This week’s episode of The Mandalorian is joy wrapped in an epic 40-minute long gift wrap filled with humor, some thrilling moments, and some serious story building elements that happen to make this series suddenly a lot more serious.
So, let’s just get to the nitty-gritty of this week’s episode.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Toward the end of this episode we got a softer, more vulnerable moment with Cara Dune as she is questioned by a New Republic X-Wing pilot about her past as a soldier of the Rebellion. We are once again reminded that she was from Alderaan but for the first time we get to see how the loss of her homeworld has affected her.
The emotion on her face is there as she says, “I lost everyone.” And that emotion is still there as he offers her a chance to join the New Republic.
But why is he interested in offering her a job for the New Republic. Because he sees something happening in the galaxy. An arising darkness that will one day send the New Republic into ruin; the First Order.
And just like that, The Mandalorian is beginning to bridge the gap between the Original Trilogy and the Sequel Trilogy. He’s a tiny speck of the beginning of the idea of the Resistance and Moff Gideon with his new totally terrifying motto, “Long live the Empire” is the ideal puppet for the beginning of the First Order.
I see you Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.
And then of course there’s this jaw-dropping moment that left me like, “What?!” Earlier in the episode we learned that Moff Gideon had The Child captured because he wanted to take his blood filled with midichlorians and transfuse it into his subjects.
You know what that means, right?! Force-sensitive stormtroopers. Moff Gideon is making himself a lethal squad that’ll make the Death Troopers look like regular stormtroopers, and that is why Ahsoka Tano is important in the scheme of this story.
Mando’s not going to be able to take these baddies on by himself. In fact, he’s going to need all the help he can get.
Now, next week we’re truly in the dark. The footage that we have seen has all been from the first four episodes of the season and that means we have no idea what’s ahead. Where is this season going storywise, what surprises are in store, and how will it end?
We’ve got four more weeks and I have a feeling it’s going to be quite an experience.
I thank you for reading and I hope you have a beautiful day.
Annlyel Online 
Hm. If it weren’t for the fact that the First Order was well established to draw their troops largely from kidnapped child soldiers being trained as they grew up, your comment about Force sensitive stormtroopers might make me wonder if we’re looking at the makings of Finn here. I’d call that one way less confident than that, yeah, Gideon is a bridge figure to the First Order (as I already theorized last week 😜), and that there seems like a solid chance that these experiments will eventually result in the making of Snoke. That said… it’s possible this series is spraying a lot of different transitory hints around as to how the First Order could have arisen from the ashes of the Empire. The longer this goes on, the more I’m convinced that we’re seeing it in its cradle here.
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