Mandalorian’s Pershing and Elia Kane Episode Prepares Star Wars Sequels

The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 3 brings back two recognizable faces from past seasons: Dr. Pershing, the Empire-linked clone scientist, played by Omid Abtahi, and Elia Kane, a sidekick of Moff Gideon. Her reappearances come loaded; “Chapter 19: The Convert” is The Mandalorian‘s most political hour and one of the most chaotic. Star Wars has never been more “I’m just asking questions!” than in Pershing’s quirky redemption arc and Elijah’s return, which seems poised to tie the Disney Plus show to the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for all of The Mandalorian through “The Convert.”]

Last years Andor took Star Wars into its darkest corners, questioned the morals of so-called heroes during a time of war, and exposed the Empire’s most violent, authoritarian tactics. Between rebel terrorism and government-sponsored labor prisons, the galaxy far, far away looked bleaker than ever – reflecting the worst of our real world. “The Convert” finds The Mandalorian play in a similar key, albeit one with a little more tinfoil hat energy than Andor Creator Tony Gilroy’s poignant commentary. It’s easy to imagine why Jon Favreau’s Star Wars series is trending in this direction given what we know about the sequel trilogy, but between Din Djarin and Bo-Katan’s return to the Children of the Watch we get a rewrite of one Wartime Eugenicist as a heroic misfit and the New Republic as an overstretched government subjected to the same fascist impulses as the Empire. Interesting…

Star Wars isn’t as simple as “good versus evil” anymore. It was, even though George Lucas claimed for years it was a deeper metaphor for the Vietnam War, but no more. Not after Lucas’ prequel trilogy, the Lucasfilm sequel trilogy, the many Star Wars cartoons, and a bevy of Disney Plus Star Wars series poking around in the BBY/ABY timeline. Telling more and more stories in the universe required complexity and gray areas. Gilroy and his Andor The Season 1 staff took the opportunity to take the most unabashed look at “wartime” in Star Wars.

Image: Lucasfilm

In that regard, I don’t blame Favreau and his co-writer Noah Kloor for wanting to do the same The Mandalorian, even if the promise of the first two seasons was mushy. As Din Djarin and Bo-Katan race to reclaim Mandalore, there will inevitably be some true terrors as those in orbit of the Great Purge reckon with the past. But The Convert feels lost in the fog of giving Star Wars greater meaning and “explaining” how we got to the ridiculous arc of The Force Awakens, The Last JediAnd The Rise of Skywalker.

After an action-packed opening with Din and Bo-Katan, The Convert introduces Dr. Pershing, who most recently helped Moff Gideon build a Dark Trooper fleet and held Grogu hostage The Mandalorian Season 2 finale. In the Season 3 timeline, Pershing is on Coruscant after defecting to the New Republic in the name of science.

“I believe the pursuit of knowledge is the noblest thing a man can do,” he tells an audience of Coruscant’s elite. “Unfortunately, my research was twisted into something cruel and inhuman at the behest of a desperate individual who wanted to use cloning technology to gain more power. But despite the nefarious work of my past, I hope to be able to help my New Republic in any way I can.”

Image: Lucasfilm

As it turns out, the New Republic is running a more mundane version of Operation Paperclip, the covert US program that recruited Nazi scientists to work on the Saturn space rockets. It’s unclear what the New Republic wants from Pershing by throwing him into a tech-related data entry job, but the doctor still has eugenics dreams of his own. As he frankly tells a crowd during his TED Talk, his DNA splicing experiments have the potential to save lives — if only the New Republic would reinvest. They won’t, but he discovers he has one big fan who will: Elia Kane, Moff Gideon’s reformed communications officer. Despite being rehabilitated, Elia is still a badass rule-breaker and encourages Pershing to break into an old Imperial dump to find a miniature lab to continue his work in.

The story is gripping in a vacuum – Favreau and Kloor take us back to another version of Coruscant where one percent players wear fake smiles as if nothing happened and the Andor-style working capsules are still in use – and by far Pershing’s quest in the name of science is sympathetic. But boy, he sure was a Nazi, right? He was. He was a Nazi. He worked for The Client and then Moff Gideon even after the Empire fell. He stole and injected soldiers with a baby’s midichlorian-laced blood. Not good. There’s a reason the world’s population wasn’t happy when they finally got wind of the US government’s collusion with so-called reformed Nazis. (Because they were Nazis.)

The end of Pershing’s journey is quite shocking, literally. Though he and Elia successfully break into the Empire’s junkyard, the New Republic’s bums catch him in the act. It turns out Elijah is actually more faithful than she cares to admit, and her trap plan was a test. Pershing failed. And the penalty for harboring dreams of science is a round in the New Republic’s renamed Mind Flayer. The message is clear: adapt or die, doctor.

Image: Lucasfilm

There’s a lot going on here. Though portrayed as a shaky but effective backup government after the Empire, the New Republic is recast in the episode as a seedy, news-controlling establishment. Realistic if you live in any country on planet earth, but thematically gross if the little dude being crushed by the system is the Nazi who helped raise a violent Wehrmacht army.

“The Convert” creates a feeling of falling into 4chan. The Nazi is good now? The noble authorities are villains? And beneath the surface could a Deep State be lurking? If there’s a reason Favreau and Kloor walked The Mandalorian Grounded in the minefield of political gray areas, it appears to serve to tie the Disney Plus show into the larger tapestry of Star Wars storytelling. While little is explicit at the end of the episode, the reappearance of cloning technology combined with Elias’ scowl dead as she flies over Pershing suggests the drama may eventually explain how the First Order took shape at the Outer Rim and the New Republic infiltrated , and turned the universe upside down.

About 11 people were happy with how JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker established the late-game reappearance of Emperor Palpatine as a product of Snoke cloning and the Sith rituals of Exegol, but now they’re the rules. Though Pershing may not be in the know, Elia seems well positioned to grab his research and run to the Outer Rim. The lore-tightening endings may justify the moral-fairy-tale jargon in recent Star Wars storytelling, but this departure from it The Mandalorian‘s entertainment MO feels shockingly off balance.

It’s worth wondering if the New Republic fits the galaxy perfectly. It is fascinating to trace Pershing’s path to assimilation and the nuances of his goals. But taken together, it’s an odd admonition about the individual versus bureaucracy that runs counter to much of what Star Wars is about. It’s not quite Randian, but it gets there.

Fortunately, Din’s mission is simple. At the end of the lesson, everyone can clap for Bo-Katan joining a death cult.