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Category: The Mandalorian

  • The Mandalorian S1:E6 Chapter 6 “The Prisoner” Episode Recap

    The Mandalorian S1:E6 Chapter 6 “The Prisoner” Episode Recap

    Yes I’m late again. I blame holidays, bad traffic, crappy tech support, and kids that have a mountain of homework. What’s up with elementary school kids getting homework? I mean, I can understand 4th graders, sure, but Kindergartners? Really?

    Yes, Episode 7 is out. I’ve already watched it before finishing this recap. I have LOTS to say. And as Baby Yoda is my witness, I’m going to catch up and get it out before the finale. Now, normally I don’t make a comment on the recap at the beginning of the episode but I feel like I have to this time. And what better place to put the commentary on the recap than before the poster buffer? Anyway, about the recap. It’s a montage of every instance where The Mando and The Child were in the crosshairs, sometimes literally, of a bounty hunter trying to hunt them down. As if we forgot.

    I mean, we get it, they’re being hunted. We really don’t need this kind of reminder shoved down our throats. Usually recaps remind of you key scenes from previous episodes that the episode you’re about to watch ties into in some way. Usually. But not this time. Chapter 6, titled “The Prisoner”, which some consider to be a filler episode, doesn’t feature an endless stream of bounty hunters on Lone Wolf and Cub’s trail as the recap would have you believe. In fact, no other hunters make an appearance. So in this regard, maybe it is a filler. But what a filler it is with some action, colorful characters, and a clever move by The Mando himself.

    The last shot of the previous chapter showed The Mando and Baby Yoda taking off from Bay Three-Five on Mos Eisley. No space fight this time around as we now see Razor Crest landing in a hangar bay in space. He walks through the busy hangar to talk to an old acquaintance, Ran. Apparently, he and The Mando go way back and did jobs together. Ran was surprised that The Mando reached out but he’s heard some things about The Mando, how things aren’t working out with the Guild. That’s putting it lightly, but Ran has a policy of “no questions asked” so he doesn’t press him on it. After that brief conversation, they get right down to business and talk about the job.

    One of Ran’s gang members was doing gangster stuff and got caught. Ran hired The Mando cause he needed his ship. The Mando objects, saying it wasn’t part of the deal but Ran has the upper hand here. He only let The Mando back in BECAUSE of the ship. The Mando throws him a stern look, as stern a look that an expressionless, dark-visored helmet can give, and Ran just says, “What’s the look? Is that gratitude?” He’s got the higher ground here, maybe more so than he realizes because The Mando is desperate to get some funds. If The Mando walked back into this kind of situation, he must have really had no other choice and Ran knows this.

    Ran takes The Mando and introduces him Mayfeld, former Imperial sharpshooter and shot caller for the prison break job. The Mando quips that being a former Imperial sharpshooter doesn’t mean much. Mayfeld fires back with a “I wasn’t a stormtrooper, wiseass”. I suppose this was supposed to be funny, just beating the stormtroopers-have-terrible-aim dead horse bit. Stormtroopers missed on purpose to let them get away. Princess Leia pointed it out because of the ease of their escape! It’s not even a funny joke. I mean, even if it was kinda har har funny at one point, the joke’s been done to death. Let it go, people, let it go.

    We meet the rest of the crew: Burg, a Davoronian and the brawn of the group; Zero, a droid; and Xi’an, a knife-wielding Twi’lek who knew The Mando from the early days and apparently has a bit of history with him. Zero heads to the cockpit and does a pre-flight inspection. He finds the message from Combat Carl after The Mando retrieved Baby Yoda, the one that played at the very beginning of Chapter 3. Except it’s a partial message and a bit scrambled. Zero’s interest is piqued. Outside the ship they gov over the details of the job. The prisoner they need to spring is on board a New Republic prisoner transport. The Mando ain’t “looking for that kind of heat”… but neither is Ran’s crew.

    Xi’an assures The Mando that the ship is piloted by droids. Zero comes out of the Razor Crest and spouts off a laundry list of everything wrong with the ship and asks why they need to use that one. Ran says that because it’s an older ship it’s off of both the Imperial and New Republic grids, whatever that means. The ship will also need to get close enough to jam New Republic code so the ship can get in close undetected. A flight maneuver is detailed that The Mando says is impossible, but not for a droid, hence why Zero is designated as the pilot. The Mando ain’t happy about that but what’s he gonna do? Nothing, that’s what. They all get on board the Crest and make their way out to space.

    Now, at this point you’re probably like me and wondering where the heck is Baby Yoda with the ship now full of ruffians. He’s in the only spot that can be concealed and that’s The Mando’s bunk. It’s not the greatest place given how easily he got out of it in the previous episode. I’m sure that was the only thing running through The Mando’s mind the entire time. The stress factor doesn’t go down a bit because Burg is getting touchy feely with everything in the cargo hold. The Mando deters him from opening the bunk, but you know it’s going to happen sooner or later. The gang is giving The Mando a hard time about wearing the helmet all the time and Burg tries to strong arm it off of him.

    The Mando pushes back, causing him to stumble and as he goes down hits the control panel exposing Baby Yoda for all to see. I don’t think Baby Yoda can ever sit because as the door swooshes up, he’s just standing there. Why wasn’t he sitting? Or lying down? Or playing with the control stick knob? Are none of the writers or creatives a parent? Anyhoo, In a move that would set my internal paternal alarm bells ringing, Mayfeld goes and picks up The Child. The Mando was already at a disadvantage before; he had to concede to the working conditions that Ran dictated. But now, he’s even more at a disadvantage. Mayfeld, Burg, and Xi’an all know he’s got a kid with him now and The Mando has one more thing to worry about. And Mayfeld more or less makes a veiled threat to that effect. Not a good situation to be in.

    At this point, the Razor Crest having dropped out of hyperspace, and in a bit of CG tastiness, maneuvers around the New Republic prisoner transport and docks right on top of an airlock, all in the blink of an eye. It throws everyone off balance and Mayfeld drops Baby Yoda. Once they get their footing back, The Mando scoops him up and puts him back into storage. It’s Mando’s turn now to open the airlock. Xi’an whispers something to Mayfeld as they stand off to the side while The Mando’s fiddling with the airlock controls. Not quite sure what was said or what it was alluding to even after having watched the episode multiple times.

    Once the airlock is open Mayfeld ducks down and avoids the site of some patrolling droids. Burg, Mayfeld, Xi’an, and The Mando make their through the corridors until they come across a mouse droid and Burg shoots it. Not very smart but apropros for the character. That alerts a squad of armed droids, different from the ones we saw earlier. A gunfight ensues and The Mando runs away. The other three are pinned down when The Mando reappears behind the squad of robo guards. He does what he was hired to do and takes them all out with panache and flair while the other three just sit there and watch.

    The goon squad makes their way to the control room which to their surprise is manned by a live human being named Davan – played by Matt Lanter, voice of Anakin Skywalker on the Clone Wars cartoon. Davan must be brand new to the job because his bright blue uniform looks new and freshly pressed. Guns are drawn and The Mando suddenly grows a conscience and doesn’t feel like killing this guy. He pleads with him to put the weapon down because, and this is true, “No one has to get hurt”. This sort of feels like a new character trait for The Mando. He had no problem evaporating some jawas and bounty hunters, but this guy, he drew the line. I get it though, and it doesn’t really contradict what we’ve seen before. You wrong him in some way, he has no mercy. But this guys was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The point of the mission was to spring a prisoner, not kill anyone. And part of the reason why The Mando agreed to the job was that he was told there would only be droids. And we all know how he feels about droids.

    But Davan’s presence was unanticipated and it wasn’t something The Mando wanted to do. This is a New Republic prisoner transport. If Davan dies then there’s going to be a search for who did it. The Mando definitely doesn’t want that. He’s trying to lay low from bounty hunters; he doesn’t need the new government on his tail either. The Mando does not want to kill Davan. So much so he holsters his blaster and pleads with him to put down his gun and the homing beacon. Mayfeld objects ’cause he don’t care and points his gun at Davan. Davan points his gun at Mayfeld. And in typical Mexican standoff, bank-heist-gone-wrong cliché, The Mando draws his gun and points it at Mayfeld, who draws his other gun and points it at The Mando:

    Tension is high since Davan is still holding the homing beacon that will call the New Republic Space Force to its signal. Xi’an gets tired of the testosterone contest and takes out Davan with a knife throw. Davan collapses with the homing beacon activated. They have roughly 20 minutes now to get out of dodge. Coincidentally, there is about 22 real time minutes of the show left when that distress signal goes out. It’s almost as if they planned it that way. Also, since this distress signal goes out, and it could go out from anywhere in the galaxy, and it takes 20 minutes for an armed response to reach you, it reminded me of this joke from Clueless:

    So now that Davan is dead as dead, the gang locates the prisoner and heads in his direction. But of course, they run into more droids. It’s Burg’s time to shine now as he handily picks up one droid and throws it at another. They finally reach the cell and spring the prisoner but surprise! It’s someone else from The Mando’s past, Xi’an’s brother Qin. The Mando left him behind is now rescuing him. Ironic but even before you can completely process that, Burg punches The Mando in the chest and launches him into the now empty cell. Betrayal! Kind of surprising but after it happens, it’s not at all surprising. There’s bad blood here and now that The Mando did his job and lent the use of his ship, he became disposable and was ripe for payback. They lock it up and walk away to head back to the Razor Crest, where Zero is fiddling with the scrambled transmission from Combat Carl and finds out some more dirt on The Mando.

