After last week’s lackluster experience, will The Mandalorian redeem itself with an episode that wasn’t simple recap? Let’s dig in and find out.
1. The first scene belonged in last week’s episode
While I think you have to be fully lacking joy to hate what Amy Sedaris brings to Star Wars, the first scene of this episode felt like a leftover from “The Apostate.” While it is always nice to see Peli yell at droids, the scene just existed to get R5-D4 into Din’s ship. This is exactly the stuff that The Mandalorian does that I have no interest in. R5 is not an important or interesting enough character to merit an entire scene to retrieve. Sure, they try to give him some personality, but is clumsy and is such clear fan service. The whole point of his new ship was the astromech port was converted to a Grogu area, and that’s now undone for a droid that, so far, hasn’t really been needed. Why couldn’t they outfit a mouse droid with a kit to test to atmosphere?
This gave off major Book of Boba Fett vibes, where things were being introduced simply for fans to nod their heads and say “ah, [insert Star Wars miscellany here].”
2. Visit lovely Mandalore!
Once the episode got moving, things picked up considerably, though this episode had some very strange pacing and construction. I suppose some of that can be chalked up to new director Rachel Morrison’s relative inexperience with that part of filmmaking. But the structure the episode felt like being in a pinball machine: go to Tatooine, go to Mandalore, Din gets in trouble, Grogu gets Bo-Katan, they save Din, they go to the living waters, Din gets in trouble, Bo-Katan saves Din. This had more action than any episode we’ve seen lately, and while some of it was very adroitly shot, none of it felt particularly exciting.
The best part of the episode was the exploration of Mandalore itself. As Din say, it looks as if it was abandoned centuries ago, even though the purge was not terribly long ago – likely in the 10-15 year range. While we have heard a lot about the planet, this is the first time that a live-action series has spent any time here. We see some of the local creatures, and they seem straight out of John Carter of Mars and other classic sci-fi, another nice hat tip the inspirations behind Star Wars.
What is interesting about how the planet is presented is that there is almost nothing notable or distinct about it aside from its destruction. We don’t really get to see any of the natural topography, or see remnants of its culture. It is just a burned out husk. In a way, this allows the viewer to see it through the eyes of Din and Bo-Katan. She sees it as failure; he sees it as opportunity. The reality probably falls somewhere in between.
3. Grogu the Mandalorian
One of the aspects of the show that I’m most interested in is Din’s desire to raise Grogu as a Mandalorian. We’re going to get into Din’s mindset a little more in the fifth bullet point, but Grogu under a helmet is the worst nightmare of the Disney marketing machine. It also doesn’t seem to really fit his personality; I know he’s a child, but he wants to be held and cuddled and eat space macaroons and show people those giant eyes.
But this episode shows how much he is absorbing from Din, and how he is already falling into the routine of a member of a clan, taking orders from his superior. When Din says “go get Bo-Katan,” he does. We’ve seen Grogu do incredible things with the Force; he could’ve taken out Din’s captor on his own, but he listened. He’s ‘quite the navigator,’ according to Bo-Katan. He’s starting to see what is expected of being a Mandalorian, and he’s trying his best.
Of course, it seems most likely that he will one day wield the Darksaber and follow in Tarre Vizla’s footsteps and be a Mandalorian Force-wielder, but we’ve got time before that happens.
Continued below4. Bo-Katan’s emergence
Bo-Katan doesn’t hesitate to help Din in a number of ways this week, whether it is leaving her self-imposed exile to rescue him or take him beneath the mines for his purification ritual. While Greef Karga and Cara Dune are certainly important to Din, their relationships are a little simpler than Bo-Katan and Din’s. Din represents both the failure of her people to keep themselves united, and a failure of her desire to wield the Darksaber. And yet, she steps up. She goes above and beyond what is expected of her, and doesn’t even take the Darksaber for her troubles!
In theory, it could be hers: Din was bested in combat by that droid/monster thing that captured him and was trying to take his blood. She bested that thing. It’s hers now. But she doesn’t. My secret desire is that the show is setting up an epic moment, inspired by Carl Weathers, where the season ends with a ‘boxing match’ between Din and Bo-Katan that we never see for who gets to wield the Darksaber.
5. Mandalore isn’t cursed – but Din is
We’ve established in the past how lost Din is, and how he is chasing a ghost of his radicalized past. Seeing Bo-Katan basically school him in basic Mandalorian knowledge/culture reveals just how not Mandalorian he really is. He’s a cultist, and has mistaken that for heritage. He has been given opportunity after opportunity to improve his and Grogu’s lives, and he rejects them at all turns for this foolhardy desire to return to his roots. Again, he’s acting like a radicalized child, not a free-thinking adult.
But beyond that, everything he’s tried to do in this young season has failed. He wanted IG-11 back; he can’t. He wanted go to Mandalore, and we’ve seen how he wouldn’t be able to survive there without a droid he hates, a child he’s supposed to be raising, and a friend who he is at ideological odds with. When he bathes in the ‘living waters’ of Mandalore, he’s again almost killed if not for Bo-Katan.
The planet isn’t cursed: he is. More specifically, the path he is on is cursed.
Din isn’t a leader. Din isn’t a philosopher. Din isn’t an explorer. Din, at this point, isn’t even a great bounty hunter. The only thing Din is really good at right now, is being a dad to Grogu and, like all dads, he still needs to work on that a bit.
It seems obvious that Bo-Katan is going to ‘turn’ him away from his past and work with him to establish a new Mandalorian way that isn’t as set in the traditions of the past. It can’t be; their past is destroyed. The question is how effectively they can prove that, while Mandalore isn’t cursed, neither is the fate of the Mandalorian people.
