bombed. Bo sees this and becomes furious, now that her family’s castle is obliterated, and she tries to catch the bombers when a massive fleet of interceptors appears. Mando persuades Bo to leave with him since they stand no chance against easily a hundred fighters. He sends her coordinates to an ‘unknown location’ and they escape into hyperspace without being chased (Tie Interceptors and Tie Fighters aren’t capable of entering into hyperspace because they aren’t equipped with hyperdrives. Usually small ships don’t come with them, but Mando’s N-1 starfighter is an exception). As we find out at the end of the episode, these coordinates are actually to the Mandalorian faction on the desert cave planet.

Just a heads up before I recap the Coruscant arc with Dr. Pershing: I am going to go through this part relatively quickly because there was a lot of unimportant and boring stuff throughout the 40 minutes of Pershing that I feel like could’ve been recapped in 20 minutes or less. All in all, if I seem to be going too quickly for this portion of the show, that is why.

We see Coruscant on screen just the way we saw it in Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith. We see the opera house in all its glory (which was a super nostalgic moment, especially for those who have seen Revenge of the Sith. This is where Sidious asked Anakin, “Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?”). Basically, Dr. Pershing is giving a Ted Talk about his time at the empire and his cloning research, and how he “regrets” all of his studies for the empire. In case you forgot, Dr. Pershing was the head doctor who was responsible for work on Grogu back in season 1. I’m pretty sure that he is lying about regretting his work because he gets pretty awkward when he talks about this part. He goes back to his apartment complex which is filled with former empire employees, including Elia, Moff Gideon’s former assistant. This apartment complex is called ‘amnesty housing’ and is a place for ex-imperials who are basically on parole. All of the members there have codewords instead of names, for example, Elia’s is G68. Elia, Pershing, and a couple other ex-imperials hang out in the courtyard and discuss rumors about Moff Gideon, with one guy saying he heard Gideon escaped on the way to his war tribunal trial (he could be behind the bombing of Bo Katan’s castle if he escaped). The group reminisces about certain things from their time on imperial ships, to which Pershing mentions travel biscuits. Once he returns to his room, Pershing hears his doorbell ring. He looks outside and finds a package of imperial travel biscuits outside his room, which were obviously from Elia (she is trying to lure him into trusting her).

The next day we see Pershing working his day job, where he is basically an office worker in his own cubicle. Obviously this is not a good job for a brilliant man like Dr. Pershing, but that is what the New Republic gave him. Later in the day, Elia takes Pershing around a carnival upper Coruscant, which is a lot nicer than the typical Coruscant we are used to seeing. Throughout their time together, Elia tries convincing Pershing to go against the rules of the New Republic and to start back up his cloning research. The next scene we see Pershing being interviewed by a droid. The droid is essentially giving him a satisfaction survey about his new life (I’m assuming this is the New Republic’s way of making sure the amnesty residents are both enjoying their new life and behaving). After the interview, Pershing goes to Elia and says that he wants to continue his research because it will be beneficial for the New Republic, but he doesn’t have the necessary equipment. Elia states that she does know where to find such equipment. We see Pershing at his new job again, and he is being told to discard a ton of files from the imperial days even though they are salvageable, and he seems to be fed up with his boss. He doesn’t see why beneficial files should be thrown out when they could help the New Republic, just because they have something to do with the empire. We see him being interviewed again with the survey droid, which is asking the exact same questions as before. This time, though, he takes more time to answer each question, and he lies about his satisfaction. At the end, he asks the droid if ‘doing something for the greater good trumps all else,’ to which it responds with a ‘yes.’ Pershing sees this as his green light to start back up his research.

The Doc asks Elia to take him to the equipment that she mentioned earlier so he can continue his studies. They set out via a New Republic tram and have trouble with the droid guards, but ultimately get to the scrapyard where a star destroyer is being dismantled (star destroyers are the classic imperial ships that are large and gray). The two go through the junkyard and onto the star destroyer. They find their way to the equipment room and Pershing puts everything he would need in a mini-fridge looking thing and they escape when a massive spotlight is pointed on them and the New Republic police apprehend Pershing. Elia takes the container with all his equipment in it and hands it to one of the guards, showing that it was her behind his arrest. The scene cuts to Pershing tied up on a bed surrounded by New Republic Mon Calamari (the Mon Calamari are a fish-like species, the same species as Admiral Ackbar from episode 6 Return of the Jedi who gave the famous line “It’s a trap!”). They hook him up to a mind-flayer at a low voltage so that it won’t wipe his memory, but actually soothe him and calm him of his ‘malicious intentions’ as the New Republic viewed them. The Mon Calamari doctor turns on the flayer and the crew leaves – except for Elia. She makes sure that no one is looking and turns the mind flayer up all the way in an attempt to wipe Pershing’s mind.

The episode cuts to Mando and Bo Katan dropping out of hyperspace and landing outside the cave where the Mandalorian faction is. Paz Vizsla, the big Mandalorian with the blue armor, greets them in an unfriendly way. He doesn’t like Mando, and he especially doesn’t like Bo Katan or any of the night owls (because of his family’s past conflicts with them. The night owls are the group of Mandalorians that Bo Katan is in). Bo and Din go to the Armorer, and she already knows who Bo Katan is. Nobody actually believes that Din bathed in the living waters until the Armorer pours the living waters and accepts this as proof of being redeemed. Mando is welcomed back into the Children of the Watch. Bo mentions that she had to dive into the waters to save him, to which the Armorer asks if she had removed her helmet since doing so. Since she had not, she is also accepted into the Children of the Watch. The other Mandalorians congratulate the two while Bo looks at the skull signet of the mythosaur hanging on the wall. End of episode.

This week’s episode was a little bit of a let down for a couple of reasons. It was a 58 minute run time (meaning that we were expecting a banger episode) but most of it was filled with Dr. Pershing’s time on Coruscant. We were hoping for an episode full of Mando, Grogu, and Bo Katan, but instead got a not-very-interesting chase around with Pershing and Elia. Nonetheless, we are still left with several major questions – why are the tie fighters bombing the Clan Kryze castle? Who is behind the bombings? Possibly an escaped Moff Gideon or, even better, Grand Admiral Thrawn? How did the Armorer know who Bo Katan is? Is the Armorer someone that we’ve already seen in Star Wars but didn’t realize yet? Since she never talks off her helmet, it will be hard to find the answer to this question – unless, of course, she does end up taking her helmet off (or it is removed by someone else). Is Bo going to stay with the Children of the Watch, or is she just faking it for some reason? She has proven to have selfish ulterior motives, so it will be interesting to see where she goes. A couple of big takeaways from this episode would be that Elia is still loyal to Moff Gideon and the empire, even though she seems to be helping out the New Republic. She doesn’t want Pershing to remember anything about his time with the empire for fear of him revealing something that shouldn’t be revealed, and she doesn’t want him to continue any research. Maybe they found a new doctor in secret. All in all, there were a lot of really interesting pieces in this episode and some great action scenes in the beginning with the dogfight, but the Coruscant arc dragged on for too long in my opinion. I obviously enjoyed the episode, but I have to give it a lower score because of the 40 minutes or so with Pershing. I would give this episode a 6.5/10.