    The Mando, trapped in a cell where laser fire bounces off the walls, uses is lasso to rope in a security droid, rips his arm off through the window, and then, blasts his head off. He uses the new found arm with a data port on the inside of the cell door. Seems like a huge security risk to have a port like that on the inside, but whatever. Also, since the arm isn’t attached to a droid brain, is the data port just a fancy combination lock? See, these are the questions that matter! After some fiddling, The Mando escapes the jail cell and heads back to the control room where Davan lays dead. He starts shutting down corridors with bulkheads compromising the gang’s retreat. Now that the puppet has become the puppeteer, he can see them and controls where they go. He brings a bulkhead down and forces the party to split up. He also jams communication signals; Zero finds this out and futilely tries to tell that to Mayfeld. Right after that he says Baby Yoda. Eep!

    The party is split with Mayfeld and the newly freed Qin in one group and Xi’an and Burg on the other. Qin orders Burg and Xi’an to split up to find The Mando and kill him. Qin tells Mayfeld to get him off the ship and really doesn’t care if his sister makes it off or not. Meanwhile, The Mando is tracking Xi’an back at the control room. The beeping of the homing beacon finally breaks through The Mando’s concentration so he picks it up.

    Next scene has Mayfeld and Qin splitting up with Qin promising triple the pay if he can take out The Mando. This Qin guy really hates him. Back at the Crest, Baby Yoda and Zero provide a bit of comic relief as Zero, who first spotted Baby Yoda, goes and looks for him. Baby Yoda moves like a ninja though and evades him. Cut back to Burg reaching the control room. He and The Mando get into a tussle with Burg just having his way with him tossing him around the room like a rag doll. While fighting, the Davoronian stands under a bulkhead. The Mando hits the control panel to force the bulkhead to fall right on top of him making you think Burg suffered a similar fate as the guy who tried to run away from him Chapter 1. But this is Burg, and he basically does a back squat lift of the bulkhead door and starts to laugh maniacally. The Mando hits another switch and two pocket doors slam close in front of Burg slamming right into his face. Don’t worry, they don’t actually show the impact but given how freakishly strong this guy is no damage was done.

    This entire time, Xi’an was running towards the sound of fighting until she hears the doors close and then does some more grunting. She tries to get Zero on the commlink but to no avail. Next is a montage of cat and mouse games with Mayfeld, Xi’an, some security droids, and Zero looking for their respective prey. Mayfeld takes out some security droids rather easily; it’s rather counterintuitive given how much trouble he had taking the squad out earlier but whatever. The Mando reaches Xi’an and the engage in a throwing star fight with The Mando getting the upper hand by getting in close and holding a blade to her throat.

    Cut back to Mayfeld and in great scene we see The Mando approaching him from behind in a dark hallway that’s lit briefly every few seconds by a strobe light. The Mando is only visible at every other flash and he gets closer and closer. It’s eerie, a little haunting, and very well shot. With the main gang out of the way, we’re back at the Crest to catch up on Zero and how bad he is at hide and seek… yep, still sucks.

    The Mando reaches Qin as he’s climbing the ladder to the airlock. Qin sighs and asks if he killed the others. “They got what they deserved” was The Mando’s response. Pretty cold. Qin bargains with him. And reminds him that without Qin making it back alive, The Mando won’t get paid. Oh, and that The Mando is a man of honor and so he just HAS to take him back alive, right?

    Next scene shows Zero zeroing in on Baby Yoda. He opens the bunk door and points his blaster at him. Baby Yoda puts his hand up and closes his eyes, getting ready to use the force and do God knows what. When suddenly Zero just explodes. Baby Yoda looks at his hand as if to say, “Whoah, did I just do that?” Zero collapses and we see that the blast actually came from Dad Mando standing behind Zero.

    The Mando is back at the pilot’s seat, disengages from the airlock, and makes the jump to lightspeed. Coming out of warp hyperspace, he approaches Ran’s outpost and enters the hangar bay. Ran greets him and surprise! Qin is alive too. After all, he got hired for a job and he wants to get paid. Ran asks where the rest of the gang is but The Mando reminds him of his no questions asked policy. Ran has no choice but to drop the matter. Ran tosses him a rather puny looking pouch of credits and The Mando is back on board the Razor Crest. Job is done, he got paid, and he doesn’t want anything more to do with Ran.

    As the Razor Crest exits the outpost’s airspace, Ran issues an order to kill him. A gunship rises up from a lift. As the gunship starts its engines, Qin discovers the homing beacon that Davan activated in his pants. Having not been there and seen the device, he holds it up and asks “What’s this?” The thing is beeping furiously now indicating the approach of the New Republic armed response. X-wings fly by the Razor Crest homing in on the distress signal that is in Qin’s hands. They notice that the outpost is about to launch a gunship. S-foils get locked into attack position and they just obliterate the thing and lay waste to floating station. It was great!

    The Mando doesn’t even look back as he makes the jump to lightspeed. All the tension he must have felt during the whole ordeal was let out with a sigh. He unscrews the control stick knob that Baby Yoda is fixated on and hands it to the little one while admonishing him, “I told you that was a bad idea”.

    But wait there’s more! The final scene shows Mayfeld, Burg (whose horns broke, probably from the pocket doors slamming into his head), and Xi’an still alive and trapped in a prison cell back on the transport ship. Despite the backstabbing and the fighting, The Mando didn’t kill any of them. They’ll have plenty of troubles on their own answering to a New Republic court. Death might have been too easy for them and The Mando gave them exactly what they deserved. Roll credits.

    Random Thoughts

    Mayfeld was supposed to be an Imperial elite sharpshooter but he wasn’t any more effective than a stormtrooper. He couldn’t take down a single droid in the first skirmish but seemed to be just fine against the second group. What’s up with that? And that articulated gun from the back? It’s probably one of the dumbest things I’ve seen since a double bladed-lightsaber that folds in half. And why is it just one arm? Why isn’t it like 4 arms so he can be like Doc Ock except instead of hands its guns. He could be taken down hostiles while sipping a Blue Milk latte at the same time.

    Never before have I been so invested in who is playing what bit part. The parade of comedians making cameos continues; Bill Burr and Richard Ayoade are both in this one. The end with the X-Wing pilots… they were all played by directors for the first season: Dave Filoni (Chapters 1 and 5), Deborah Chow (Chapters 3 and 7), Rick Famuyiwa (Chapter 2 and this episode). Taika Waititi directs chapter 8 and voiced IG-11… which leaves only Bryce Dallas Howard as the only director that hasn’t appeared in the show in some capacity… yet. It could just be she is the most recognizable, given her success as an actress, but I could see her popping up in the finale.

    I remarked before about how The Mando hates droids and that there is probably something there. Nick pointed out that in every flashback, it showed Super Battle Droids committing genocide against his village and his parents and that is probably where the hatred came from. Makes total sense to me now and I feel a bit dumb for not making the connection earlier.

    The recaps are very long. I need to work on that I think. [note from Nick… come on, it’s only 3500 words. I’ve had “short articles” that are longer than that]

  • The Mandalorian S1:E5 Chapter 5 “The Gunslinger” Episode Recap

    The Mandalorian S1:E5 Chapter 5 “The Gunslinger” Episode Recap

    I know this is late, like really really late, like so late that the next episode is already out kind of late, but I really wanted to not miss doing recap for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I want to be able to finish what I started. I’ll be watching Episode 6 later tonight after my daughter’s birthday party and then be getting to the write up for Monday. I can’t wait.

    As usual, enjoy a poster before scrolling to the spoiler-y content below.

    Combat Carl was not in this episode, but I’m using this poster anyway.

    When we last left the show, we were treated to an epic show of force between the hidden Mandalorian cell and basically all of the bounty hunter guild. Thanks to the arrival of his people, The Mando was able to get away and make his way to ship but not before one last encounter with Combat Carl. Combat Carl survived the blaster shot to the chest due to the Beskar Steel he carried in his coat pocket. And then The Mando and The Child take off from the planet Nevarro.

    This is where this episode, titled “The Gunslinger”, picks up. The episode opens up with a space fight! And what an opening it was! Space fights are one of the best visual treats that makes Star Wars Star Wars. So seeing ships go head to head right at the opening made me perk up immediately. The Mando is being chased down by another bounty hunter, clearly outmatched. The bounty hunter’s ship is much more nimble. It’s amazing how the weightiness of the Razor Crest and the agility of the bounty hunter’s ship is conveyed by a CG sequence. It’s clear The Mando is at a disadvantage. The bounty hunter, known simplay as “Man”, fires off a few shots at The Mando, landing a few hits and disabling one of the Razor Crest’s engines. Man gives The Mando an ultimatum: “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold.” It seems like The Mando is out of options but this is The Mando we’re talking about and he’s always got a trick up his sleeve. He pulls that Top Gun airbrake maneuver, the bounty hunter doesn’t react in time and sideswipes the the Razor Crest as he flies past him right into the Razor Crest’s crosshairs. The Mando quips with a “That’s my line” right before blasting Man into nothingness. Phew! What an opening!

