The following story contains spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 7, "The Spies."

The original Star Wars trilogy had Darth Vader. The sequel Star Wars trilogy had Kylo Ren. And The Mandalorian has Moff Gideon. Star Wars has always been a franchise that rides on the strengths of its frightening villains just as much as its likable heroes—and in bringing back Giancarlo Esposito's Empire-clinging war criminal for the final two episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3, the show is putting some important trust in one of its most significant (and proven) characters. And this time, he's coming with some familiar help behind him.

We're re-introduced to Gideon, who has escaped from New Republic custody following his capture at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, in the cold open of Season 3, Episode 7, "The Spies." He's doing a Space FaceTime with the sinister Elia Kane (Katy M. O'Brian), before we find him taking control during a Shadow Council meeting. Here, he speaks with some familiar faces (including a member of the Hux family and the right-hand man of Grand Admiral Thrawn) about new leadership, and getting himself some protection in the form of a TIE fighter brigade and three Praetorian Guards.

You may not remember what Praetorian Guards are just from the name—but Thrawn's man (Captain Gilad Pellaeon, played by 24 and Candyman actor Xander Berkeley) makes it clear through context that these are, basically, the elite of the elite as far as Imperial protection goes.

And when the Praetorian Guards finally make their appearance at the end of the episode—for a big-time battle with the presumably doomed Paz Vizsla—all the memory neurons in your brain will probably start firing like crazy. And that's because the Praetorian Guards are the rooms most commonly remembered for their combat with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) in the epic "Throne Room" fight in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Here, we get to see an earlier version of them—and they're every bit as battle-competent.

Who are the Praetorian Guard?

While we first met the Praetorian Guard in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (more on that below), "The Spies" episode of The Mandalorian is the first time chronologically we're seeing them in the live-action Star Wars universe. That said, they clearly aren't a brand new force—Gideon knew to request their help with the Shadow Council, and it was known that he was, to put it in layman's terms, asking for help from the big guns, when he made the request.

When we see the Guard, they look a bit different from the Guard we saw protecting Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) in The Last Jedi, which makes sense considering there's about 20 or 30 years in between these appearances. Much in the same way that the armor and appearances of the Clone Troopers evolved into the Storm Troopers as we went from the prequel trilogy to the original trilogy, we can see that the Praetorian Guard evolved in the time between The Mandalorian and the sequel trilogy.

The name Praetorian Guards is shared with the force who protected Roman Emperors in real-life ancient history, something The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson did purposefully. Johnson designed these characters with the intent of them essentially being an evolved version of the red-cloaked guards who protected Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) in Return of the Jedi.

“The Emperor’s guards were very formal, and you always got the sense that they could fight, but they didn’t,” Johnson told EW in a 2017 interview. “They looked like they were more ceremonial, and you never really saw them in action. The Praetorians, my brief to [costume designer] Michael Kaplan was that those guys have to be more like samurai. They have to be built to move, and you have to believe that they could step forward and engage if they have to. They have to seem dangerous.”

Where have we seen the Praetorian Guard before in Star Wars?

As mentioned above, we saw the Praetorian Guard previously in a major way in 2017's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where eight highly-trained and highly-skilled warriors were protecting Supreme Leader Snoke during the famous "Throne Room" scene.

After Kylo Ren cut Snoke in half, the Guard jumped into action, taking on both Kylo and Rey in what's one of the most exciting action set pieces in the entire Star Wars franchise.

What does the Praetorian Guard's appearance in The Mandalorian episode "The Spies" mean for Star Wars going forward?

As we learned in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Snoke was ultimately some sort of clone himself, a puppet of the cloned Palpatine who turns out to be the villain of both Rise of Skywalker and the entire sequel trilogy.

We already know from the developments this season around Elia Kane and Dr. Penn Pershing, that the pieces are in motion already moving toward this; on Moff Gideon's way to the Shadow Council meeting, we see several cloned bodies floating in tanks. During the meeting, we hear much discussion of cloning, interest in Dr. Pershing's work, and attempts to make that science possible.

With the Praetorian Guard now present and so closely associated in the past with Snoke, it's very possible that it means we'll soon see the genesis of how, exactly, Snoke was created—and, eventually, how Palpatine was brought back. We're getting another step closer to unlocking the "somehow" in "Somehow Palpatine Returned."