Mandalorian’s purrgil hyperspace whales tie into a future Star Wars saga

Grogu and Din Djarin are back to continue their adventures, and take on a mission on Mandalore. Mandalorian’s third season. But rather than uncovering what’s under the surface of Bo-Katan’s home planet, the biggest reveal of the episode happens deep in space, while the show’s dynamic duo are jetting between planets.

[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 and Star Wars: Rebels.]

The furthest reaches of the dimension known as hyperspace are mostly uninhabitable, but for just a brief second in this episode we catch a glimpse of something flying alongside Mando and Grogu while they’re in a hyperspace tunnel. While it may not seem like much, this quick moment might secretly clue us into the plot of one of Star Wars’ upcoming Disney Plus shows.

Grogu watches the bounty-hunting couple glide through hyperspace while Grogu examines the baby seat of the spaceship and sees distinct shapes following them. The show doesn’t give us a clear glimpse of what those shapes are, but the most likely answer is a Star Wars deep cut: a purrgil, the interdimensional whales.

Star Wars space whales, Purrgil, can travel through hyperspace. The original inspiration for hyperspace travel, which makes Star Wars more accessible is the Purrgil. These space whales are capable of traveling through hyperspace independently or with others in pods.

Lucasfilm

Some pilots in the Star Wars universe consider purrgil to be a nuisance because they often interrupt ships while they’re traveling in hyperspace, or worse, collide with them, accidentally killing pilots and crews (and purrgil) in the process. However, some force-users (or Grogu?) may be able to bond with purrgil. You can form bonds with purrgil. This brings us to Ezra Bridgers.

Purrgil had a major role in the conclusion of Star Wars: RebelsThe animated series about the Bridgers, Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, as well their friends, was titled. Ezra created a link with a pod purrgil to use them in a sneaky attack against Admiral Tharawn who Ezra, his friends and had been fighting all season. The purrgil sent Thrawn through hyperspace tunnel to an unknown part of space. Ezra caught Thrawn in the portal, and was taken with him.

This is why all of this matter so much right now. Ahsoka, Star Wars’ upcoming Disney Plus show, is already on the way. While Disney hasn’t officially announced what the series is about yet, some of the best guesses suggest it might follow Ahsoka and Sabine as they search for Ezra throughout the galaxy — especially since the show has already cast its Ezra. This could mean that introducing purrgil in live-action was a huge step toward being able to find him — and maybe even Admiral Thrawn, too.

Whatever is set to happen in Disney Plus’ next Star Wars show, it does seem like the purrgil will have a part to play either there or later on this season in Mandalorian. We can take them in as Grogu for the moment: it’s a beautiful sight on our way to war-torn Planet.