    The Razor Crest drifts as one of its engines is disabled and is leaking fuel. The Mando shuts everything off, gets up from the pilot’s seat, throws a couple of switches, and in a turn it off and on again moment, restarts everything from emergency power. It’s scenes like this that really grounds The Mandalorian. He doesn’t win every fight easily, he can get knocked around, he can run out of ammo, and his ship can get disabled. They could have easily skipped it. Just have him power up the engines and be on his merry way to the nearest starport for repairs. This is more of the show not tell way of storytelling that Nick touched upon last week. It’s these slow moments that really add to the flavor of the show.

    As his engines come back to life, he cruises towards the nearest planet which happens to be… wait for it… Tatooine! We know this because Mos Eisley Space Traffic Control comes through on the comm line and directs him to head to hangar three-five. The Mando lands the Razor Crest, hides Baby Yoda in his bunk, closes the door, and deboards. Pit droids, those mostly useless automotons from the prequels, make an appearance. They pop up and amble over to the Razor Crest ready for duty. The Mando fires a warning shot at their feet and they collapse out of fear. This wakes up the quirky Peli Motto played by the talented Amy Sedaris. She throws some words at him and he explains to her to keep them away from his ship. “Yeah? You think that’s a good idea, do ya?” She knows a disabled ship when she sees one and obviously doesn’t think The Mando knows what he’s doing. And just like a mechanic, she starts in on pointing out all of the things that need fixing while banging around on Razor Crest. The Mando drops 500 Imperial credits into her hand to cover the cost of parking and promises to come back with more for the repairs. She has doubts and calls him a Womp Rat as he heads out. Now, right after he exits the hangar, Peli and her pit droids engage in a game sabacc. Baby Yoda wakes up and forces its way out of the locked bunk surprising Peli. Peli picks it up and promises to charge The Mando for looking after it and tells one of her pit droids to get it something to eat, “something with bones in it.”

    The Mando exits three-five and heads right over the cantina. Yes, THAT cantina. There’s no Wuher, or anything else that you’d recognize from A New Hope. But that’s okay. I think it would have been too much of fan service to have the exact same set of scum and villainy. That and it wouldn’t have made any sense since it’s been… like years or something.. since we’ve last been there. But anyways, The Mando sidles up to the bar and tells the barkeep he’s looking for work. He needs money to make repairs to Razor Crest. The barkeep droid tells him he barking up the wrong tree when Toro Calican pipes up and offers The Mando a seat. Toro’s looking for a bounty he picked up, one Fennec Shand played by Ming-Na Wen aka Melinda May from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The Mando walks out thinking it’s not worth it. Toro stops him and asks him why. Fennec was an elite mercenary that The Mando knew about but clearly Toro did not. That’s when he fesses up. See, Toro is trying to get into the guild, and to do so he needs to bring in a bounty. That’s all he wants. He doesn’t care about the money, he just needs admission. He wants to be a card carrying member of the bounty hunter’s guild. And he figures to do that, he’ll hire some help to do the dirty work for him since he obviously can’t do it himself. He offers The Mando all of the money. With no other prospects for income he agrees on the condition that they do it together. Two is better than one and if Fennec is as dangerous as The Mando claims, they’re going to need every advantage.

    The Mando goes back to hangar three-five and discovers that Baby Yoda is missing. He yells out for Peli jerking her awake. The scene cracks me up because Amy wakes up with such force that Baby Yoda’s head snaps back and forth hard enough to cause serious spinal damage if it were a normal baby. Baby Yoda sounds the most like a baby here with its crying and cooing. The Mando grabs some gear and heads out to meet Toro. Peli follows him holding Baby Yoda and explains that her costs are going up. Toro notices Peli and the baby but doesn’t really react.

    Toro brought with him the two speeder bikes that The Mando requested. And here we are treated to another great scene. Toro and The Mando get on the bikes and race across the Dune Sea. It’s not like flying through a forest but the effects are still oh so satisfying, especially the sound effects. That light, high-pitched “oOOoot” the bikes make really triggers the memory of the Return of the Jedi speeder bike chase. Across the desert they go and come to rest before a Tusken Raider convoy. Toro says they better stay out of his way. The Mando knows he’s full of pomp and calmly suggests that he tells them himself. And in a move that would scare the living daylights out of me, two raiders suddenly just appear behind Toro. How his pants didn’t turn more brown is beyond me. I mean, they must have just popped up from under the sand all quiet like. How scary is that? The Mando handles negotiations for safe passage via sign language and offers up Toro’s binocs as payment. And again, they are on their way.

    With safe passage secured, they speed along the desert some more until they come across a dewback dragging a rider by the ankle. The Mando goes to investigate. It’s another bounty hunter carrying a tracking fob that is beeping rapidly, signaling the nearby presence of the target, Fennec. The Mando realizes this and tries to retreat only to be hit by a sniper bolt from an MK-modified rifle but is saved by the newly acquired Beskar Steel armor parts. They hunker down until night before they make a move.

    Night comes and The Mando and Toro come up with plan. They alternate shots from a flash charge to blind the scope as they race on their speeder bikes towards her camping spot. The plan mostly works as The Mando’s speeder is taken out and takes another shot to the chest but luckily survives. Toro gets the drop on her but Melinda May’s hand to hand combat with S.H.I.E.L.D. comes in handy and they go at it. The Doofus Known As Toro is getting his butt kicked but when The Mando shows up with his pistol drawn Fennec surrenders. But, conundrum! There’s only speeder bike for the three of them. The Mando tells Toro to go back and get that dewback they saw earlier but he ain’t leaving him alone with his bounty and his speeder bike. The Mando decides to get the dewback, but that doesn’t seem like such a great idea either cause what’s stopping Toro from taking Fennec on his bike? Nothing! But he goes and its probably the best decision since he’s the only one that can track the thing in the dark thanks to infrared vision provided by his helmet.

    So The Mando leaves. The twin suns rise, and Fennec has the perfect opportunity to play mind games with Toro. She tries to convince him that The Mando is the bigger target here and that he can walk into the Bounty Hunters Guild a legend. She’s only heard that a Mandalorian made some bad choices, went rogue, and ran off with a target. Toro’s not convinced. He knows she’s trying to weasel her way out and would say anything to convince him. He asks how they can be sure that this Mando is THE Mando. Fennec shares the details that the Mandalorian should still have the target with him, a child. Toro remembers seeing Peli at three-five with Baby Yoda and realizes that Fennec was telling the truth. She’s hoping Toro will let her go since she just gave him a huge scoop. He holsters his blaster, and motions for her to stand up as if to let her go. But he’s not as dumb as he looks. He quickdraws his weapon and shoots her in the gut saying that as soon as he took those binders off her he’d be a dead man. And he’s right. Toro then gets on his speeder and speed away.

    So now the inexperienced, ignorant doofus has a flash of brilliance and suddenly has the upper hand. Traveling by dewback is, I’m going to take a wild guess here, not as fast as speeder bike. Toro has nothing but time to come up with a plan while The Mando is traveling at what I assume is a snail’s pace. The Mando finally makes his way back to Fennec’s dead body and then heads back to Mos Eisley. There’s no indication how long that journey took but it had to have been a couple of days at least. But this is TV time we’re talking about so we’re supposed to think it just took all the daylight hours because it’s night time, it’s dark, and it’s more dangerous. He enters the hangar cautiously, making his way around some companion cubes. Toro emerges from the Razor Crest holding Baby Yoda and Peli hostage. Toro’s got the upper hand and demands that The Mando drops his weapon. He complies and raises his hands and puts them behind his head. Toro instructs Peli to put some binders on The Mando and as she makes his way behind him, she sees the trick he’s got up his sleeve and whispers, “You’re not as dumb as you look.” Toro prognosticates what will happen to him when he brings The Mando in as his first bounty, reveling in the idea that he’ll become a legend. And as he raises his blaster to fire at The Mando, The Mando lets loose a flash charge and ducks out of the way. He gets the angle on Toro and hits him one shot. Toro practically flips off the Razor Crests ramp and the only thing I and a million other people could think of is “Is Baby Yoda okay? I hope he didn’t land on it!”. Baby Yoda is fine thought as it walks out from behind a crate. I’d like to think that The Child did some fancy gymanstics move like how Yoda did when he was fighting Dooku in Episode II. Peli picks it up off the ground and soothes it. The Mando loots Toro’s body and uses the monety to pay off Peli. Then they part ways with one final shot of Peli nodding with a sad expression on her face. She probably fell in love with Baby Yoda too, along with every Disney+ subscriber.

    But wait, there’s more! Remember Fennec’s dead body left to rot at the edge of the Dune Sea? The final shot of the episode shows a mysterious figure approaching the body. We don’t really get to see who this mysterious figure was, but we can only assume it’s someone tracking the Mando. Not that we really needed to know that because The Mando is basically on the run now. The opening dogfight in space proved just that.

    Random Thoughts

    Back in Chapter 1, when The Mando was trying to get back to his ship on the ice field, the first speeder that pulled up was piloted by a droid. The Mando told the flute-player / taxi stand man on “No droids.” I didn’t think much of it until this episode when he fired that warning shot at the pit droids. Clearly there’s something about him and droids. He’ll tolerate them if need be, like back in Chapter 2 “The Child” when he quickly teamed up with IG-11. But now, now there’s something there. It’s clear he hates them, and doesn’t want anything to do with them.

    After this episode aired. There was some conversation about Peli being likened to Ripley from Aliens. I just don’t see it.

    The mysterious figure at the end? There’s been some other conversation about who it could be there is a good segment of people that want to believe it’s Boba Fett, that he somehow survived Sarlacc Pit. I’m not buying it though. I will admit though that the mysterious figure is also caped, clanged around like he was wearing armor, and had a holster on his hip. It could be another Mandalorian. /shrug I just hope it’s not Boba cause that just might kill the show for me. The Mandalorian, the show and not the dude, is doing JUST FINE without having to bring in an established character as a crutch for ratings.

    This is episode 5, just past the halfway point and things are getting better and better. With only three more episodes left, I’m eating up every minute.

  • The Mandalorian S1:E4 Chapter 4 “Sanctuary” Episode Recap

    The Mandalorian S1:E4 Chapter 4 “Sanctuary” Episode Recap

    It was going to be a pretty high bar to jump over clearing the climax of Chapter 3 of the Mandalorian. The climax of the action, and the character and universe building going on, was at its best in Chapter 3, and it was clear that at the end no one was quite sure where to go.

    We’re coming off the strongest episode, and the first three episodes, as a whole, make a mini-arc that by itself could stand as a movie. Honestly, the show thus far has been a master class in the “show, don’t tell” school of storytelling and worldbuilding, so here’s hoping that they keep up the momentum. As always, there will be major spoilers in this article, so enjoy some filler art before we get all spoilertastic. Also, in case you haven’t watched them, there will be some story spoilers for Rebels and The Clone Wars in here as well when I dive into some story implications.

    The opening for the episode feels familiar to the flashbacks that we’ve seen a few times right after the Mando has gotten his butt royally kicked. We open underwater, looking at some blue… shrimp? Maybe Plankton? Smurf Prawns? Okay, later on they’re called blue krill… and under the water they don’t look interesting but not unusual. Once we’re outside of the water, though… they are super-blue. And, honestly, pretty plastic looking, but that likely just means they’re a practical effect. Still, they could use a bit of black wash or something to darken them up slightly.

    One of the things that the Mandalorian does spectacularly is the idea of “show, not tell.” It’s a hard line to walk, because tell is certainly important in a fantasy / western story, but there is just so much told in the visual language of the show. We’re getting an idyllic little village, and at first glance you could totally think you were just watching a backwater planet that has never seen a sword before, let alone a blaster.

    Anyone seen Nemo?

    Except that in the first pan across the farming ponds, we see two droids. One walker and an astromech on a wooden cart. This isn’t a primitive village, it’s simply rustic. These villagers are peaceful but integrate into the technology of their universe. I love this idea of using the natural scene so organically, and then plugging in the stuff that makes sense. It’s not the everywhere is shiny setting universe of the prequels, but the fringes where people are just living their lives.

    Star Wars has long leaned into the Western genre as inspiration; while the original trilogy is ultimately a fantasy story in space, the lines between western and fantasy are often pretty blurry (I will always  argue that Star Wars is more Fantasy than it is Sci-Fi… because it is). If you’re familiar with the western genre, you’re going to get the undertones of the episode opening almost immediately once the peace is disturbed.

    There’s a fantastic $30 set here, but LEGO doesn’t make things without conflict. Give us some villagers, a couple of droids, that sled, and a small hut.

    The piece is disturbed and Klatooinian raiders show up, while Omera, one of the farmers, watches in horror as her daughter is right at the edge of the pools where the raid is going to come from. The farmers all scatter, and Omera manages to hide with her daughter in one of the baskets in the pool. The raiders are smashing and taking, basically wiping out the harvest for the village, and there is a real tension to seeing them break apart other baskets as the leader swings his blaster around, ready to fire. We know next to nothing of the characters, but the situation, tied to how the storytelling has worked for the Mandalorian, is a shorthand to get us invested quickly.

    This is a fascinating bit of storytelling, which calls back to what we’ve seen about the title character, but also given that we know nothing of several of the other characters that have been teased in artwork but not revealed in the story as of yet. Is the daughter going to end up being Cara Dune, Gina Carano’s character that’s been heavily featured in the marketing materials but hasn’t shown up yet? At this point… we don’t know, but we can see the setup for the western already.

    After the title screen, we’re back on the Razor Crest watching our Mandalorian buddy experience what every father that’s lived through the toddler years knows and understands… the inherently destructive nature of a child that must flip every Gamorrean switch he or she can find. Seriously, in the middle of writing this I had to go and turn on the power switch connected to my router because my two year old decided it was a great time to play with it.

    The little look that Yiddle (I’m sticking with it… I refuse to give “The Child” its due) gives him as he slowly leans over to hit it again, like he’s somehow being sneaky… that cuts so deep. I don’t exactly know how a switch can create turbulence in a vacuum, but who am I to argue with Baby Yoda’s power. Also familiar to any dad is the “fine, I’ll just pick you up and hold you” move that the Mando pulls. I may or may not be typing this with my son on my lap right now (mostly may).

    When fifty years old you are, look as adorable, you will not.

    The Mando and the little “Womp Rat”… okay, I like the in-universe nod to his size, even if I presume he’s a billion times more adorable than anything that can be bulls-eyed by a T-16 back home, do a little bit of planet searching and head out to Sorgan. There’s no starport, no industrial or population centers, and it’s not really on the way to anywhere. Presumably, it’s a good place to hide and for them to both stretch their legs for a little bit.

    We get an answer to our question on who the kid is, and it is not Cara Dune, because the Razor Crest does a flyover and Omera looks up, presumably not any older than she was in the intro. If there’s a knock on this episode, it’s that where the Mandalorian has borrowed and paid homage to westerns and samurai films of the past… here we’re just straight up getting that story. This is Seven Samurai, the Magnificent Seven, or even the Three Amigos… defenseless town turns to outside help to beat back an aggressor.

    I would watch a whole episode of Mando teaching Yiddle how to fly the Razor Crest

    Continuing the “how many of the writers have toddlers, anyway” theme, we see the Mandalorian giving futile instructions to Womp Rat to “stay right there” that he promptly ignores within about six seconds, and he’s ready for the walk and to hang out with the big guy. We also get to see yet another dad moment, when the Mandalorian doesn’t even argue, he just resigns himself with a sigh and starts walking.

    It’s amazing how well Disney has managed to make these little pretend characters have so much power and charm on the screen. From BB-8 to Porgs to Baby Yoda (or even BD-1 in the case of the recent JEDI: Fallen Order), they simply nail the cute character. In any other application, Baby Yoda could just be sickeningly sweet or even corny, but for some reason, it just absolutely works here.

    This is basically every single interaction I ever have with my kids when I ask them to stay somewhere while I go do something.

    I mean, we get a short walking scene, and it should be something throw-away, but it’s just adorable and for the first time in cinematic history I’m asking for more scenes of characters walking. Somewhere, Cy Roth is screaming in triumph for having his padding invention used in such a way (though he was long gone, he likely was already vindicated by walking having been 2/3rds of the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

    The first stop of Mando & Yiddle is a Common House to get some food and information. We get another little Easter Egg in a show that’s just awash in them, in a little Loth-cat (seen in Rebels a lot) that scares little Womp Rat. Look, I like Loth-cats, but I swear I will put you in a box and send you to the pound, cat, if you hurt a single hair on his old but young head.

    Only play with the white Loth-cats, Yiddle.

    As they walk across, Mando spies Cara Dune, dressed in armor and with a tiny rebel tattoo on her face (that’s… kind of hardcore when you think about the need for Rebels to blend in), and you know right away that something is up. After placing BY in a booster chair, we get the common house proprietress who is perhaps the most innocent adult character to ever appear in Star Wars. It’s actually kind of sweet, because you can tell she has literally no idea what the Mando is really asking for when it comes to information.

    It’s funny, while the other episodes have had moments that feel like a video game, this whole scene feels like something out of just about every D&D session I’ve ever been in. We’ve got an inn, random NPCs, and a quest giver that seriously failed an insight role. Weirdly, I’m also getting a lot of Stargate SG-1 feeling to this, because this whole rustic motif was used in that series a lot.

    When the proprietress leaves to get some broth for Yiddle, Mando sees that Cara is gone, and sets off to find her. I love that he trusts the Common House Keeper enough to watch BY, and at the same time doesn’t seem to get he’s likely tossed a fortune her way to do so. The chase is short lived, and shows off a bit more Mandalorian tech. This is another callback to the Rebels show, as we saw Sabine use similar gear. I love how so much of the little touches in the show are pulling from that, and not from the tiny bit we got with Jango/Boba (who based on everything else we’ve ever seen in Star Wars canon, are not really Mandalorians at all – they just dress like them).

    Back in episode three, he got an upgrade to his bracers, and here we see a bit more of the tech in them. The computer, the flamethrower, and other stuff is more similar to what Sabine used in her armor, and the helmet tech tie in matches the scanners that a lot of the Mandlorians used (he is, curiously, lacking the flip-down scanner).

