Films and Fiction

*Spoilers for episode 3 ‘The Convert’ ahead*

Another week brings another episode of The Mandalorian. We start where we left off, in the Mines of Mandalore, with Din and Bo-Katan recovering from their submersion in the Living Waters, but that isn’t really the main focus of the episode as two old faces make a comeback Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane.

Coruscant and the New Republic

It’s interesting to see the Amnesty Program showing how the New Republic is attempting to deal with the millions of former Imperial officers, scientists, and sympathisers who they’re trying to integrate into the newly restored democracy.

It really shows that the New Republic has a lot of the same problems as the old one. The Amnesty program completely failed to spot Elia Kane was still an Imperial supporter, yet took her word against Pershing, not even allowing the unfortunate doctor to protest his innocence before they subjected him to a dangerous procedure. And let’s not even start on the fact Kane was left alone with the controls to the machine. Greef Karga definitely has a valid point not wanting to join the New Republic.

An interesting thing was the top of Mt. Umate. I’d always assumed that the Lower Levels of Coruscant drilled down below the surface of the planet, but clearly they’re the original foundations, and everything else has built up from their.

What do yellow travel biscuits taste like?

Bo-Katan

Bo-Katan never gets a break. Just when she seemed to be getting her motivation back, her castle gets bombed and she has to leave Kalevara. The big question is, which Imperial would have access to squadrons of TIE Interceptors, which are more expensive than ordinary fighters, and also the bombers, which would need a carrier of some kind to fly from. Definitely a powerful Imperial officer.

The dogfight was a classic bit of Star Wars, though, fun and fast-paced, and the highlight of the episode.

Now that Bo is a part of the Covert, will she try and use them to return to Mandalore and rebuild the planet? She doesn’t have the Darksaber, but there is still the Mythosaur, and she’s clearly thinking about that a lot. So many possibilities.

Mando

With Pershing and Kane taking such a big role in this episode, I wonder if the series is in danger of forgetting its main character, in the same way The Book of Boba Fett did. It’s interesting to see these old characters return, and they have great stories that will no doubt be explained further in future, but it’s a fine balance that has to be met if there are multiple plotlines going on at the same time.

For Din, though, the main thing was his return to the Covert. Paz doesn’t seem too happy to see him, but for now he’s back where he wants to be. Speaking of Paz, he believe the Darksaber belongs to him, so there could definitely be some friction between him, Din, and Bo, given their connection to the weapon.

Finally, Grogu almost spoke again, it can’t be long until he says his first word, but what will that be?

Thanks for reading!