The Mandalorian S1:E3 Chapter 3 “The Sin” Episode Recap

I was somewhat unimpressed with Episode 2; I liked it, but mostly because I loved some Baby Yoda / Yiggle / Yarvel / whatever. Before anyone jumps in, yes, Yoda is a name and not a species, but we’re going with Baby Yoda; deal with it. We only know of two of them in canon and the species has never been named. So Baby Yoda it is until they release some merchandise, get all of my money, and give it something more official. Okay, while I was typing this, StarWars.com announced that “The Child” merchandise was now coming out and available on Amazon. But most of it looks like someone at Disney discovered that CafePress is still a thing and rushed out a lot of lame T-shirts.

That being said, of the three we’ve seen, episode 2 was probably the weakest. I have spoken. Episode 3, titled “The Sin,” decides that we’ve had enough of the slow ramp and opts to just turn it to 11. There was intrigue, there was conflict, there was The Mando kicking ass and taking names… it had everything. As usual, this post will have spoilers if you haven’t seen it. Please enjoy another buffer poster.

We open up with the Razor Crest coming out of hyperspace and Apollo Creed complimenting the Mando and telling him to deliver the quarry directly to the client. At the same time, we’re treated to a scene that any parent recognizes immediately when Baby Yoda (I refuse to go with The Child) jumps out of the pod, grabs the control knob, and immediately puts it into his mouth. The Mando does what all fathers have done… take it away, put him back in, and just put the ball away. It in no way fixes the problem, but the mountain cannot bow to the wind.

They land back on the planet from whence he came and he escorts Baby Yoda to the building that the client is in. As he is escorted from the entrance to the main meeting room, a Stormtrooper grabs Baby Yoda’s pod and pulls it along. Signs of The Mando’s paternal instincts become more apparent is they kick in and he tells the Stormtrooper, “Easy with that.” Stormtrooper #1 responds with a playground retort of “You take it easy.” It’s almost laughable at how unthreatening it is. I mean, the Empire is pretty much destroyed, he can’t afford any more Armor All to clean up his uniform, and he has NO idea who he’s talking back to. Anyways, they enter the main meeting room where Dr. Pershing is waiting there to give it an overall health check. Our suspicions that it was The Client who sent in all those other bounty hunters is confirmed. He had to ensure the delivery of the asset. Dr. Pershing does a couple of scans on Baby Yoda away and whisks it away.

The Client shows him The Mando his reward: an ice cream maker a camtono containing 20 Beskar Steel ingots. Out of the entire episode, what happens next is the most intense. The Client, as he’s showing just how much Beskar Steels is in the ice cream maker camtono, says, “Such a large bounty for such a small package.” Just then Baby Yoda makes eye contact with The Mando as it’s being lead out of the room by the doctor and let’s out a little cry of protest. The Mando asks the question he should not be asking, “What are your plans for it?” The Client more or less tells him to take his money and mind his own business as two more Stormtroopers enter the room. The dialog is pretty clear in that The Mando has overstayed his welcome, and The Client wants nothing more to do with him. He also mentions about how difficult it is to find a Mandalorian. It’s a rather tense scene, so much so I was really thinking that a fight was going to break out. The Mando says nothing more, picks up his ice cream maker full of Steel and makes his way back to the main Mandalorian clubhouse.

On his way to the smith, other Mando dudes see what he’s carrying and trail him to the armorer. The Mando points out that his armor is in bad shape and the armorer agrees to make him a new cuirass. Other Mando dudes come around to see what the fuss is about. And in a show of frustration and bravado, Heavy Infantry Mando goes at it with The Mando, complaining about how only one Mandalorian at a time can come out of the covert and that The Mando is “sharing tables” with the Empire.  The smith tells them to cut it out because “This is the Way”. All Mandos chant, “This is the Way” and that is the end of that. We do find out that Mandos get their signets by defeating a great beast. But since The Mando got an assist from Baby Yoda to kill the mudhorn, he declares it an unhonorable kill and thus cannot adopt it as his signet. Better luck next time, dude.

Another flashback ensues and we see some Super Battle Droids just straight up murdering people. We do get some more scenery. Eventually, we’ll get the full picture but for now, they’ll keep adding on scenes to these flashbacks every time he levels up his armor.

The Mando returns to Apollo Creed all shiny in his new armor, save for one leg armor. He’s one piece away from getting a full set bonus. He asks about how many others have tracking fobs, to which he learns that every bounty hunter had one. Apollo is singing his praises and The Mando doesn’t give a crap, he just wants his next job, “the further the better”, to get away and try and forget about Baby Yoda. But paternal instincts kick in again and he asks if Apollo knows what they’re going to do with the kid. This is against guild rules though so Apollo has no idea either. Apollo points out that The Mando’s success means it’s his success too and shows off his bounty of two Beskar Steel ingots in his coat pocket.

The Mando is done with him though, takes the bounty puck, and leaves. He heads back to his ship and finds the ball from his control stick still sitting on the console. That’s the final push he needs to resume his main quest. He heads back to town and snoops around The Client’s building and finds Baby Yoda’s robe and stroller tossed into a dumpster. The Mando cases the joint, and eavesdrop on a conversation between The Client and Dr. Pershing. The Client wants nothing more to do with Baby Yoda, ordering the doctor to “extract the necessary material and be done with it.” Dr. Pershing protests and is heard saying “He explicitly ordered us to bring it back alive.” The Client don’t care though. The Mando then kicks it into high gear, breaks in, and retrieves Baby Yoda. For whatever reason, The Mando for whatever reason can’t take the fast and direct route he took to Baby Yoda to exit the building and has to take the most indirect route possible. It’s fine though because we get to see how hilariously inept the Stormtroopers still seem to be post-Empire. We also get to see The Mando on his A-game just tearing through them.