    This is one of those moments in film where you just have to swallow the disbelief and just accept that Gina wouldn’t have simply mopped the floor with the Mando. Okay, joke aside, this is a great little fight. Outside of the fact that Cara is punching a guy in his Beskar steel-clad head, and seemingly making it hurt, they are pretty evenly matched in it. I like that the Mandalorian is a capable fighter but not at all invincible. This serves to both show us how capable Cara Dune is as a fighter while also making the Mando more interesting because he clearly has some shortcomings.

    How is there no merch out for him yet?

    The fight is over pretty quickly as they hit a standoff point and give us the most gif-able moment yet out of Baby Yoda. We get a bit of exposition from Cara to explain her history with the Rebels… and it just works to emphasize what we’ve already seen out of her as a fighter. She calls herself a Shocktrooper, but then describes the job of a commando that does wetworks type stuff (i.e., killing those that need to be killed).

    She clearly saw a lot of action after Endor… it’s not clear how long she was in the Rebellion, but the events of the Mandalorian happen five years after the Battle of Endor – and four years after the Battle of Jakku. This… is actually a pretty important thing when you’re talking about filling in the background of the war. There may have been celebrations after the Empire was killed and the second Death Star destroyed, but the Empire spanned the galaxy, and we’ve seen enough of the work of the Admirals, Moffs, and Administrators to know that they were going to cling to power.

    She’s actually less dangerous holding the blaster than she was in the fight.

    If you haven’t read the comics (and you should), or the books, a lot of the story post-Endor has been filled in. Endor was the start of the fall of the Empire, while Jakku was the real “end” of it. Or, at least, it was the last main battle. Cara describes going from offing Imperial Warlords into a peacekeeper, and that wasn’t what she signed up for.

    Turns out, the whole fight was them making assumptions about one another. She picked him out for being part of the Bounty Hunter Guild and having a FOB on her, while she assume he had taken a bounty on him or the kid. Their conversation ends with a gentle nudge to get the hell off her retirement planet, because planets are small in Star Wars, and he starts planning for going somewhere else.

    We cut to the Mandalorian doing some sort of maintenance work on the Razor Crest when Pillboi and random farmer #5 show up to try and hire the Mandalorian out to defend their city. Like I said… we’re basically reliving Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven now… except there are only two of them. They offer money, but he’s not interested in it… a man has to make sure you protect your rates, or clients will always demand a discount.

    Pillboi seems to have really cleaned up his life after Donkey Doug promised to leave him alone.

    What they do have, however, is solitude and isolation, which is exactly what he’s been looking for. They had to ride on a droid-powered, hovering wooden cart… and wow, that is not something I thought I would ever write… for a whole day to get to the Razor Crest. So they can broker a trade, because who can possibly stand up to a Mandalorian… and his new helper.

    His first stop on the way back Cara Dune’s camp to hire her for the help. After all, she has not all that much better to do and a pretty specific skill set. So, it’s less Three and more Two amigos. I’m going to assume that the Mando is Ned in this scenario. He lays it out pretty clearly… best case she’s paid for doing nothing and gets the isolation that she wants, worst case, she bloodies a couple of noses and still gets to do what she wants. We’re also treated to a shot of Baby Yoda, meeting our obligatory “Baby Yoda must be on screen at least every five minutes” quota, of him imitating the Mandalorian leaning back into the cart to watch the stars and sleep.

    Omera’s daughter and the rest of the village kids come over to meet the newest 50 year old addition to their little gang, and basically they should just introduce awwww breaks into this show. It’s no surprise that Omera is setting up the shelter that he requested, and her daughter Winta almost gets a blaster when she tries to quietly sneak a look.

    This village has like twenty people in it… these kids are going to grow up into some very awkward dating situations.

    The next morning, Winta asks if Yiddle can come out and play, and oh my god, he’s playing with other kids! Omera is clearly into the armored look, and is paying a lot of attention to our Mandalorian friend. At the same time, we get a few questions answered that have been lingering for awhile. She asks how long its been since he took off his armor, and the answer was “yesterday.” Her follow-up is how long has it been since he took it off in front of someone else… and the answer is when he was about Winta’s age. He also explains what had been implied but not stated… that he’s not a “born” Mandalorian, but rather was a foundling that was adopted into the tribe.

    In answering these questions, we get so many more laid out for us. Is he representative of what all of the Mandalorians have become after the Purge, or is his tribe a splinter or unique group that is following a different “this is the way.” We don’t exactly know where the Purge lines up to the timeline yet. Does it fall at the same time as the Jedi Purge / Rise of the Empire / Siege of Mandalore that happens at the end of the Clone Wars? Or does it happen later, perhaps sometime around the Battle of Yavin?

    Across the Rebels and Clone Wars, we saw the Mandalorians several times; Sabine Wren, one of the main characters in Rebels, was herself a Mandalorian. There’s a ton of lore and worldbuilding around them which doesn’t line up to the story we’re seeing, but also isn’t necessarily contradicted by it. The last season of Rebels is set in the year leading up to the battle of Yavin, and it opens with the Mandalorians ultimately driving the Empire off the planet – but also in setting up for a fight when they come back.

    I guess this is not the way?

    Clone Wars was a bit different, and we see that they, as a culture, are in a pretty bad spot. Their violent culture, along with repeated wars and infighting, had greatly diminished their population and their influence. There was a wave in the Clone Wars where their leader had become a pacifist, mostly as a way to try and save their culture. It… did not ultimately go well, and by the end of the series they were in a Civil War that led to Darth Maul temporarily controlling the planet as a warlord and more losses.

    We know that the upcoming season 7 of the Clone Wars is likely going to focus on the Siege of Mandalore, which was one of the final battles in the Clone Wars, where the Separatists and Droid Armies attacked the planet. By the time Rebels starts up five years before the Battle of Yavin, Mandalore is a puppet Imperial state, and several of the tribes have either allied with the Empire or have been directly pressed into serving along side Stormtroopers and the rest of the army.

    Based on the flashbacks we’ve already seen from the Mandalorian, we know that he was rescued by someone during the Clone Wars, and ultimately was adopted by his tribe. We don’t yet know that the Mandalorians rescued him, or that the planet where it happened was Mandalore. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both had ties to the Mandalorians, and I will lose my damn mind if they reveal that one of them was who rescued the Mando as a boy and gave him to the Mandalorians to take care of.

    *waves fingers* ride like a pony, you will let me

    Now, despite all of that, I’m left wondering how the Mandalorians as a culture will survive if they don’t take off their armor in front of others. It seems like they need some numbers to survive. It’s a very subtle bit of acting where we get the Mandalorian saying this is the way, but it wasn’t the mindless repetition… it was almost resigned. After she leaves, we see him take off his helmet to watch the kids play and enjoy his food alone.

    Later, we cut to Mando and Cara out doing some scouting when the other shoe drops… these raiders aren’t quite the thugs we saw with sticks and blasters at the start of the episode. They’re packing a pretty big weapon for a backwater planet: an AT-ST. There were already overwhelming odds against the village, but based on the reaction of our two characters, it just went to impossible, and they jump to the “nope, you gotta leave” answer to the villagers.

    Of course, we have to get in the trope of “my land is sacred” argument and they all refuse to leave. At least, unlike so many others, we get the sensible statement by Cara of “sure you can, it’s a big planet” in response to the not leaving. Seriously… in a universe full of planets, and on one that’s sparsely populated, they could go. It’s just land. I really hate this as a storytelling trope, even though I understand why it’s used.

    There was a super-subtle CGI effect here that was amazing… BY’s head moved in line with Winta’s looking down and then up to her mother. It was a little thing, but shows just how alive this character is

    Since we’re already dealing with Seven Samurai as the “inspiration,” we’re going to jump into the plan B of turning a bunch of farmers into an elite fighting force. They do a bit of flipping the script in this, at least… where the inspiration to stay and fight comes from the farmers, and not from the mercenaries.

    The Mando lays it out… he and Cara will fight the mech (his words), while the rest of them need to hold the raiders at bay. We get some voice over a montage, which makes it more interesting than just showing us a whole bunch of the stuff with music. There’s a bit of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves training, but the most interesting reveal is that Omera apparently knows how to shoot… while no one else in the village does. And when they show her actually shooting… she’s apparently a crack-shot with the blaster rifle. I have so many questions from that short little scene.

    Some of the unsung heroes of the production is absolutely the prop department. Everything seen in the show feels used and lived in. When the Mandalorian is handing out blasters, they’re all different shapes and sizes, and all used in their own right. The shiny problem from the prequels is gone here… this universe looks lived in. More than that, there are just so many small touches and easter eggs baked in with everything they are doing.

    So, did the village have this available, or was it inside one of the Mando’s crates?

    The Mando gives instructions to Omera that they’re heading out, and they will be coming back hot. Everyone needs to be ready and follow the plan. The quick cloak and dagger work we get with the two heroes is just satisfying… luckily all of the raiders are holding convenient blue drinks that glow and are easily visible at night.

    So, one big question I have is… if the Mando and Cara were hired to help get back the harvest and take care of the raiders… why do they blow it up? Isn’t that what the blue glowing things are? Some sort of cooking pot for the krill? Still, they blow up the tent, take out a lot of raiders, and anger the red-eyed AT-ST.

