A new character has been making waves throughout the Star Wars universe in The Mandalorian ever since she was identified in the latest episode: imperial communications officer Elia Kane. Kane is played wonderfully by actress Katy M. O’Brian, who just appeared in the not-so-great movie Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
We’ve seen this character before in the show, but in this episode, Kane really gets a chance to shine. So who is she? We first saw Comms Officer Kane in “Chapter 12: The Siege.” Then she showed up in episodes 14 through 16 as an emissary to Moff Gideon. Basically, she acted as his right hand.
In the latest episode, we learn her name and we learn that she’s a part of a sort of amnesty camp for ex-imperial officers on Coruscant. The end purpose is to reintegrate them into a society that’s not fascist, but giving them numbers doesn’t really help that cause, one would think.
Kane becomes friends with Dr. Pershing, who we know from season one as the scientist that was trying to experiment on Grogu. Kane convinces Pershing to continue his work even though it’s forbidden, and the two go on a daring expedition to get some materials for his studies.
It turns out to be a double cross as Kane was working with higher ups the whole time. After Pershing is caught, Kane tortures him herself with a mind flaying, notoriously turning the machine up to full.
So what was she doing? While we don’t know for sure, the most likely scenario seems to be that she’s still working for Moff Gideon. She was probably trying to fry Pershing’s brain so he won’t be able to talk about his previous work and rat anyone out.
Regardless, this definitely isn’t the last we’ve seen of her.