The Mandalorian season 2 episode 4 recap: Baby Yoda and Mando reunite with old buddies

The Mandalorian season 2 took a nostalgic turn Friday, as episode 4 hit Disney Plus and brought us back to the live action Star Wars show’s roots. Where last week’s episode was a major treat for fans of The Clone Wars, this one paid homage to George Lucas’ Original Trilogy in delightful style.

Episode 3, entitled Siege, was directed by Carl Weathers, who also plays charming bounty hunter boss Greef Carga. Written by series creator Jon Favreau, it sees Mando (Pedro Pascal) stopping for repairs as he tries to bring Baby Yoda (aka The Child) to find former Jedi Ahsoka Tano.

Let’s get into SPOILER town.

Baby Yoda’s midi-chlorians

In the Imperial Remnant base, our heroes are horrified at the sight of some twisted creatures in test tubes — beings that look like the Snoke clones seen in Emperor Palpatine’s lab on Exegol in The Rise of Skywalker.

A holographic message from Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) to Moff Gideon reveals exactly why they want Baby Yoda. They tried to use the blood harvested from the Force-strong little guy to replicate his powers in others, but apparently it didn’t go so well.

“There were promising results for an entire fortnight, but sadly the body rejected the blood,” Pershing says. “I highly doubt we’ll find a donor with a higher M-count though.”

He’s referring to Baby Yoda’s midi-chlorian count, a concept introduced in The Phantom Menace that makes many Star Wars fans grit their teeth because it brought a scientific element to the previously mythical Force Midi-chlorians are microscopic life forms in the cells of living beings — an individual’s midi-chlorian count determines their ability to use the Force, and can be determined through a blood test.

Gideon is seemingly trying to create Force-strong beings with Baby Yoda’s blood, but it’s unclear if he’s doing this for his own ends, knowingly working the reborn Palpatine or unknowingly doing Palpatine’s bidding. My money’s on option 3 — we know from The Rise of Skywalker novelization that Palpatine was having difficulty making Force-strong clones for his consciousness to live in.

It’s likely these experiments Gideon is overseeing will result in the creation of Supreme Leader Snoke, the twisted, Force-strong being who’ll lead the First Order — which is basically the Empire — as Palpatine’s surrogate.

This article will be updated shortly.