Din Djarin now knows where to find a Jedi, but with the Razor Crest in dire shape (and The Child not overly helpful as the ship's mechanic), he returns to Nevarro to seek out help from old friends Greef Karga and Cara Dune in today's episode of The Mandalorian. The former's men immediately set to work on repairing the ship, but there's definitely something shifty about of them. We'll come back to that, but Nevarro itself is thriving under Karga's control and Dune's watchful eye as Marshall.
However, as the bounty hunter soon learns, there's still an Imperial presence on the planet in a base just outside of town, and Karga wants his help ridding the planet of them once and for all. Din agrees, though is shocked to see that the Mythrol he captured during season one is now paying off his crimes working for Karga. With that, the four of them head to an Imperial base which definitely isn't abandoned, and is instead full of Stormtroopers. Making their way through the base, the heroes come across tanks full of deformed, humanoid creatures (one of whom definitely looks a little like Supreme Leader Snoke).
They play a hologram of Doctor Pershing explaining that he needs The Child's blood for its "M count," and that without it, their work is failing and the subjects are dying. We're willing to bet big money on "M" standing for "Midi-chlorians," and the creature's Force powers are clearly crucial to whatever these remnants of the Empire are up to (remember, Emperor Palpatine struggled to create a cloned body which could house his consciousness in the years that followed Return of the Jedi). While we know Moff Gideon is alive and well, Din finds out at this point, and rushes back to get The Child while the others blow up the base.
An intense speeder bike and TIE Fighter chase follows, with the Razor Crest zooming in to save his two friends (and the Mythrol) before immediately leaving the planet. Now he knows what the Empire wants with The Child, it's more important than ever for him to find Ahsoka Tano, but that's not going to be easy. On Nevarro, one of the pilots with the New Republic investigates what's happened, and mentioned there being some concerns about what's happening on the Outer Rim. He also compels Cara Dune to return to the fight alongside her fellow former Rebels.
The shifty alien we mentioned a little earlier has fitted a tracking beacon on the bounty hunter's ship, and notifies a member of the Empire on an Arquitens-class command cruiser where he's told that he'll be rewarded in the "new era" (a reference to the First Order, perhaps). This information is passed on to Gideon who is overseeing the creation of soldiers who look an awful lot like, yes, Dark Troopers from the Expanded Universe!
Those were cyborg clone troopers with over 70% of their body parts replaced by mechanical components, but it looks like Gideon might want these versions to be Force-sensitive. However, the two things could be unrelated, and we're not counting out the possibility that we're going to get Snoke's origin story in The Mandalorian...perhaps Din Djarin is the reason he was never able to create a proper body to return in?
What did you think of "The Siege"?