The Mandalorian S2:E1 Chapter 9 “The Marshal” Episode Recap

Alright! New season. New shows. Who’s excited? I know I am. Hopefully you found last week’s recap of the season 1 finale a bit of a refresher to lead you into this next episode. If not, then the “previously on” segment at the front of the episode should have keyed you in on the more significant plot points to help set up this next episode and, more broadly, the next season. Specifically, though, the most key thing to remember was what Lady Armorer told The Mando, that he must reunite Baby Yoda with its kind.

And the show wastes no time in setting The Mando off on this journey. We find him wandering into a town of some sort, with Baby Yoda in the pram following behind. He enters a sports arena where a fight is happening between a pair of Gamorreans wielding what I can only assume are vibro-axes. The Mando and Baby Yoda make their way to Gor Karesh. The Mando explains he’s been quested to bring Baby Yoda to its own kind and believes that if he can find other Mandalorians, they would be able to help him. The Mando is acting on a tip that Gor knows where other Mandos may be. Gor, acting like a typical gangster, says some gangster stuff, and has his gangster cronies draw their weapons against The Mando in a not-so-surprising surprise ambush. Gor wants The Mando’s shiny beskar armor and more or less implies he’s taken the lives of other Mandalorians to harvest their armor. Not cool man.

As cool and collected as one can be, The Mando simply reiterates his request for information on where he can find more like him and he’ll just walk out without killing him. More words are exchanged and with a flick of his wrist, The Mando arms his whistling birds wrist rockets. Baby Yoda sees this, knows whats about to go down, and hides itself in the pram.

The birds take out the gunmen surrounding the Mando and everyone comes and tries to take him down all the while Gor Karesh tries to run out the back. The Mando dispatches them pretty easily and goes after Gor. He catches up with him outside and strings him up like a blue fin tuna demanding to know the whereabouts of this Mandalorian the he knows about. Gor gives up the info: Tatooine, more specifically a settlement called Mos Pelgo.

Yep. You can kind of guess where this is going and who is going to be involved. The Mando and Baby Yoda make their way back to Tatooine and yep, you guess it, they land back in Peli Motto’s hangar at Mos Eisley spaceport. She remembers The Mando not being too keen on droids since he almost blasted one the last time they tried to service his ship. She tells them to back off but this time, The Mando is like “nah it’s cool, they can do their thing.” He’s not so anti-droid anymore ever since IG-11 sac’ed himself to save the Escort Party in the last episode. Look at that, The Mando is growing up! Anyways, Peli is beside herself at the site of Baby Yoda. Mando asks her to baby sit cause he’s got some business out in Mos Pelgo. Peli said it doesn’t exist, hasn’t existed in a long time, and that it’s been wiped out. The Mando says he can’t find it on any of the maps so Peli asks R5 to come show him the map he has of Tatooine before the war. And yes, that is the same R5 unit that had a bad motivator. How could it not be R5-D4?

Yeah, that’s R5-D4.

Even in R5’s old map, Mos Pelgo isn’t even marked, but Peli points to the spot where it should be. There’s not much there now but what is there will be able to spot the Crest long before it has a chance to land. The Mando asks Peli if she’s still got a speeder he used during his last visit. Why The Mando feels like a more subtle approach is necessary is beyond me. It’s not like he has to sneak up on the rumored Mandalorian or anything but whatever.

The next montage has The Mando cruising the desert sands, Baby Yoda in a saddle bag, ears flapping undeniably cutely in the wind. There’s a scene where he shares a fire with some Tusken Raiders at night. It’s a nice scene, harking back to “The Gunslinger” episode and his encounter with the sand people where we saw him communicate with them for passage through their lands.

The next scene has The Mando arriving at the tiny, tiny outpost of Mos Pelgo. The shows roots based on spaghetti Westerns shine here more so than any other episode. The outsider coming into town, going into the local watering hole, looking for information. In my best Chandler voice, could it BE any more Western? He meets a Weequay bartender and inquires about a Mandalorian, “Someon who looks like me.” The weequay responds with “You mean the Marshal?” And then, Boba Fett appears. At least, that’s who we’re supposed to think that is. The Mando has no idea that Boba fell into a Sarlacc pit and shouldn’t even really be alive. So he just assumes he’s the real deal; that is until the imposter takes off his helmet. If there’s one thing we know about Mandalorians it’s that they NEVER take off their helmet, not for another living being anyway. So Mando clues in right away that this guys not who he is looking for. The imposter, Cobb Vanth, isn’t dumb. He’s familiar enough with what the Mandalorians are, and figures The Mando is there to take back the armor. The Mando demands he takes it off since it doesn’t belong to him. The discussion quickly devolves to a good ol’ fashioned Western-style shoot out.

