THE MANDALORIAN ‘The Spies’ sees Grogu get a major power-up, the return of Moff Gideon and the Shadow Council

There was a lot of stuff wrapped up in episode 7 of The Mandalorian Season 3! It’s called “The Spies” and it was another great and epic chapter in the story Jon Favreau AND Dave Filoni they are telling. The season is going well as all the story threads are starting to intertwine.

One of the main aspects of the episode is that it features the return of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and is working very hard to bring the Empire back to life and is working with the Imperial Shadow Council to do so! The group was formed by Galactic Empire Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax a year after the Battle of Endor Return of the Jedi. Rax formed the group in an attempt to shore up whatever Imperial remnants remained in the galaxy.

The council we meet in the series includes at least two vital figures. One of them is Captain Gilad Pellaeon (Xander Berkley), who is Grand Admiral Thrawn’s right-hand man. The other is Commander Brendol Hux (Brian Glenson), a key figure in the rise of the First Order.

While Gideon is talking to the council, Pellaeon says, “Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return will herald the re-emergence of our army and provide Commander Hux enough time to carry out Project Necromancer.” I assume this Necromancer Project is the cloning of Emperor Palpatine, which ties the events of The bad lotthe original cloning efforts of the Kaminoan, Rebelsthe Ahsoka series, Thrawn and the sequel trilogy.

Pellaeon was originally introduced in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy Legends of Star Wars novels and believed in “true empire”. As for Hux, he is the father of future First Order General Armitage Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) in the sequel trilogy. Hux is also overseeing the cloning and resurrection project.

Gideon is not a fan of a Thrawn and when mentioned in Pellaeon’s conversation, Gideon scoffs at the mention of Thrawn’s absence from the Shadow Council. Pellaeon explains, “Our only hope for success rests on the secrecy of his return.”

In response to this, Gideon challenges the navy captain’s loyalty to Thrawn and says, “I hear whispers from one end of the galaxy to the other, and never a word about Thrawn. You spoke of his imminent return. Maybe it’s time to look to new leadership”, and then proceeds to dismiss Hux’s Necromancer Project.

Gideon is revealed to have been secretly recruiting the best cloners, the Jedi and Mandalorians to create his own army of beskar-clad Dark Troopers. After criticizing Hux, Pellaeon, and the Imperials for waiting for a “grand plan to take shape,” the council finally agrees to give Gideon what he’s been asking for… reinforcements for his squadron of TIE interceptors and three Praetorian Guards for bring down Din Djarin ( Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) united the factions of Mandalorians before they could retake their home world of Mandalore.

Bo-Katan ends up leading a team of Nite Owls and Children of the Watch on a mission to retake Mandalore and retake the Great Forge so they can set up their base of operations, but it all falls apart pretty quickly.

When the Mandalorian group is attacked by a giant creature and flee underground where they find that Moff Gideon has built his Imperial base of operations and set a trap for them. Din Djarin ends up separated from the rest of the group and is brutally attacked and captured.

The Imperials outnumber the Mandalorians and with the element of surprise, their abilities, jet packs and beskar armor, the Mandalorians have a tough fight ahead of them. But Bo-Katan refuses to give up and instead cuts a way out for her and fellow Mandalorians using the Darksaber and they escape her.

As the other Mandalorians flee, Paz Vizsla stays behind to cover them and charges in, slaying the swarms of beskar-clad Dark Troopers attacking him…until he himself is downed. He fought valiantly, but is then ambushed by three Praetorian Guards, who proceed to kill him. It was a pretty brutal death, and it was a sad moment to see Paz lay down her life for her Mandalorian brothers and sisters. That’s where the episode ended.

The Elite Praetorian Guards are described as: “Highly trained elite personal bodyguards under the command of the Galactic Empire’s Shadow Council. Clad in red armor and dressed as the Imperial Royal Guards who protected Emperor Sheev Palpatine during his reign, they were trained to protect by meeting any threat with a ferocious response.”

There is one more thing I wanted to bring up, though! Grogu got a great major update in the episode! He is given a repurposed IG-11 which has been renamed IG-12 and serves as a mech suit for Grogu! He is placed in the center of it and is able to control the robotic body!

Grogu is now walking around in a suit and is able to communicate with the yes and no buttons he can press. While it’s nice to see Grogu having fun in the suit, we don’t see him doing much action. He’s mostly just trying to be safe, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to change. The mech suit he’s piloting is a seriously deadly killing machine, and I have a feeling we’re going to get a great action sequence of Grogu in this suit trying to save Din Djarin. We’ll just have to wait and see!

What do you think of the latest episode of The Mandalorian!?