This week on The Mandalorian, we got our biggest update ever on what the Empire’s had cooking since they lost the war to the Rebel Alliance, the Mandalorians returned to Mandalore, and Moff Gideon finally made his move. The excellent “Chapter 23: The Spies,” directed by series staple Rick Famuyiwa, is quite dense with lore–by and large, these Easter eggs are substantial updates on characters and situations we’ve wondered about for years.
Even better, some of these Easter eggs are introducing direct plot throughlines from Return of the Jedi to The Force Awakens the likes of which we’ve never had before. This is a big episode.
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Chapter 23 of The Mandalorian, titled “The Spies.”
Most of this week’s episode concerns the return of the Manadalorians to their homeworld in force, but before that we had our first scene with Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon this season–he’s receiving an update from the spy Elia Kane within the New Republic about the threat that a united Mandalorian force might pose to the Empire’s short-term plans.
As soon as that phone call ends, Gideon steps into a Zoom meeting with other Imperial leaders to talk about how to handle that Mandalorian threat–and also to talk about Thrawn, the blue Imperial Grand Admiral who’s been missing since the series finale of Rebels.
From there, we move to the titular Mandalorian Din Djarin and the massive new army of fighters from Bo-Katan’s old crew and Din’s Mando cult. And this combined force immediately makes its big move toward Mandalore. There they meet even more Mandalorians–survivors of the Purge of Mandalore who have just been living down there the whole time–and then they all walk right into Moff Gideon’s trap.
This episode is easily the best of the entire series, and it’s got plenty of Easter eggs–but these are largely meaty and substantial references to the greater franchise that hold serious big-picture story implications. Let’s dive in.