    There’s actually some tension to this… while I don’t think anyone is expecting the Mando to get shot down, we know that IG-11 was featured in marketing and didn’t last more than an episode, so anyone could end buying it. They book it hard back to the camp, where their pit trap is waiting for the AT-ST. Of course, there’s a complication, as it stops short, and the raiders come rushing in.

    Only one child here is guaranteed to live to the next episode.

    It’s pretty clear they weren’t expecting blasters, however, as most are mowed down and the villagers manage to hold their own behind the fortifications for the most part. The AT-ST opens fire, but luckily, it’s as bad of a shot as most Stormtroopers, and Omera is just mowing down a ton of the raiders charging across the field. Side note… the lighting in the fight is just fantastic. It’s dark, given that it’s a night attack, but every blaster shot and explosion lights up and washes the scene in color, before it fades back. It’s a notable look in a series that’s full of gorgeous and memorable scenes.

    In the end, it’s the Mando and Cara that go off and be heroic. Cara takes the pulse rifle (disintegration gun has a name), and gets right in the face of the AT-ST… below it’s line of fire, baiting it to move forward. Eventually, Cara gets it in the eye and it takes the plunge, allowing the Mando to do the easy part and finish it off. The villagers run in to take out the raiders, including the leader, and the day is saved. Honestly, I don’t know that any of the villagers were even killed, and somehow by the next day the village is no worse for wear with damage.

    We never get a really clear view of the AT-ST. The fight happens at night, and most of the light is directly from the blaster bolts or explosions. Also, the question of how some backwater raiders got an AT-ST is just sort of left there…

    Okay, in truth, it’s revealed that it’s been a few weeks, so likely that it was rebuilt. The real discussion is between Omera, Mando, and Cara. Omera points out how happy BY is, happier than he’s ever seen him. He reveals that if he takes off the helmet in front of anyone else, he can’t put it on again. I love that Cara calls out the nonsense of the system, and says that he could take it off, live with the beautiful young widow, and raise Yiddle while sipping on booze. Not a bad life at all to have.

    Mando reveals his plan… that he’s going to leave Yiddle here so he can live in peace and happiness. The Mandalorian life is no way for a child to live, and he ultimately wants him to be happy. Cara remarks that it will break his little heart, and his response is clearly setting up something in the future: “he’ll get over it; we all do.” So, clearly his own childhood and the stuff that happened in it is fresh in the Mando’s head, as evidenced by repeated flashbacks caused by head trauma.

    Tracking FOBs work at the speed of plot.

    Of course, before the plan can ultimately happen, we get a short cut of a Bounty Hunter with a tracking FOB, clearly zoning in on someone. We don’t know if it’s the Mando, for breaking contract, Cara, or Yiddle. Before we find out, we get the Mandalorian talking to Omera, and her trying to get him to stay, and him falling back on this is the way. The resignation in the choice is heavy here, and you can tell he was tempted for a moment to let her take it off… but know that he ultimately doesn’t belong. Her understanding in that moment seems to point to some understanding.

    The moment is interrupted by a shot ringing out. The scope was zoomed in baby Yoda, so we know the target… but luckily, Cara took him out before he could get the shot off. Mand reveals that the target was the kid, and she lays out the harsh reality that they will keep coming, because one hunter was able to find them. So, Adorable and Mando are on the road again, we get a tearful goodbye between Yiddle and Winta that just goes right for the feels, and what amounts to the perfect goodbye between Mando and Omera as he loads up the hover cart with some provisions and his gear. I know I mentioned Stargate SG-1 earlier, but wow, that end music feels so much like what that show often used, and not at all like Star Wars. Cut to credits and that beautiful theme art.

    Random Thoughts

    This wasn’t as strong as the last episode, but as a self-contained story, worked. What it was trying to set up will be obvious from the outset if you’re a fan of western or fantasy genre films at all… but it still executed the formula well. While I’m often critical of shows and films that just lift their inspiration and story in obvious ways (looking at you, Solo), you look past it here because there’s so much world building. The lull in the action only serves to heighten the action once it finally comes. If I’m going to knock anything, it’s that the battle feels a bit too short and too clean, but ultimately, that’s probably more reflective of the kind of fight that this was… small stakes of a village vs. some raiders, not an epic Rebel vs. Empire battle.

    The kids all go ewww, but then laugh and hug hum anyway.

    While Chapter 4 does answer a few questions that I have, it just puts down so many more that I’m left desperate for the next episode. What is the deal with Omera? Based on the age of her daughter, I’d guess about 9 or 10, she likely had the kid right around the Battle of Yavin. Was she an Imperial, a Rebel, or just some soldier? She clearly can fight, knows weapons, and was a leader calling out orders and strategy during the fight itself. I hope she’s not a one-off character, because I want some of those questions answered.

    We get more background on Cara Dune, but if you’re like me, you’re screaming “take her with you!” at the end. They make a great pair, and stand as equals in a fight (in fact, she’s likely a better soldier than he ever will be, he’s just a better hunter). There will be a lot of fighting with Baby Yoda in the future to protect him, so I could see the next episode doing something to keep them together before he gets off the planet. She’s got plenty of unanswered questions as well, and given her story, would likely welcome the chance to go after the Empire that is seemingly funding the bounty (we know there’s at least one more Empire big-bad out there who hasn’t been revealed yet).

    We don’t get any answers in this episode to the ultimate scheme of the Empire and what they wanted with Yiddle’s midichlorians. There, I said it… they wanted his midichlorians. I welcome Disney taking the dumbest thing in the prequels and somehow making it cool. We also don’t know how they are going to go after the Mando and Yiddle, or honestly, if Werner Herzog’s character even cares about him. They likely got what they wanted from whatever was done to BY, and the scientist wanted to keep him alive, so it could be the danger is coming from elsewhere. After all… IG-11’s contract seemed to contradict what the Mando had.

    This is me, every time Yiddle isn’t on the screen

    Speaking of the Bounty Hunters… how in the heck do those tracking FOBs even work? Do they have some sort of DNA sample, or is there something that can triangulate based on… I don’t know, magic dust or something? How did the bounty hunter at the end track them to a literal nowhere of a planet? They had to jump there via Hyperspace, and as of yet, the ability to track someone through Hyperspace is still years off (teased in Rogue One, it didn’t show up until the Last Jedi officially). Mando wouldn’t have been sloppy enough to leak their position, and I don’t see Cara doing it… who else could have tipped them off? The Common House Keeper who didn’t seem to know how bribes worked?

    It’s probably a good sign that I’m desperate for more of this show… this is something just fantastic. It’s pretty special what Gutter has put together in this show, and it’s a great time to be a Star Wars fan.

    Bonus LEGO Section

    So, this episode is unique, as it is the source for the only LEGO set that we’ve gotten from the Mandalorian so far. Yes, they leaked/released a picture of a Battle Pack that seemingly has nothing to do with the show other than using the name, but this one is very much based on what we saw in Chapter 4. 75254 AT-ST is a 540 piece set that normally runs $49.99 USD… but luckily right now is on sale for $40 through Walmart.

    It includes the AT-ST we saw in the show, though it has more color than we ever could make out and lacks the red eyes, but we get a couple of Klatoonian raiders, Cara Dune, and the Mandalorian as minifigs. The weird color scheme makes a bit more sense, and it’s cool that we get the characters… but I still want the Razor Crest and a Yiddle minifigure. WHERE IS THE YIDDLE MERCH, DISNEY?!

    It’s a kind of pricey set and a vehicle that’s been done to death, but also could end up being the only Mandalorian merch of note that we ever get. Which is kind of a shame, because it was clearly based on some early concept art… as the look of the characters doesn’t feel right (too much tan on Mando, too dark of an outfit on Cara).

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

    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.

  • The Mandalorian S1:E2 Chapter 2 “The Child” Episode Recap

    The Mandalorian S1:E2 Chapter 2 “The Child” Episode Recap

    So I was wrong about the episode titles just being plain Jane “Chapter n“. Episode 2 of The Mandalorian has a title, “The Child”. And yes, spoiler or not I’ll be including the title in the headline of these posts. Anyways, let’s get to it shall we?

    Spoilers ahead, naturally. Avert thine eyes if you wish to remain untainted.

    The Child opens with The Mando leading his Roomba-fied floating baby stroller through the shallow canyon we saw him jumping over while riding the blurrg in the previous episode. He’s surrounded by some local wildlife that disappear for obvious reasons. The Mando senses this and the ambush you saw coming a mile away happens. Three bounty hunters who are also in possession of a tracking fob decide it’s better to not attack all at once and The Mando is once again displaying his fighting prowess. They are taken care of easily enough but not before one of them makes a run at Baby Yoda. The Mando actually fires his long rifle, finally, and disintegrates the dude right before Baby Yoda’s eyes.

    The Mando tries to John J. Rambo the injury on his arm. Baby Yoda is watching him in earnest. It clambers out of his carrier, reaches up with a hand wave and tries to use the force to presumably heal The Mando’s injuries. But The Mando has no idea what Baby Yoda is or what it’s potential is or what its trying to do, and promptly just picks it up and puts it back into the floating baby pod.

