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A short but very informative trip in this week’s The Mandalorian. After finally arriving, albeit by crash landing, to drop off the frog lady, Mando’s journey to find the Jedi and return The Child sort of gets back on track. The crash of Mando’s ship did get me wondering what happens in a space-faring world if you do have an accident or crash? As the ship only barely managed to not crash full speed into the port there seemed to be zero defences against a crash. Just one of those small real world things that you have to try and forget. But man is that ship toast. After the pummeling last week and now skidding off into the water, even after a subpar Mon Calamari repair job by episode’s end, that thing was running like a used car from a roadside stand. I think I smell an upgrade coming.
Anyways, after a touching Froggy reunion, Mando is directed to a nearby Inn, to basically blindly ask if anyone has seen his kind. Wait what? He got this frog woman across the galaxy, almost died, and the big tip her husband had was ‘I dunno, check the Inn out’? Like what the hell guy? Plus Mando gets taken in by a false lead at the Inn leading to a heart-stopping moment as while out on a ship with the lead, The Child is shot into the open maw of some sea monster and swallowed whole in his carrier! Mando quickly diving in after all to reveal this was a trick to steal his expensive and sought after armor.
Only by dumb luck and a strange observer earlier at the port are Mando and The Child saved as three Mandalorians fly in, and in the first of several bad ass sequences obliterate the would be thieves. Now here is where I must admit my nerd card does not run that deep and a little Google search had to tell me these Mandalorians are Nite Owls, a Mandalorian group known from the Clone Wars animated series of which I have only watched a smattering of episodes. The strange observer who first saw Mando is WWE’s Sasha Banks, and the leader of this group is Bo-Katan, a Clone Wars and Rebels animated character played here in live action by her voice actress Katee Sackhoff.
Mando is caught off guard as these Mandalorians take their helmets off and inform him that he is part of The Watch, a cult like group dedicated to the ancient ways and that Mandalorians by and large do not adhere to these ancient rules. Whether this group is trustworthy comes into question, so most of this information is to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
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Mando gets pulled into their story as an Imperial freighter of weapons is launching and they want to steal them to take back their world. I expected this to become a heist but apparently ‘the way’ doesn’t include subtlety as an all out assault occurs. This whole sequence was a ton of fun, lots of action and gunfighting. I will say a few beats get a bit sloppy in the editing, very jump cutty but over all very well done. The end beat with a cowardly officer locking them in the cargo control room only to realize he and his men are standing at the cargo doors controlled from within was darkly funny as they get swiftly sucked out of the ship.
Veteran character actor Titus Welliver brought some gravitas to the Imperial Captain who is ordered by last season’s cliffhanger Moff Gideon to dive bomb the ship rather than let the Mandalorians take it. Of course he gets stopped in the nick of time and promptly takes his own life with a shocking twist on the cyanide tooth trope.
We briefly hear Bo-Katan mention the DarkSaber so it seems all of that set up from last year was not forgotten, and she does manage to direct Mando to a planet where she believes a Jedi resides, Ahsoka Tano, another Clone Wars character being brought into live action. Even though I’m not an expert on the animated canon, I love the world building and bridging of the two mediums with these characters. I also must apologize to the director of this episode, Bryce Dallas Howard. I was pretty rough on her last season and while I still think that was the weakest episode of the series she showed some amazing growth and a much better grasp of action direction. A short but jam-packed outing that moved a mile a minute!
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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