But just as it seemed like someone was going to blink first and draw, they are interrupted by a low rumble. They step out of the bar and see this… thing… coming towards Mos Pelgo under the sand. The tiny town’s inhabitants panic and find shelter as the giant thing burrows along and then swallows up a bantha. It’s a krayt dragon. Apparently it’s been terrorizing the town since the beginning of time.

After the krayt has his snack and disappears, Cobb has a plan. The Mando can have his people’s armor back if he helps the town kill the dragon. Who didn’t see that one coming a mile away? THe Mando thought maybe he can just blast it to bits from the sky using the Razor Crest but Cobb says that won’t work cause of vibrations. So now the plan is to go lure it out of its hiding hole.

The next shot is just great: The Mando is on his borrowed speeder speeding across the desert, and along comes Cobb on a modified speder using a single podracer engine with a seat attached to it. The podracer engine is from none other than Anakin’s podracer. Yeah, pretty epic.

On the way across the desert, Cobb relates a story about how Mos Pelgo came to be in the condition it’s in today. Apparently, seconds after the destruction of Death Star II, the Mining Collective came to town and nearly slaughtered everyone. Cobb managed to get away under cover of night while carrying around a camtono of Silicax crystals. Wandering the desert, he collapses right before being found by a group of jawas in a sandcrawler. While inside the Sandcrawler, the jawas try to trade for the crystals offering droids and weapons, but Cobb spots Boba’s armor hanging on the wall and the deal is done. The next flashback shot has Cobb decked out in Boba’s armor make his way back to Mos Pelgo’s bar and take out a bunch of miners. A group of them get away on a speeder but Cobb comes out, uses the rangefinder on Boba’s helmet, targets the speeder, and fires the rocket from the rocket-firing backpack. Yes, it really does fire.

Exit flashback and The Mando and The Cobb are cruising through a canyon when they hear what they probably think is the krayt dragon. But nothing of the sort comes out from behind the rocks. Just some fluffy puppies who want to play. The Mando speaks Tuskenese and is able to give one of the dogs a good scratch when pair of Tusken Raiders appear. The Mando grunts at them, they grunt back, and Cobb demands to know what’s going on because he can’t grunt with them. The Mando reveals that the Sand People want to kill the krayt dragon too.

Makes sense, seeing as to how they ARE Sand People, and the live on sand and the krayt dragon moves under the sand like a Megalodon in the Pacific. So while sharing a fire that night, they all try and get along but Cobb’s feeling inadequate not being able to communicate with the Tuskens and being offered what looks like rotten fruit water. Not only that, he’s being asked to work with the very people that raided Mos Pelgo time and again. He can’t take it anymore and throws the rotten fruit water down, insulting the Tuskens. One Tusken raider furiously signs at Cobb threatening to kill him. Mando can’t take it anymore either so he lights up his wrist flamethrower to distract everyone and calm everyone down.

The next morning, the unlikely alliance of a Mandalorian warrior, a Mandalorian wannabe, and a bunch of Tusken Raiders caravan their way to the cave where the krayt dragon lives. Turns out the Tusken raiders have been offering sacrifices of banthas to the dragon in hopes that they keep its belly full enough to stop it from attacking their village. A lone Tusken escorts a bantha to the cave (don’t worry, this one does NOT look like a body part), yells at the opening and tries to run away only to be eaten. That dude didn’t stand a chance. Clearly this is unsustainable so the bunch of them try to come up with a new plan. They do, but it invovles like every Tusken raider and every citizen of Mos Pelgo. The Tuskens can’t do kill it by themselves. Mos Pelgo peeps can’t do it themselves, but together they stand a better chance.

The Mando and Cobb speed their way back to Mos Pelgo to break the news to the town. The townsfolk are none too happy but agree to working with the Tuskens under the premise that this will broker a peace agreement between the two. Something something the enemy of my enemy is my friend or some such thing. The Tuskens arrive shortly after with a huge herd of banthas, enough to carry all of Mos Pelgo’s mining munitions back to the krayt’s dragons cave.

Back at the cave, a lone Tusken approaches the mouth of the cave. But he doesn’t get eaten. He senses that the dragon’s asleep, giving the hunting party an opening to set a trap. The dragon’s weak spot is its belly, so they have bury the charges, lure it out, and the detonate once it’s over the explosives. What can go wrong?

After the short montage of TEAMWORK! another lone Tusken is seen at the mouth and he starts yelling angrily at the hole. Sleepy dragon wakes up and comes out to see what all the fuss is about. Harpoons are launched and they annoy the dragon enough for it to want to go back in his cave. That’s when the rest of the hunting party come alive and try to annoy him even more to come out of the cave. It kind of works but the pay a dear price for the dragon rears up and spits acid at everyone instantly disintegrating them. Yeah, I didn’t know they could do that either. Despite the losses, it works because the dragon is now in position. Cobb detonates the charges, and it disappears in the cloud of sand, dirt, and dust. Cobb and The Mando smartly assess that it didn’t work.

The dragons pissed now and appears at the top of the mountain just acid-spitting everything in sight. The Mando and Cobb rocket-backpack their way up to the top and land next to it, trying to distract it and stop it from killing everything. And it works. Krusty the Krayt lunges at them, the pair rocket away, and the once again the dragon disappears in a puff of smoke. Everyoen looks around in silence wondering where the next attack will be be coming from.

And yep, it came from behind. The dragon is bearing down on everyone. The Mando gets an idea and orders Cobb to get its attention. Cobb fires the rocket-firing backpack again, getitng the dragon to turn towards them. The Mando asks Cobb if he still has the detontor, to which he says yes. The Mando then tells Cobb to take care of Baby Yoda and before anyone can say, “My Two Dads”, The Mando wacks the back of Cobb’s backpack with the butt of his rifle which sends him flying off and away from danger.

Next, The Mando arms all of the charges the bantha is carrying. And just when you think, wait, is he gonna make the dragon swallow the bantha, the dragon ends up swallowing both the bantha AND The Mando before disappearing under the sand. After a moment, the dragon breaches the surface with its mouth wide open from the electrical discharges coming from The Mando’s rifle. He flies out of its mouth, reaches for the detonator, and blows up the charges attached to the bantha that is now in it’s stomach. Kablooey. After one last howl, the krayt dragon falls to the ground.

My words can’t accurately describe the epicness of this battle.

After the dust settles, we see the Tuskens busy scavenging the corpse ins earch of a krayt dragon pearl. Cobb hands over Boba’s armor to the Mando. They shake hands and mutually agree that they’re bros now. Aaaaand scene!

But wait, there’s more! All these shots of Boba’s armor but no Boba Fett? False. Boba himself makes a quick cameo during the final scene. Yes, I thought it was stupid before, and I still think it’s stupid. I’ve enjoyed The Mandalorian enough to give Gutter from PCU a chance to explain this away, but I’m not hopeful that any explanation is going to not be stupid.

This episode was great. Clocking in at 55 minutes, it’s the longest episode so far and not a single minute of it felt wasted or extraneous. A steady build up to an epic battle made this a treat to watch. But it wasn’t brokering a peace deal, killing the dragon, or getting back sacred Mandalorian armor that made the episode great, it was the friendships that were made along the way.

Random Thoughts

The introduction to the krayt dragon had me thinking that the rest of the episode was going to play out like the movie Tremors. I’m so glad it didn’t. The krayt dragon actually reminded me more of a molduga from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

One of my favorite scenes was this:

The Tusken using the end of the gaffi stick to floss the bantha’s teeth. It reminded me of these weird toothbrushes I distinctly remember my parents had when I was a kid.

I appreciated all the screen time with the Tusken Raiders. It showed that they are just more than just a constant threat they were portrayed to be in the films.

Mos Pelgo sounds like a crappy place to live. Cobb makes it sound like they are constantly under attack from bandits, and before they brokered a peace and took care of the dragon, sand people, and the krayt dragon itself. Bandits? Sure, if the settlement had enough people they seem like something that can be defended against. Sand people? Sure, if the settlement had enough people they seem like something that can be defendded against. Giant krayt dragon that can burrow in the sand and swallow banthas whole? Yeah, time to peace out and find another place to live. Why would anyone continue to live there after say the first attack? And what were they mining to make the settlement worth risking your life over?

A Mandalorian’s signet is earned after felling a great beast. At least that’s what I’ve surmised at how The Mando go his mudhorn signet. Are there do-overs? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure The Mando ranked up after that krayt dragon kill.

And I just made it under the wire! Date still says 11/5. I’ll do better this next episode. Just been a super crazy week.