At the 2023 Star Wars Celebration in London, which just ended, we saw the latest episode of “The Mandalorian” a few days ago, now we can finally write about it – and there’s a lot to digest. If you haven’t watched Chapter 23 yet, you’d best catch up on Disney+ before reading on because it gets spoiler heavy in this article. And the return of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) is the least of the surprises. After all, this has been teased a lot in the previous episodes.
Moff Gideon isn’t just back, though, he’s speaking to the Shadow Council, including Brendol Hux – the father of General Hux from the Star Wars sequels! Fun fact: Brendol Hux is played by Brian Gleeson, brother of General Hux actor Domhnall Gleeson. Less funny, the Shadow Council has been secretly continuing the Empire’s plans since the supposed downfall plans the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Michaelsen), intended to initiate the revival of the Imperial Army – although Moff Gideon would probably prefer to take charge himself.
Project Necromancer
But Thrawn isn’t the only returnee… Right at the beginning of the episode, during the meeting of the Shadow Council, “Project Necromancer” is mentioned. Necromancy is necromancy – and without even mentioning Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) directly, this most likely confirms what we already suspected: the Empire’s minions are working on bring back the emperor using cloning technology.
In this regard, “The Mandalorian” would close a gap between the middle movie trilogy and the sequel trilogy. But not only that can or should “Project Necromancer” mean – there’s also a chance Thrawn will show up with an army of zombies in tow… Read more here:
But the ending already contains the biggest shock of the episode: Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and the Mandalorians are ambushed on Mandalore, where they are looking for the great forge to start rebuilding their civilization there. Moff Gideon, who has had some Stormtrooper armor from Beskar forged on the planet for some time, pursues them and captures Din Djarin – promises an exciting finale! But it’s almost even more bitter that fan favorite Paz Vizsla (Tough Fletcher) is killed…
Paz Vizsla dies for his people
And sadly, there’s little doubt that the giant Mandalorian really gave his life to give the others a chance to escape. Finally, he is shown very directly being pierced several times by the weapons of the Praetorian Red Guard, with whom he engages in a truly epic battle that earns him a very brutal but also very heroic final scene. In the end he collapses lifeless, and that actually leaves little room for interpretation – Viszla doesn’t just fall into an abyss from which he can emerge again like Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker.
On Twitter, fans are shocked by the death of Paz Viszla, who has just become a close ally of Din Djarin:
On April 19, 2023, the last episode of the third season of The Mandalorian on Disney+. But in August 2023 it will be “Star Wars: Ahsoka” further – and in this spin-off we learn more about Thrawn’s storyline, after all, Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) are looking for not only Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), but also him the Grand Admiral with the blue skin… Here’s the trailer for Ahsoka: