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The latest episode of The Mandalorian is called ‘The Mines of Mandalore’ and doesn’t waste any time at all. Our Mando’s quest to redeem himself in the mysterious Living Waters of Mandalore is achieved, if not easily, in this episode, but with a lot of unintended consequences. Which is honestly a nice change of pace from the season long arc more typical to this show, it’s a less languid pace than the first episode of the season implied too.
After a scene with Amy Sedaris as mechanic Peli Motto that I will call ‘nearly comedic’, Mando ends up with the fragile, terrified astromech droid R5-D4 which is so obviously not ready for adventure it kinda makes Mando look like a fool for buying it from Amy Sedaris. In the more charming moments though, Mando takes the time to show Grogu how to use the ship and the importance of things like maps.
Shockingly this is a direct foreshadowing for the main little adventure of the episode, or maybe not so shocking — in fact as per usual it’s unclear how mature or immature Grogu really is, he grabbed the little alien droidsmiths to squeeze them last episode, yet he’s also able to fly the ship in this episode — and he can’t talk out loud either yet. I suppose the real answer is that he’s exactly as mature as the show needs him to be in each episode.
When they get to the planet’s surface, Mando realizes that the atmosphere is breathable and not ‘cursed’ at all — he even fights off some alien monsters with fun creature designs (always appreciate that real life creative work). Naturally the entire adventure is far too dangerous for one person (we can’t count the droid or Grogu as legitimate helpers, after all), so it’s only expected that Din gets trapped by some weird cyborg (also a cool creepy design).
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Grogu manages to get away adorably and fly to get help from Bo-Katan, who is clever enough to use the droid to backtrack Grogu’s flight (as the little dude can’t communicate at all, apparently). She gets her own fun action scenes here, retrieving the Darksaber and using it effectively — so it’s hers now or what? Well, I suppose that’s still a plot yet to reveal.
Bo-Katan gets still more characterization here, talking about the difficult, painful self-destructive path of the Mandalorians, and after mentioning her father dying to defend their people — Din mentions ‘This is the Way’. Perhaps she doesn’t hate it, but she’s skeptical of the whole magic of the Living Waters even with a galaxy all about the Force.
But as to be expected, nothing goes as planned and some underwater beast pulls Din down, forcing Bo-Katan to swim down quickly to save him. Thus the episode ends, on what isn’t really a cliffhanger but more like the end of a scene — it’s a little bit of a lack of oomph, but at least the episode was pretty fun until that point.
The fact that this Quest is already completed is an intriguing development for me, and makes the rest of the season more interesting in its potential. I like that the show is playing with the formula at least a little, because now there are a lot of little threads and possibilities where we can go. It’s an improvement over the season opening in terms of action and plot, and a decent showcase for Bo-Katan too, whom I strongly suspect will be our Character #2 for the season to come. I suppose we’ll see.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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