The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 3 Easter Eggs: 7 Things You Missed in 'Chapter 19: The Convert'
Chapter 19 of The Mandalorian, “The Convert,” pitched us a major curveball this week when it took the focus off of the titular Mando Din Djarin and put it instead on Dr. Pershing, the scientist who worked for the Empire and wanted to study Grogu in Season 1. So while this episode may have been light on the plot we thought we were going to get this week–the redeemed Mando returns home–this thoroughly surprising tangent has so much other stuff for us to chew on.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 3, “The Convert.” If you want to avoid spoilers before you watch it, you should head over to Disney+ to do that now.
As is usually the case with these things, Chapter 19 contained a bevy of references to the past of Star Wars–fortunately, though, not really in intrusive or overly obnoxious ways. We’ve got some visits to locations from past movies and shows that fit well, we’ve got offhand references to existing Star Wars items, like a cocktail drink, and we’ve got a major plot thread that takes a nugget from elsewhere in the canon and runs with it in a really cool and interesting way.
In other words, The Mandalorian seems to currently be in the process of finding its sweet spot on these franchise Easter eggs, opting for a mix of low-key nods and meaningful substance this time out. And it’s working out really well, because the show is much improved in Season 3, at least so far. But enough rambling. Let’s get to those Easter eggs.
1. The New Republic Amnesty program
While the Amnesty program is technically a new thing, the entire concept is derived from the 2019 novel Alphabet Squadron, which is canon. That novel opens a month or two after the destruction of the second Death Star and focuses on an Imperial character defecting to the Rebel Alliance-turned-New Republic. This character, Yrica Quell, begins the story on a small colony nicknamed Traitor’s Remorse that the Republic is using specifically for bringing in former Imperials and rehabilitating them, complete with a droid therapist/parole officer.
The Amnesty program we see on this week’s The Mandalorian, which takes place years after Alphabet Squadron, is the more formal, institutional version of that program.
2. Photon Fizzle
The Photon Fizzle mentioned by Elia Kane in this week’s episode is a cocktail that we first heard about in the animated Droids series from the 1980s, and that we first saw in Dex’s Diner in Attack of the Clones, and that we learned how to make in the Black Spire Outpost Cookbook, which was released around the time of the openings for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s theme parks. And, as you can probably tell by the image, Obi-Wan has to make one in the Attack of the Clones portion of the LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga video game.
3. Taungsday
This is maybe the most obscure pull I’ve ever seen from a Star Wars thing. Taungsday–mentioned in a jokey “Mondays, am I right?” kind of way in this episode–is the third day of a Coruscant week, and this was established in a now-deleted blog for Hyperspace subscribers in 2009. And no Star Wars character had ever mentioned it in-universe before this episode of The Mandalorian. There’s a lot more meaning to this name, though, than just its weird origin.
The Taung, who are an alien species native to Coruscant, have no presence to speak of in the current Disney canon outside of this one bit, but they were important to the galaxy’s history in the old Expanded Universe canon. Back then, the Taung lived on Coruscant before it was a planet-wide city, but they were largely supplanted by humans in ancient times before the Galactic Republic was formed with the planet as its capital.
When those ancient humans drove most of the Taung off Coruscant, they fled to the outer rim, where they stayed for centuries until a warlord united the entire species for a war of conquest against a new planet that would become their new birthright as a species. That planet was Mandalore, and these Taung were the original Mandalorians.
None of that is part of the current Star Wars continuity, but we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of years before the time of any Star Wars story. This doesn’t have much bearing on the present so you could include this in your headcanon without it affecting anything else, really.
4. Some familiar Coruscant spots
Several locations from Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith and the Clone Wars animated series appear in early scenes with Dr. Pershing on Coruscant, such as the Senate plaza where he gives his speech and where he has his little meet-and-greet afterward. He also rides in an airspeeder taxi that is very similar, if not identical, to those seen in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
5. Monument Plaza
While this location also appeared in Clone Wars, its history is more interesting than just that. This place began life as several pieces of Ralph McQuarrie concept art that were first seen in the Illustrated Star Wars Universe book and then incorporated into the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi in 1997. The end of that version of the film added several looks around the galaxy at folks celebrating the death of the Emperor, including Monument Plaza on Coruscant, where we see a statue of the Emperor being pulled down. All the big details about this, including the mountain peak that is the only place where the surface of Coruscant is visible, come from those old concept drawings.
6. It was a trap!
As Dr. Pershing is being put into the 602 Mitigator, aka the Mind Flayer, he pleads that going to the old mothballed Star Destroyer was Kane’s idea, not his. That it was a trap! This is an Easter egg because of who Pershing was pleading to: a doctor who is of the same species as Admiral Ackbar. Ha ha ha.
7. That beefcake Mandalorian
We’ve seen this guy pop up on The Mandalorian here and there, and this time he’s there to challenge Din Djarin and Bo-Katan when they arrive at the home of the Tribe at the end of this episode. He doesn’t get his way this time, but he does have one of the oldest Mandalorian names: Vizsla. In the current continuity, Clan Vizsla was founded by Mandalore Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian Jedi and the creator of the Darksaber, and during the Clone Wars series Pre Vizsla was Mandalore for a time. This character’s name has never been important on The Mandalorian, but the more involved Bo-Katan is in things, the more likely it’s going to matter that a Vizsla is hanging around.
