IN REVIEW: STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN (S3 – EP7) CHAPTER 23 – The Spies

Synopsis: Moff Gideon’s spies inform him that Din Djarin and Bo-Katan have formed an alliance and intend to reunite The Mandalorian people.

The Story

Having formed an alliance between Bo-Katan’s army and the soldiers from his Covert during last week’s episode. Din Djarin and Bo-Katan begin making plans to repopulate their homeworld of Mandalore. Meanwhile, having learned of their plans from his spy on Coruscant. Moff Gideon prepares his army for an ambush in the hopes of crushing The Mandalorian rebels once and for all.

The Acting

Giancarlo Esposito returns to his role as the manipulative and extremely dangerous Moff Gideon who has his sights on putting an end to Bo-Katan and Din Djarin’s plans. Esposito gets some brilliant scenes with which to re-establish his character as we see Moff Gideon have a meeting in his holographic form with Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian) who tells him about Bo-Katan and Din Djarin’s alliance. This scene is immediately followed up with Gideon having a meeting with several other important figures from the old Empire. Who all seem to have plans of their own. It is strongly hinted in this scene that we will soon be seeing the legendary Grand Admiral Thrawn who we last saw in Star Wars: Rebels. 

Both Pedro Pascal and Katee Sackhoff are on point as we see the bond between Din Djarin and Bo-Katan strengthen as they manage to unite their people behind a common cause. They both have some great scenes. Including a scene where Din Djarin swears loyalty to Bo-Katan, which is pretty powerful.

Overall

The Spies is a solid episode that has a nice balance of action, drama, and a dash of comedy. However, we don’t really see a great deal of spying going on in the show aside from the opening scene where Elia Kane reports to Moff Gideon. We get some comedic moments with Grogu when he is given control of a robot body that has been made from what was salvaged from the G-11 robot that protected him during the show’s first season. Seeing Grogu assert himself by using the yes and no options on his new Robot Bodies command console was rather fun. Especially when it came to the scenes where he is stealing food from the merchant on Nevarro.

We get left with somewhat of a cliffhanger where we see Bo-Katan and her forces face off against Moff Gideon’s soldiers. But Din Djarin winds up getting hurt. Given how easily Gideon seems to have been able to gain the upper hand. You have to wonder if there are some Spies among Bo-Katan or Din Djarin’s people. After all, it was Mandalorians that liberated Gideon from the prison transport.