The Mandalorian Spoiler Recap: Chapter 19: The Convert
I have never once said anything bad about a short-season series pulling away from the main action for an entire episode to focus on someone else. Never even once.
This is it. The moment I have been waiting for since I got glimpse of a familiar bespectacled figure in the trailer for The Mandalorian Season 3 and screamed absolute bloody murder in the audience at Star Wars Celebration.
That’s right. Everyone’s favorite clone engineer with a heart of gold, Dr. Pershing is back, and he’s got an episode all his own! Well, mostly his own. We did have to resolve the Mythosaur-sized cliffhanger from last week first, so before we get into it, let’s catch up with Din and Bo.
Their plot this week was minimal, bookending the episode in a way I appreciated. As much as I loved spending the bulk of the runtime with Dr. Pershing, I’m also glad they didn’t drag this out for a whole other week. Din comes to in the Living Waters chambers and is immediately subject to Bo-Katan’s questioning. Specifically, whether or not he saw anything in the depths when he sank like a stone. When he replies that he didn’t see anything except the chasm itself, and certainly nothing alive, Bo is happy to drop it. But don’t think for a second this means she’s ready to forget about it.
The two mean to head back to Kalevala, but a small squad of TIE interceptors meet them in the space above Mandalore and pursue them back to Bo-Katan’s home. Though the two manage to draw them off, the whole thing turns out to have been a diversion in order for the rest of the squad to bomb Bo’s home, giving her nowhere to return. While she’s determined to take on the rest of the TIE’s herself, she is far too outnumbered and Din proposes they go somewhere safe.
That somewhere, we learn by episode’s end, is back to his Mandalorian cohort. Because say what you will about Din Djarin, but he is nothing if not single-minded and determined. Though the others are initially hostile to him, doubting his stories about bathing in the Living Waters, he presents a small vial of the water to the Armorer, who confirms its authenticity and welcomes him back in. Bo-Katan, too, is told she can live with the cohort as she also bathed in the waters and has not removed her helmet since.
Nice to see just how much say she got in the matter, but then again its not like she has anywhere else to go just yet.
I’d also be very surprised if this isn’t just her using the time to gather her thoughts and plan her next move. She confirmed that she was the only one to see the Mythosaur, and combining that with the fact that she wields the Darksaber so much more easily than Din does makes me think she is almost certainly planning something. I’m hesitant to call it a “coup” when the leadership is comprised of one himbo who is not at all sure what he’s doing. That said, I doubt her tenure with the Children of the Watch is something she’s actually going to buy into. Though maybe she will see a familiar face or two, given the suspected proximity of Death Watch and Children of the Watch? Or rather not see them I guess. That is kind of their whole deal.
I’m also surprised how readily Din just walked back into what we all know is a cult. My theory last week had been that Din would spend the rest of the season meandering and trying to get back to the Children, only to realize on arrival and with his added perspective that they are, in fact, a cult and not an environment where he wants to live or raise his son.
Maybe he’ll reach that point living there with Bo, with her able to actively point out everything wrong with the way they do things. But I don’t know. Usually in stories when the cult leader says “welcome, you can leave any time” that winds up not being the case at all.
In between all this, however, came the bulk of the episode, focused on one Dr. Penn Pershing.
If you’ve never heard me wax poetic about Dr. Pershing before, here’s a quick recap. He honestly caught my attention when I realized he was played by Iranian-American actor Omid Abtahi, and the prospect of just having someone in this saga who shares my heritage meant more than I could or can express - beyond incoherent yelling on Twitter of course. An article waxing poetic about what that character meant to me was my first foray into this fandom, full stop.
Since then, I’ve become very interested in the character, this Imperial scientist using pre-Empire tech to further the plans of a defunct government, while seemingly concealing a heart of gold. What exactly, I wondered, is his deal. That’s where Chapter 19: The Convert comes in.
