THE MANDALORIAN "The Spies" Sees Grogu Get a Major Upgrade, Moff Gideon Return, and the Shadow Council

There was a lot of stuff packed into Episode 7 of The Mandalorian Season 3! It’s titled “The Spies,” and it was another great and epic chapter of the story that Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are telling. The season is coming together nicely as all of 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 he’s working very hard to bring back The Empire and he’s working with the Imperial Shadow Council to do it! The group was formed by Galactic Empire Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax a year after the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi. Rax formed the group in an effort to support whatever Imperial remnants were left across the galaxy.

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

While Gideon is talking with the council, Pellaeon says: "Grand Admiral Thrawn's return will herald in the re-emergence of our military, and provide Commandant Hux enough time to deliver on Project Necromancer." I assume this Project Necromancer is the cloning of Emperor Palpatine, which ties together events from The Bad Batch, the Kaminoan’s original cloning efforts, Rebels, the Ahsoka series, Thrawn, and the sequel trilogy.

Pellaeon was originally introduced in Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy of Star Wars Legends novels and was a believer in the "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 resurrection project.

Gideon is not a fan of a Thrawn and when he’s brought up in the conversation by Pellaeon, Gideon scoffs at the mention of Thrawn being absent from the Shadow Council.  Pellaeon explains: "Our one hope for success relies upon the secrecy of his return.”

In response to that, Gideon challenges the naval captain's loyalty to Thrawn and says: "I hear whispers from one end of the galaxy to another, and never a word of Thrawn. You have spoken of his imminent return. Perhaps, it's time we look to new leadership," and then proceeds to wave away Hux's Project Necromancer.

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

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

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

The Imperials outnumber the Mandalorians and with the element of surprise, their skills, jet packs, and beskar armor, the Mandalorian have a rough fight ahead of them. But, Bo-Katan refuses to surrender and instead cuts a way out for her and her fellow Mandalorians using the Darksaber and they run.

As the other Mandalorians escape, Paz Vizsla stays behind to cover them and he’s just blasting away, taking down the swarms of beskar-clad Dark Troopers that attack him… until he’s taken down himself. He put up a valiant fight, but he’s 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 his life for his 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 Shadow Council of the Galactic Empire. Clad in red armor and robes like 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 other thing I wanted to bring up, though! Grogu got an awesome major upgrade in the episode! He is given a repurposed IG-11 that was renamed IG-12 and it acts 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 the suit and is able to communicate with yes and no buttons that he can push. While it’s great to see Grogu having fun in the suit, we don’t see him engaging in a lot of action. He’s mostly just trying to stay safe, but I’m pretty sure that will change. The mech suit that he’s piloting is a seriously deadly killing machine, and I have a feeling that we are going to get an awesome action sequence of Grogu in this suit in an attempt to save Din Djarin. We’ll just have to wait and see!

What are your thoughts on the latest episode of The Mandalorian!?