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Writer's pictureDave Giatras

The Mandalorian: Chapter 13 "The Jedi" Recap


While we were all recovering from food comas from (a hopefully socially-distanced) Thanksgiving, The Mandalorian returned for another episode this week that absolutely knocked it out of the park. Mando and The Child meet up with Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) on the planet of Corvus. In my opinion, director Dave Filoni gave us the best episode of The Mandalorian since the pilot episode last year. Let's dive in for all the exciting action, reveals and what is next for our heroes this season. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!


1) AHSOKA TANO

Image: Disney+

The opening of the episode hits the ground running and we see Ahsoka Tano, played superbly by Rosario Dawson, quickly dispatching soldiers in an abandoned forest. After defeating all the enemies, she confronts the Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), whom she gives one day to surrender the village that she runs in fear. After years of calls to see Tano in a live action setting, and over a year of teases from the show that she would appear, it was great to see Dawson in action as the character. The sequence perfectly showed Tano's fighting skills, using a mixture of stealth and raw power to dispatch her enemies.


When Mando gets to the village, he is hired by the Magistrate to hunt down and kill "the Jedi" that is plaguing her. Mando knows that this is a good chance to find Tano himself and has the Magistrate direct him to her location. When they meet, Tano puts up a good fight until Mando reveals that Bo-Katan (Katee Sackoff) sent him and that they needed to talk. Tano sees The Child and replies, "I hope it's about him". And boy was it about him alright! The next scene had many reveals and implications for The Child...


2) THE CHILD'S NAME AND BACKSTORY REVEALED

Image: Disney+

Mando watches as Tano and The Child communicate through their Force powers and perhaps the biggest reveal is that we learn The Child's name: Grogu. I wonder if that name will stick after Baby Yoda has become so popular but I digress. Anyways, it turns out that Grogu was raised trained by many masters at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Tano mentions that she only knew of one other of his kind: the wise Jedi Master Yoda. Is Grogu related to Yoda? It's certainly possible yet too early to tell in my opinion. But the fact that he is getting named dropped on the show points to a larger connection in the Star Wars universe. After the fall of the Republic during Order 66, Grogu was hidden and eventually taken from the Jedi Temple and after that his memory becomes "dark". Tano reveals that Grogu kept his powers hidden for protection, and the suppression of the powers explains why his Force powers are a bit random throughout the show.


To Mando's surprise, Tano does not agree to train Grogu, citing that his strong emotional attachment to Mando. When Mando protests, Tano explains that his emotional attachment makes Grogu vulnerable to his fears and his anger. Tano even mentions that she has seen what such feelings have done to a Jedi Knight before, clearly alluding to Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side as Darth Vader, since she was his padawan during the Clone Wars. Mando cuts a deal with Tano that if he helps her liberate the Magistrate's village, she will train Grogu. In two scenes, the show gave its strongest ties to the Star Wars universe to date. Drawing on the narratives that we have seen over forty-three years of storytelling, it begs the question if Grogu will have any other connections to characters we've seen over the years.


3) WHATS NEXT?

Image: Disney+

After liberating the village, Mando prepares to say goodbye to Grogu and bring him to Tano for training. Tano appears and tells him that she still will not train Grogu, but offers a new quest for Mando. She asks him to bring Grogu to the planet of Tython, where the ruins of an old temple with a strong connection to the Force are found. Mando must put Grogu on the seeing stone at the top of the mountain and choose his own path through the Force. Call out to other Jedi and see if one comes to find him, or shun his powers forever. It leaves a lot of interesting threads because I don't see the show at this point having Grogu not become a Jedi at some point. So who will hear Grogu's call? At this point I think anything goes. Legacy characters like Luke and Leia are a pretty far stretch so I would eliminate them. Maybe other characters from Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels that survived Order 66 hear the call. We may even get a Force ghost appearance from someone, and I would think Yoda would be the best candidate for that. Hopefully we find out the answer to this in next week's episode. Also, lets not forget about Moff Gideon. I am sure that Gideon will be hot on Mando's tail to take Grogu back, so maybe there is a chance that he somehow intercepts the call that Grogu makes on the mountain. An interesting reveal from this episode too is that Beskar, the material that Mando's armor and his new spear is made out of, can deflect lightsabers. This will definitely come in handy once Mando battles Gideon and his Darksaber.


While Mando and Grogu will see their mission continue next week, the conclusion of the episode also leaves some plot threads for Ahsoka Tano as well. We learn that she wanted the Magistrate to reveal where her master was, who turned out to be Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn was the antagonist for the last two seasons of Star Wars: Rebels, and in the finale he was whisked off into deep space with another character, Ezra Bridger. Their fate was left ambiguous, but it is now clear that they (or at least Thrawn) survived their journey. Not to mention at the end of that show, Tano and another warrior Sabine Wren (also a Mandalorian) set out on a quest to find them. This plot thread shows that Tano has been looking for Thrawn for quite awhile now. Did Thrawn play a role in the Empire and it's transition to The First Order? Will he appear on The Mandalorian? It's possible, but what I think is a better bet is that Ahsoka Tano getting her own spinoff show. The character is extremely popular among the fandom and with the high marks that this episode is getting, along with the rave reviews for Dawson's performances, I think it's only a matter of time before she gets her own series on Disney+. I do hope that Tano returns in The Mandalorian at some point before this season is over but if not, I strongly suspect we will be seeing a lot of her in the future.


What did you think of Chapter 13 this week. In my opinion, it is the most "Star Wars" episode The Mandalorian has had in its entire run. What did you think of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano? And will you call The Child Grogu from now on or stick to Baby Yoda? Let me know in the comments below and check back next week for what hopefully is an even more exciting episode recap!

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