Who Is Dr. Pershing on ‘The Mandalorian’? Meet Omid Abtahi

The Star Wars universe is a vast one, and we can say the same thing about The Mandalorian now that we’re in Season 3. What was initially a show about one lone Mandalorian’s episodic adventures with a little space kid is now a sprawling legend in the making. We’ve got recurring characters, returning characters — we’ve even got a new co-lead in Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze. The Mandalorian’s universe is expanding, and “Chapter 19: The Convert” is further proof of that.

In the episode — SPOILER ALERT, BTW — we pan away from Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan and venture to galactic capital planet Coruscant. There we catch up with a familiar face that we haven’t seen in a while: Dr. Pershing.

Come on, Dr. Pershing? Played by Omid Abtahi? You remember him — he even appeared in the first episode of The Mandalorian! Okay, okay — it has been two years since we last saw him in The Mandalorian Season 2, so let’s play catchup on good ol’ Dr. Pershing.

Who is Dr. Pershing on The Mandalorian?

We first met Dr. Pershing — Dr. Penn Pershing, we now know — back in the very first episode of The Mandalorian. He was the Imperial scientist working with The Client (Werner Herzog) on Nevarro. While we don’t know the explicit outline of Pershing’s goal, we do know that he’s a geneticist with an emphasis in cloning and he was extracting Grogu’s blood. Thank the maker that Din Djarin rescued the little guy. Later in Season 2, though, we learn that Pershing has used up what little blood he was able to get from Grogu. That led Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) to kidnap Grogu again so that Pershing could continue his experiments. And when Din Djarin and his pals raided an Imperial installation in “Chapter 12: The Siege,” they ran into some of Dr. Pershing’s experiments.

What is Dr. Pershing working on? What is Dr. Pershing’s mission?

In “Chapter 12,” a hologram of Pershing says that they need more blood from “the asset” (a.k.a. Grogu) so that they can continue their experiments, which apparently involved injecting “volunteers” with the green guy’s blood. The reason Grogu’s blood was so special? It had a high “M-count,” which has to mean midichlorians, the microscopic organisms that allow someone to wield the Force, right? I speculated way back when that these could be the cloning trials that led to the creation of Supreme Leader Snoke, but we know as much now as we knew then. And by the end of this episode, it appears like we’ll know even more than Dr. Pershing once his mind flaying is done.

Why does Dr. Pershing touch his ear?

This is a little detail that you’ll likely miss if you haven’t watched the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian in two years.

When Djarin’s boarding party attempts to abduct Dr. Pershing, they first have to deal with two Imperial pilots. In a hasty move, Cara Dune (Gina Carano) blasts the pilot holding a gun to Pershing’s head, frying part of Pershing’s ear in the process. In “Chapter 19,” when the rehabilitation droid asks Dr. Pershing, “Have you experienced any feelings of anger or resentment towards the New Republic government or its representatives?” he touches his ear, which was damaged by a more or less de facto representative of the New Republic.

Who plays Dr. Pershing? Who is Omid Abtahi?

In addition to his recurring role on The Mandalorian as Dr. Pershing, Omid Abtahi is most known for his role as Salim on STARZ’s American Gods. More recently, he played Howard on Fear the Walking Dead and voices Ahmed on the currently-airing Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series. And back in 2015, Abtahi appeared as Homes in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.

As for what’s next for Dr. Pershing, well, it looks like this may be the end of the road for him — at least the Dr. Pershing that we know. Thanks to his “friend” Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian), Penn’s had his brain flayed something fierce. What are her motives? What did Dr. Pershing know? And what were those experiments? Those are all questions that we hope will be answered in The Mandalorian Season 3.

New episodes of The Mandalorian premiere on Wednesdays on Disney+.