The Mando makes his way back to his ship. He tries to anyway because as he’s walking every fob that every bounty hunter in the guild is hodling goes off. Apollo Creed wasn’t lying when he said they all had one. He makes his way to a clearing in the middle of town and realizes he’s surrounded by hunters. Words are exchanged. He’s clearly outnumbered but he doesn’t give in, and a Wild West gunfight ensues. He hops into the back of a speeder with a droid pilot and orders it to start driving. Apollo Creed shoots the driver forcing the speeder to a halt. The Mando is a dead shot and offs a bunch of bounty hunters, uses his rifle to disintegrate a couple more until everyone ducks for cover. There’s one last attempt at negotiations and then more fighting.

The Mando is outnumbered, outgunned, and is just about out of ammo. There’s a moment where he crawls towards Baby Yoda, who happened to be sleeping this entire time, and looks down at him as he wakes up. I honestly thought the bad guys were going to win, that The Mando was going to get shot, and Baby Yoda taken away again. It seemed like The Mando was saying sorry and goodbye in a wordless, Mandalorian way. We’re looking up at him, from Baby Yoda’s perspective, when a rocket streaks by in the sky above. The Mando looks up and sees the rocket nail a hunter, and then ALL OF THE MANDALORIANS from the underground clubhouse FLY into view via their JETPACKS and just start laying waste to every hunter who dared attack one of their own. It was AWESOME!

Heavy Infantry Mandalorian flys into the LZ gunning everything down with a handheld minigun. HIM instructs The Mando to get away and that they’ll hold him off. The Mando states that they’ll have to relocate the covert, to which HIM responds with, “This is the Way.” The Mando responds the same way and gets away from the firefight.

Meanwhile, Combat Carl escapes the firefight unnoticed and yep, you guessed it, is waiting for The Mando back on his ship. Words are exchanged but you don’t go into The Mando’s house and make the rules. How dare you! The Mando lands a shot right on Apollo’s chest and he gets blasted out of the ship from the impact. He ain’t dead though cause the two ingots of Beskar Steels he showed off to The Mando a couple hours earlier absorbed the hit. Cliché or not, it was to be expected that he survived. Roll credits.

Random Thoughts

As The Mando and Baby Yoda are strolling their way through the parking log at the beginning of the episode, a quad jumper is clearly visible in the background. And what looks like a U-wing lands near by. What’s strange is that in the middle of the episode when The Mando goes back to his ship, that U-wing lookalike takes off. It seemed insignificant at the beginning but having it leave when The Mando comes back makes me wonder.

Also, parking your ship and leaving the door wide open seems like a huge security risk. Apollo sneaking in at the end is proof of that. Do ships lack remote key fobs to lock and unlock doors?

When The Mando asked The Client, “how many fobs did you give away” The Client responded with “this asset is very important to me“, emphasis mine. Sounds like he’s operating on his own agenda and would go to extreme lengths to get what he wants. This isn’t the last we’ve seen of Werner, and I look forward to their next encounters.

Here’s a little known secret about me. I love babies. I don’t love babies when they’re in that stage where one wrong head tilt can snap their neck in half. But right when they can just start walking? That’s like the best time. They’re so cute. So the Baby Yoda speaks to that baby-loving side of me something hard. I don’t understand how they can make it look so old and so young at the same time. And did I mention how adorable it is? Just. Adorbs. And his little cry when he was being taken away? Melt my heart. And clearly, there is a mutual affection between The Mando and Baby Yoda.

Midichlorians. Sorry, I had to say it. When The Client says to “extract the necessary material”, I can only assume they are trying to harvest midichlorians from Baby Yoda to synthesize maybe? I don’t know, details have to be revealed what the Empire wants to do with Baby Yoda. Also, Dr. Pershing refers to a “he” in that “he explicitly ordered us to bring it back alive.” There’s another major player working in the background. Whether or not we find out the identify of mystery power player remains to be seen but I would almost think it’s unnecessary to know. It might just be better for the show to have this nameless, faceless, force to be dealt with.

The scene at the armorer revealed a lot about the Mandalorians, or what’s left of them. The Client made a comment about how finding Beskar Steel was easier than finding a Mando. And at the armorer, Heavy Infantry Mando says, “Now we live in the shadows and only come up above ground one at a time.” From what I’ve learned on our discord channel, the Mandalore people and the planet they are named after were more or less just destroyed by the Empire. They had to go into hiding, and this is how they do it, with a secret covert and going above ground one at a time. Life in their hidden camp must be crazy boring. But now that they’ve completely outed themselves rescuing The Mando and Baby Yoda, they have to relocate their base of operations because This is the Way.

We have no idea where The Mando is going, or what he’s going to do. We will be entering episode 4 with no context, about as blind as we were entering episode 1. Exciting!

I apologize for the late posting of this. Unexpected real life events happened, but I’m back into the swing of things. I’m looking forward to Friday like nothing else.