‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian’ S3: “The Pirate” – Everything We Noticed
Between galactic politics, pirate warfare, and a very big cameo, lots happened this week on The Mandalorian.
This week The Mandalorian progressed everybody’s story and gave us another look at the bureaucratic side of the New Republic. But it was also an engaging, interesting, and at times pretty exciting episode that gave us a little peak at the future of the Republic and Mandalorians alike.
In order to break down what happened in this week’s episode, I will have to spoil large portions of what happened on episode 5 of The Mandalorian. If you haven’t watched yet, proceed at your own risk.
“He Shot First”
The pirates from earlier this season are back. And Captain Gorian Shard isn’t happy that some of his people were killed on Nevarro. Greef Karga’s defense is “he shot first,” which always famously references the shootout between Han and Greedo.
Caption Carson Teva
We also see Caption Carson Teva again in this episode. He’s made appearances before, as the friendly New Republic pilot. He’s also one of the few characters who are actually concerned about what’s going on in the Outer Rim and the possibility of Imperial activity out there. This comes up a few times this week and is one of the central themes of the episode.
But it’s also always fun to point out that the actor who portrays Teva, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, is a long-time Star Wars super-fan and has been a member of the real-world 501st for years.
Zeb
We got another character cameo, this time in Rebels main character, Zeb. He has a short conversation with Teva in the bar on Adelphi Base, but they part ways pretty quickly.
Zeb is the latest Rebels character to make a live-action appearance after Ahsoka. But I doubt this will be the last we see of him considering how much of the cast of Rebels is supposed to appear in live-action when Ahsoka premiers later this year.
Elia Kane Continuing to Mess Things Up
Teva brings the distress call about the pirate attack from Nevarro to his higher-ups on Coruscant, and at first Colonel Tuttle seems like he might authorize something. That is, until former-and-maybe-current Imperial officer, Elia Kane shows up and mentions off-hand that Nevarro isn’t one of the Republic-protected planets. She also sort of laughs off Teva’s concerns that everything happening in the Outer Rim may be connected to Imperial activity.
Most likely, Teva is right on the money with his hunch, and Kane’s dismissal made it that much harder for the New Republic to move on it. It’s clear that she’s still working for somebody, but exactly who that is at this point is unclear.
R5 is a War Vet
Teva then goes to find the Mandalorian hide-out thanks to his man on the inside. It turns out that the R5 unit currently owned by Din and previously almost purchased by Uncle Owen served in the Galactic Civil War with Teva and was more than happy to give an old friend directions.
Uniting All Mandalorians
After another successful mission planned by Bo-Katan, the Armorer says that she should be the one to go out into the galaxy and unite all of the scattered Mandalorians. Bo-Katan “Walks both worlds” and is the perfect candidate to bring more of their people to their new home on Nevarro.
From there, The Armorer makes it clear that they will eventually take bake Mandalore itself.
Gideon’s Escape
Finally, we end the episode with Teva discovering a damaged Lambda shuttle. It matches the date and location of the shuttle that had been carrying Moff Gideon, but the information on the shuttle is classified. Teva concludes that it must have been an extraction since Gideon’s body is the only one missing, but also sees a Beskar fragment, implying that Mandalorians are responsible for Gideon’s escape.
What did you think of this week’s episode of The Mandalorian? Do you think the Mandalorian can be reunited and return to Mandalore? What do you think is in store for the rest of this season? Let us know in the comments!
May the Force be with you, adventurers!