    They continue along and head back to their ship only to find a sandcrawler parked near the Razor Crest with Jawas just stripping it bare. He fires his rifle a couple of times disintegrating a Jawa with each shot before they retreat back into their rolling fortress and run away. The Mando chases them on foot and tries to climb to the top. He manages to get there only to be shot by multiple ion blasters and then fall right on his back on a rock. Yes, this would normally kill a man, but this is Star Wars and physics mean nothing here.

    The Mando finds his way back to Kuiil, the ugnaught who helped him with blurrg-riding lessons, and explains his situation. Now, this is 11 minutes and some odd seconds into the episode before we get to hear some dialog. The Mando didn’t so much as curse when his ship was stripped and rendered non-functional. But, Kuill being Kuill, speaks and says he’ll help The Mando get his ship parts back from the Jawas.

    Kuill ferries The Mando on a trailer towed by a blurrg across the desert and finds the Jawas. The Mando seems to be a bit of a hothead because he tries to fry a couple of them during negotations using his wrist-mounted flamethrower. Kuiil calms him down and begins negotiations. They demand his armor in exchange but we know that ain’t happening. The Jawas try and bargain for Baby Yoda and we know that definitely ain’t happening either. They agree to give back his parts if The Mando retrieves an egg. No joke. The Mando really has no choice but to accept so he travels with Baby Yoda to a rather organic looking mouth of a cave in a muddy pit to find the requested egg. You just know this isn’t going to go well.

    The Mando goes cave diving, pokes around, and wakes up the ginormous animal. and he happens as a rhino-like animal attacks while the Mando is cave diving. The Mando gets flung out of the cave and a fight ensues. The fight doesn’t go well for The Mando. He gets knocked around, dragged, and headbutted. After one particularly hard hit on the head, The Mando is struggling and he pulls a knife out of his boot as a last stand. He feebly raises it as the rhino creature charges straight at him. Baby Yoda can’t take it anymore and comes to the rescue by using the force to stop the rhino creature from killing his foster parent. As the rhino is floating in the air, The Mando turns around and sees Baby Yoda doing his force thing. Then Baby Yoda collapses, the rhino drops and hits the ground, and The Mando stabs his tiny knife into the neck of the creature, killing it.

    The Mando goes back into the cave and retrieves a rather hairy-looking egg, and that is NOT a euphimism. Back at camp, the Jawas are packing up despite Kuiil’s objections for them to give The Mando some more time. The main ramp is lifting as The Mando reappears with the goods. The Jawas eagerly take the egg, slice off the top, and begin trying to eat the yolk with their bare hands. “Gross” is what my wife said about that scene.

    Kuiil and The Mando make it back to Razor Crest and a repair montage scene ensues. The Mando offers Kuiil half the reward, but Kuill refuses. He’s just happy no more bounty hunting in his valley. The Mando asks Kuiil if he wants to come with him as part of his crew but Kuiil politely declines. The Mando takes off away from the planet. Baby Yoda was asleep this entire time but wakes up right before the end. Roll credits.

    Random Thoughts

    How freakin’ adorable is Baby Yoda? That frog-eating scene was pretty funny…

     

    More gamification of The Mandalorian became evident the second that Kuiil told The Mando he had to go retrieve an egg to get his parts back. How much of a cliché is it when the main hero in the game is told to go to point A to continue the main quest only to reach point A and be told he has to complete some other quest to continue? A big fat cliché at that.

    This episode was a bit of a snoozefest. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great. Because this episode, as slow and uneventful as it was, is still miles better than that other live-action Star Wars show that’s currently on the air. Oh, that’s right there is no other show. My point is, it’s better than nothing. But that being said, I’m a bit disappointed that after such a high of E1, this episode was nothing substantial, just filler. It’s only purpose was to bring the Mandalorian down to earth and build up the bond between him and the little yoda. Other than that, what exactly are they trying to stretch out here? We learn almost nothing new about anything and no questions that were raised previously are answered.

    We did learn one thing though: the Mando isn’t invulnerable. He was in absolute top form in E1. Here we see his ride get stripped; he’s taken out by a couple of jawas and ion blasters; and nearly killed by a rhino-like animal (animals seem to be his weak point since he was also almost taken out by blurrgs in E1). It grounds him a little more and raises the stakes a bit. While ruthless and capable, he’s not undefeatable, and that makes his mission all that more precarious. That Baby Yoda is still being hunted; The Mando needs to protect it and return it to The Client and Dr. Pershing before anyone else can get to them and kill them both. He wants, nay, he needs that Beskar Steel reward.

    The Mando learns about Baby Yoda’s force powers. He had no idea what it was trying to do during the John Rambo scene, he thought the baby was just doing baby things. He did learn about Baby Yoda’s power during the rhino fight scene but I don’t think he realizes just how big of a deal it is. As far as The Mando and most of the galaxy are concerned, there are no more Jedi. He may not even know what a Jedi is or what force powers are.

    We the audience are on the outside looking in. There’s all kinds of things that can happen during this discovery phase. Let’s hope that Gutter can keep in mind what The Mando knows separate from what we know.

    Tl;dr: Episode 2 “The Child” is slow, but still enjoyable.

  • New Mandalorian Episode Is Out TODAY

    New Mandalorian Episode Is Out TODAY

    I thought Tuesday was going to be the next day we’d be able to watch a new Mandalorian episode but I was wrong. Thanks to a comment from OscarWRG, I found out that the next episode is available today! And it is! Look! It’s right there.

    Gonna ingest it today at during my lunch break and then again with the kids after I get home, and then probably a few more times. I’m going to try and keep this weekly recap thing going too, so expect a write-up tomorrow in one of our rare weekend posts.

    And if you haven’t subscribed to Disney+ yet, you should seriously consider doing so. With Disney owning, like, a million studios now, there’s tons of stuff on there. The classic Disney animated movies alone are worth it. The Mandalorian alone is worth it. Maclunky alone is worth it.

  • The Mandalorian S1:E1 Chapter 1 Episode Recap

    The Mandalorian S1:E1 Chapter 1 Episode Recap

    Ever since the first trailer dropped for The Mandalorian, I, like many like-minded, jaded, burned out 40-somethings, couldn’t wait for this show to start. I hoped it would be better than what the Skywalker Trilogy offered. I was not disappointed.

    Major spoilers below, obviously. Don’t read if you haven’t watched it yet.

    The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 1, titled as Chapter 1 (which isn’t very Star Warsy but this is the pattern for naming episodes going forward if IMDB is to be believed; it’s probably intentional to prevent any speculation as to what happens in any given episode), opens with the Mandalorian walking into a bar on some remote planet. He disrupts a couple of bullies from killing his target. After dispatching said bullies rather easily, The Mando takes his bounty along with several others to Greef Karga, played by Carl Weathers, who I’ll refer to as the Bondsman going forward because it’s not exactly clear what he does or who he works for. He tries to pay the reward in Imperial credits but The Mando refuses because “the Empire is no more”. The Bondsman replies with “they still spend” but The Mando is unrelenting. Remember, this series is supposed to take place right after the events of Return of the Jedi. The Bondsman then offers Calamari Flan, which isn’t a seafood-based dessert, but, I’m assuming, the currency of the Mon Calamari race. The Mando accepts.

    But being a bounty hunter and low on funds, he inquires about more jobs. None are offering that much in terms of reward and the Bondsman can’t let him take all the jobs because “there are other guild members”. The Bondsman does tell him about a job that’s about as off the books as bounty hunting jobs can get. He travels to some other part of town and enters a building with The Client, played by Werner Herzog, and some Stormtroopers that have seen better days. The little meeting is interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Pershing played by Omid Abtahi. It startles The Mando enough to draw his weapons and start pointing them at people. The Stormtroopers respond accordingly and demand that he lowers his weapons. Now, if the opening fight scene between The Mando and the bullies didn’t give you the impression that we are following a certifiable badass, then his response to Stormtrooper #2 should:

    Stormtrooper #2: We have you four to one.

    The Mando: I like those odds.

    Nobody does anything except stare at each other. The Stormtroopers were probably thinking “is this guy for real?” while The Mando was probably just glad his voice didn’t crack at a high pitch. The Client calms everyone down enough to explain the job. Bring the bounty back alive or, if need be, bring back proof of termination. Pershing objects but he can’t really say much since he’s not doing the actual hunting. There’s no data on the actual bounty, no “puck”, just a tracking fob, the last four digits of a chain code that apparently reveals the age of the bounty, and the last known location.

    The client offers Beskar Steel as a down payment and claims there’s a lot more where that came from. The opening scene with the bullies had one of them ask The Mando, “is that real Beskar Steel?”. So there’s something up with this Beskar Steel. He then says, “The Beskar belongs back into the hands of a Mandalorian. It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray. Don’t you agree?” The next scene shows The Mando taking that payment to a building full of other Boba Fett wannabes and has a shoulder pauldron made out of it at the in-house smithy. The armorer remarks “This was gathered in the Great Purge. It is good it is back with the tribe.”

    All of this focus on the Beskar Steel and the seeming plight of the Mandolarian people is probably stemming from the events of The Clone Wars, specifically the Siege of Mandalor. I wasn’t sure what the big deal was with the Steel, or what happened with the Mandalorian people, but apparently I have to go watch the Clone Wars to fully understand. Not a big deal because I have an abundance of free time. Some more comments are made by the smith and The Mando about him being a Foundling and then a flashback ensues. The Mando was apparently a child of war whose parents hid him to protect him from certain death.

