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The latest episode of The Mandalorian is called ‘The Foundling’ and seems to be about multiple things, although in fairly obvious ways — in many ways it’s almost the most simply written episode in a while, with the only real hint of something more being Grogu’s traumatic flashback. That flashback had the general feeling and aesthetic of the prequels, all shiny with dark backgrounds and slightly uncanny Clone Troopers and ships.
Of course the literal cameo from the prequels was present there too, with Grogu’s savior as a particularly interesting Jedi named Kelleran Beq — the character was created as a host for the kids game show Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge back in 2020, which is a pleasant enough sort of thing, but the kicker is that he’s played by Ahmed Best, the same actor who played the much derided Jar Jar Binks CGI character.
Jar Jar Binks was accused of being unfunny, annoying, and potentially racist, although kids watching those movies tended to like Jar Jar Binks and his slapstick a lot more than any adults did. Personally, I think Jar Jar Binks is an awful character, but Ahmed Best the actor received an awful lot of hate that was entirely undeserved, and the background interviews at the time revealed that everyone in the cast thought he was hilarious (even if it didn’t translate to the screen).
It’s a nice touch to see him kicking ass here and saving Grogu, and there’s definitely the first truly interesting element here of wondering what happened between then and the start of the show. Grogu is still such a ‘young’ sort of being that it’s hard to still grasp how mature he really is — toddling away and unable to speak out loud, yet flips around and outshoots a human boy five times his size. It’s still one of the weird incongruities of The Mandalorian.
The brunt of the episode was the rescue of a ‘foundling’ (the same human boy) from some sort of giant bird monster, and did it all logically make sense? Not really, I had to roll my eyes when the bird spit the boy from its mouth (that’s not how birds work), but it was a decently realized action sequence.
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As our old buddy Din Djarin fades into the background here, a new Mandalorian takes his place as a more intriguing character — Bo-Katan, barely sketched out on the show already despite a lot in the Clone Wars cartoon, is definitely up to something. She was crucial to saving the foundling and was the only face (other than Grogu’s) we saw this episode when she took their break to eat dinner.
The last moments are the ones of potential intrigue, where Bo-Katan offers the hint to the Armorer that she might have actually seen the famed Mythosaur, something she pointedly did not mention to Din at all. The Armorer simply gives her a ‘This is the Way’ response, which is no response at all — is she being dismissive or supportive? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
Overall, the episode did fill in some backstory and add a little more hint to what’s to come, although it didn’t really have much of a forward momentum or a ‘hook’ to get us excited about the next episode. At this point the show has mostly had this ‘well, okay’ ending moments instead of something exciting or satisfying, which does me make me wonder how well they’re going to end the season. I would rather it ends like the last one did, with a bittersweet, exciting end, instead of say, the lingering question marks of Boba Fett. But I’m willing to give it a chance.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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