Spies & Cliffhangers: ‘The Mandalorian’ Recap & Speculation!

The penultimate episode of The Mandalorian gave us some answers and even more questions! Let’s break down the episode from Grogu’s new suit to that cliffhanger of an ending.

***SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 7***

From the first episode, we knew that this season of The Mandalorian would be different. Instead of the adventure-of-the-week format that dominated the previous two seasons, Din and Grogu found themselves on a much grander quest to retake Mandalore. Every episode felt like it was building to a much larger story that would affect not just this show but the larger Star Wars continuity, and this week proved that to be true.

This week we finally saw Din Darjin and Bo-Katan return to their ancestral planet in the hopes of retaking it, but found much more sinister forces than they were expecting. Let’s break down all the big moments and what we can expect from the season finale!

Grogu’s New Suit

To start things off on a lighter note, the episode opened with Greef Karga gifting the body of IG-11 (now known as IG-12) to Grogu. The former droid bounty hunter is now a suit that Grogu can walk around in. While it is sad that this probably means the IG-11 we knew from season 1 will never return, it is exciting (and adorable) to see Grogu marching around next to his dad. The suit also helps him communicate as he can now press buttons to say yes or no. This does imply that Grogu may be more intelligent than he lets on, as he seems to fully understand what Din and Greef are saying and respond appropriately. Is he choosing not to talk and act like an infant, or is speaking just hard for his species (I mean, look at Yoda’s grammar, and he was 900 years old!).

This was a great addition to the show, and hopefully, one that will stick around for at least a little bit, at least long enough to give us some good action scenes.

Too Many Moffs

The biggest game-changer this week was the return of Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon. Esposito is an incredible actor and always makes a terrifying TV villain, so it’s always exciting when he is able to add some gravitas to the Star Wars galaxy. In this episode, we learned that he has been hiding on Mandalore and plans to create an unstoppable army so that he can retake the galaxy.

This isn’t the most shocking reveal however, what was surprising is that he is seemingly running this as a rogue operation. While talking to fellow Moffs, Gideon expressed his doubt about the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (something we know is coming thanks to the recent trailer for Ashoka), so is Gideon not a part of the rise of the first order? If he is still alive after this season, he will no doubt be in a power struggle with Thrawn, and that’s not a fight he’s likely to win.

New/Old Death Troopers

Gideon has clearly been busy while on Mandalore, as he has created a new Death Trooper armor out of Beskar. These suits (and weapons) shared a striking resemblance to those found in the sequel trilogy, especially to Snook’s guards in The Last Jedi. These suits were always beautiful and scary, plus the guard fights scene in The Last Jedi is one of the best action scenes in all of Star Wars, so hopefully, the season finale can deliver something as cool as that.

THAT Cliffhanger

Sadly, this episode ended with Din’s capture and Paz’s tragic demise. While we never saw his face, Paz had gotten a lot of development these past few episodes, and it was a bummer to see him go.

While this episode was packed full of reveals, it was clearly only the story’s first half, hence the abrupt ending. Both this episode and the next were directed by Rick Famuyiwa, and he has once again knocked it out of the park, so he should be able to deliver a spectacular ending for the season.

Next week brings us the season finale, and it’s sure to be action-packed. With Din captured, Grogu will probably use his new bounty hunter suit to try and rescue his father. We also know that the New Republic is aware of Gideon’s escape, so we could see some rangers come to Mandalore and aid in the battle. However, Gideon’s Death Troopers may be too much for a handful of Mandalorians and Rangers. There’s always a chance that Dave Filoni and the company have another surprise cameo in store for us. It would be hard to top the Luke Skywalker reveal of last season, but stranger things have happened.

Make sure to stream the season finale on 4/19 on Disney+!