    A pauldron is made and is super shiny compared to the rest of his armor and matches his helmet in terms of shininess. He’s then on his ship and goes to the next planet to get his bounty. He almost gets eaten by some ugly creatures known as blurrgs until Kuill, played by Nick Nolte) comes to his rescue. He figures out The Mando is a bounty hunter and says he’ll help him. He has his own motives for helping him, demanding no payment. Kuill just wants peace back in his land and the only way to do that is to get rid of this little encampment and he sees The Mando as the best chance of that happening.

    After some blurrg-riding lessons The Mando and Kuill are on their way. After reaching the encampment, Kuill and The Mando part ways and just as he begins reconnaissance, he spots IG-11, a bounty droid, making its way in demanding the guards, who happen to all be Nikto, turn over the bounty. He dashes in and they team up to take down all the Nikto. The heroes blast their way to victory and make their way inside the building. They find the bounty who happens to be a baby of Yoda. IG-11’s directive is to kill the bounty but The Mando ain’t having any of that. Given that flashback we had of The Mando’s past, he saw this baby Yoda as a Foundling and saved his life from IG-11 and headshots him straight away. He reaches out with one finger and you see the baby Yoda reach up. Roll credits.

    Random Thoughts

    Why in God’s name did we not get a LEGO set of The Mando’s ship? Mythrol, the blue-faced bounty at the beginning of the episode, referred to it as Razor Crest, so I’m going with that as the name. No Razor Crest set but we get a retrofitted AT-ST that wasn’t even in the first episode? That’s just plain stupid. I mean come on. The LEGO Star Wars line is riddled with rehashes and that AT-ST set is no exception. Why not offer something new that’s tied to a new show and renew some interest back in the line? I don’t know what idiot made that decision, be it at Lucasfilm Licensing or LEGO, but it is just the dumbest thing.

    Razor Crest looks like a cross between Serenity and a Republic Gunship. Mythrol describes it as “pre-empire” which is the Star Wars equivalent of “vintage”, so its resemblance to an RGS is probably not an accident. Murph from our discord channel pointed out the Wookiee Gunship as a possible source model. He may have hit the nail on the head with that one.

    Up until a few minutes, the only thing I know about Yoda is that he is the one and only Yoda. The entry for Yoda’s species at the Star Wars Databank just says “unknown”. Wookieepedia lists his species as “Yoda’s species” which is another way to say “it is whatever that thing is”. Then I found out there was also Yaddle, whose name is just dumb. But I’m going to go with Yoda and refer to the baby as such because, like I said, Yaddle is a dumb name. So seeing a baby Yoda at the end of this episode brings up tons of questions. Where did the baby Yoda come from? Are there parents? Does the baby’s name also start with a Y? Why were the all the guards Nikto? So. Many. Questions.

    Hard to see but even the kids are helmeted.

    Does everyone from Mandalor wear a helmet? The armorer, the children, what’s up with that?

    The Mando’s armor looked like hand-me-downs and cobbled together from other pieces picked up at the local Goodwill. Only the helmet and the newly-forged pauldron matched and looked shiney and new. There was also mention of his signet being revealed. Lots of hints to a bigger backstory so I expect Mandalorian culture and lore to be a focus in a future episode.

    The Mando collecting the Beskar Steel, his signet not being revealed yet, it all feels kinda video game-ish. You have a main character that basic armor that can be upgraded by finding mats (Beskar steel bars), level up (signet), go on side quests (bounty hunting), get rewarded (credits), and try and save the world (baby Yoda). It’s like Gutter gamified The Mandalorian into a live-action RPG and we’re just watching someone play through it.

    The part when IG-11 and The Mando team up provided some of the more enjoyable moments in the show. The banter between the two provided a bit of comic relief in what was so far an oh-so-very-serious-Star-Warsy show. Even though IG-11 suffered a head shot, he is featured rather prominently in one of the promotional shots. Whether that’s the same bounty droid or not is a question, but I wouldn’t mind if they became partners and did more of that.

    This series pretty much cements the idea that Boba Fett was, in fact, like, the worst bounty hunter, like, ever. If they bring him back for this show because he somehow escaped the Saarlac Pit, I’m gonna be so pissed.

    I think one of the reasons why I like The Mando so much is that he’s not a cliché. You don’t quite know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. He’s not a hero, he’s not a villain. So far he seems like just a guy trying to make ends meet and if he needs to dispatch a few dudes along the way to get a job done he will. Do you remember a long time ago, before George Lucas mucked with the Original Trilogy and Han shot Greedo before Greedo knew what was happening? He straight up shot him in cold blood then stood up, tipped Wuher for the mess, and walked out like a boss. Han was a legend for doing that. He wasn’t the typical hero trying to save the day. He had debts to pay and was just trying to make ends meet but got wrapped up in something bigger before he realized it. He just about peaced out at the end too. I don’t know if Jon Favreau intended to have The Mando’s story follow a similar story arc but intentional or not, the similarity and familiarity is not lost on me.

    The Mandalorian also feels very Star Warsy, and it feels oh so right. That might seem like a weird statement given that it is a Star Wars show but not all things with the Star Wars label are created equally. The Mandalorian easily ranks among one of the best productions under that label. The many bars filled with scum and villainy, the homages to familiar scenes from A New Hope, the little hints here and there of the greater Star Wars universe, all of these elements are woven together so expertly that none of it feels very forced or cringe-y. It feels like you’re on the fringes of what is familiar and you can choose whether or not to make these connections to the established canon. Because doing so or not doesn’t change what’s happened in the past, or what’s happening in the future of what we know (not yet anyway). Even non-nerds, like my wife, enjoyed it. It’s meant to be a stand-alone series with all new characters. But there’s just enough there to make the new feel familiar.

    It’s off to a great start and I can’t wait for next week!

    All screen caps taken from Disney+. Disney own the content and copyright of all images.

  • The Latest Mandalorian Trailer. Yeah? Good.

    The Latest Mandalorian Trailer. Yeah? Good.

    The title of this article will make sense once you watch the trailer. I… don’t have a whole lot to add to it. I was fairly excited for the last one, but this one mostly just has me indifferent. It looks amazing, but doesn’t tell us anything or really add much to latch on to. I don’t feel the need to just go and break down everything about it, which is kind of a shame. However… Yeah? Good. will henceforth be used to describe so many… many… things.

    The Mandalorian starts streaming on November 12th with the launch of Disney+.

  • The Mandalorian Trailer has been released

    The Mandalorian Trailer has been released

    D23 is in full swing, and the news has been coming fast and furious. There’s a lot of news coming out, most of it around Marvel and all of it making me scream for joy and do fist bumps for reasons that only seem to confuse my family… but this one was too important to really wait on.

    This trailer doesn’t tell us much, but it looks very Star Wars, while at the same time apparently using the Firefly ship designs that Disney now also owns (seriously, I saw that and thought of the Serenity). Still, it’s so hard to watch this and not be excited. One has to assume most of the characters we saw in more than background glances have some connection to the overall story, and I look forward to getting to know them.

    I don’t like the a la carte streaming future we’re staring down, where we’re going to be carrying a half-dozen different subscriptions each month to watch all the stuff being made… but Disney seems to be just going to every end to make sure their service is worth your money. In short, it’s a great time to be a fan of genre shows… and it’s going to cost us.

  • A Few More details about the Mandalorian… including some exciting directors

    A Few More details about the Mandalorian… including some exciting directors

    We posted the news about the live-action show that Jon “Gutter” Favreau has been working on getting named “The Mandalorian,” and we didn’t have much else. Disney has decided to continue the drip feed of information, and given us our first picture of the “lone gunslinger” that will be the focus of the show.

    The real exciting news in the announcement is naming some of the directors that we’re going to get in the first season. While it doesn’t seem like a director is that big of a deal, I’ve come to really appreciate how much a good director can make or break the quality of an episode. A podcast I listen to about Star Trek (and if you’re curious, the answer to the question on which one it is would be “best boss I ever had”) that breaks down how the individual flair of a director can really shift the tone of an episode as much as the script and acting job.

    The first episode is being directed by none-other than Dave Filoni, the guy behind Clone Wars, Rebels, and the upcoming Resistance. I don’t know of anyone involved in Star Wars right now that has as deep of a love for the content as he does, and you know he’s going to put in something special (my hope is that we get a live-action visit from Sabine, even though she left with the others at the end of Rebels). Others include Deborah Chow, Rick Famuyiwa, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Taika Waititi per starwars.com. The biggest name on that list is of course Waititi… his direction on Thor: Ragnarok was what moved the most forgettable franchise into one of the best films the MCU gave us. You know he’s going to sneak in something great into the background for the eagle-eyed Star Wars fans.

    While they are purposefully light on details about the character (which I’m all for), there are some things we can suss out here. First is that the armor continues what Clone Wars and Rebels did, and made Mandalorian armor a statement of a group, not unique to Boba and Jango. The story is not about either of them, so it seems somewhat likely that Boba will remain a victim of the Sarlacc and his own incompetence. The architecture bears some similarity to Tatooine, though the ground and buildings aren’t quite tan enough. It could be someplace new, or it could use one of the places that we’ve gotten in-canon from the movies or comics since Disney took over.