The bulk of the episode follows Dr. Pershing, now living on Coruscant as a rehabilitated former Imperial now working for the New Republic. He’s relieved to have gotten a second chance, and an opportunity to do some good to make up for having fallen in with the Empire. He explains, in a talk given to Coruscant high society, that he began to experiment with cloning after his mother died from preventable organ failure, as the technology and means to save her weren’t available on his world.
How many times have we seen Star Wars engage with those Imperials who were not the evil moustache-twirlers some want them to be, but instead the people backed into a corner and forced to choose. Altrusitic though Pershing’s reasons were, his work was by his own admission twisted and made into something he never intended for it to be.
Now, however, he lives and works as a member of the New Republic’s Amnesty Program, something we heard teased in the Alphabet Squadron book series, which looks to integrate former Imperials into the New Republic in some capacity. Though their efforts are understandable, and I love to see this living redemption actually brought to the screen, their actual methods leave a lot to be desired.
How integrated can someone truly be, when they are forced to work a job they are over-qualified for, given dehumanizing, Stormtrooper-esque designations rather than names, housed in what is functionally a fancy college dorm, only exist within certain geographic parameters, made to only live and primarily associate with others in their program and to wear a uniform and badge that singles them out as “other.” Regular check-ins with the New Republic I understand, but as for the rest? Almost anyone would chafe under such oversight.
On returning from his talk, Pershing sees some of his neighbors, also members of the Amnesty program, having a drink in the courtyard. Among them is Elia Kane, better known as Katy O’Brians’ Imperial officer who like Pershing was once in the service of Moff Gideon. Though its initially tense, the two strike up a tentative friendship, with Elia even taking Pershing out on the town, and up to Umate, a mountain peak that is the only remnant of Coruscant’s natural environment (which I am taking to be a High Republic reference, no I don’t care if its existence predates it).
Pershing expresses to her his rightful frustration that the New Republic won’t allow him to continue his research, even though it could help people. Elia encourages him to pursue the matter on his own, at least at first, if only to show the New Republic what his work can do. Though he’s hesitant, the two of them head out to an old Imperial shipyard full of decommissioned cruisers so he can assemble a mobile lab for himself and begin the work at home. Just as it seems they’re about to make it out, the two are stopped by New Republic authorities, who arrest Pershing, while letting Elia walk. She, it appears, turned him in.
She then files a report with the New Republic detailing how he slipped up, and is in need of reconditioning. The New Republic decides to accept her version of events as fact and hooks Pershing up to a mind-flayer for what they call a soothing, gentle treatment, but which he believes will damage his mind permanently. Whatever the intentions of the therapy, Elia proves herself to be every bit as suspicious as I thought she was, when the doctor who set up the machine steps away, and she cranks it up to 11 (or 50, if you prefer a Princess Bride reference).
So what exactly is Elia up to? Given the reveal that Moff Gideon escaped en route to his war crime tribunal, my thinking is she still works for him in some capacity. She’s the operative on the inside, one who must get in good with the New Republic in order to have access to the resources he might need.
But beyond that, I don’t think Gideon has given up on his cloning mission either. Breaking Dr. Pershing’s brain to the point where he’s likely going to be highly open to suggestion, or functioning on autopilot makes it easier for Gideon and Elia to get him back to work without those pesky morals in the way. She did, after all, make off with a fully equipped mobile lab. A perfect plan that keeps her in trusted circles, setting Pershing up as the fall guy while she does whatever the hell she likes.
Though the episode began and ended with Din, really it belonged to Pershing. He was the heart of the story, and the character whose fate has me the most engaged going into the rest of the season. While I can’t imagine where Din is headed, I can think of several things that might happen to Pershing, and very few of them good. Protect the good doctor at all costs (and maybe call me if they ever need a canon short story written about him).
What did you think? Is Bo-Katan going to play nice for long? What’s Din going to do next? Is Dr. Pershing going to be OK? And what exactly is Elia Kane up to? Let us know on Twitter!
The Mandalorian airs new episodes every Wednesday.