So much for those epic quests, huh? The premiere of last week set up what I thought were the two main storylines for this season—find a new memory unit for IG-11, then bring Din Djarin to Mandalore so he can bathe in the rushing waters below the civic center – and this week’s episode just…kinda ticked both those boxes. I guess that’s what sets The Mandalorian apart from The Mandalorian apart from certain book colleagues: He does shit.
First, Din visited his best friend Peli Motto (could you imagine just a few years ago that Amy Sedaris would be part of a star wars TV show?), who was ripping off a poor Rodian in the middle of Boonta Eve celebrations. Boonta Eve, of course, is the day Tatooinians celebrate when a Hutt named Boonta Hestilic Shad’ruu became a god, but obviously Everybody knows that. (Iit is also a traditional podracing vacationwhich is probably how most people are aware of he.)
Din asks Peli if she has a memory unit for an IG unit, which star wars is like asking for one of those old iPod cables with the wide plug, so she offers to give him R5-D4 instead. He initially refused, saying he wanted IG-11 so he could send him caving into the depths of Mandalore and determine if the planet really is “cursed” (and here we thought Din wanted to rebuild IG-11 so they could be friends, or maybe so he could ask if a second season of Our flag means death will never happen), but Peli convinces him to take the astromech droid due to his experience working with the Rebellion. (I will have more to say on this subject below.)
And that’s apparently it for IG-11, which will now rot at the hands of those Babu Friks from last week, as Din Djarin, Grogu and R5 wasted no time getting to Mandalore to complete this quest . TV seasons are usually longer than two episodes, but like I said, Din Djarin sucks. Or he would, if he wasn’t sometimes a little silly – and I mean that as a compliment. One of the good things about this show is that Din Djarin can be overly naive and optimistic, as his faith in his fringe Mandalorian cult is so strong that he constantly assumes it will protect him.
G/O Media may receive a commission
36% off
Fire 4K Max TV Stick
Broadcast time
This stick can easily access the majority of streaming services, works with Wi-Fi 6 for excellent speed, can handle 4K visuals, and even comes with a voice remote.
But before Din gets in trouble, he lands on the surface of Mandalore, which is hell-bombed and looks like shit but does not seem to be wracked by a magical curse, hmmm – and sends R5 to scout. I loved this footage, which kept the camera either in Din’s cockpit or pointed at him from the outside, which means we get these wide close-ups of the planet’s surface as R5 rolls away from more and more of the ship, which steadily increases the tension. Add Din and Grogu while watching R5’s position on a small motion sensor screen, and it’s a good chunk of Jaws/Extraterrestrial drama.
R5 is frightened by some troll monsters (we’ll learn later they’re called Alamites), and Din jumps down to help…even though they really do a number on him at first, and he barely survives pushing them with the Darksaber. But it turns out the planet’s air is breathable, so Din and Grogu go down to the Civic Center (I maintain it’s weird that they call it that) to search for the mines that contain the living waters. This is where Din’s naivety gets him into trouble: he finds a discarded old Mandalorian helmet, and rather than being suspicious, he picks it up and falls into a trap where a large crab robot grabs it and carries it away. .
Grogu tries to go help, but it turns out the crab robot is actually home to a smaller cyborg-like creature with spindly limbs and tubes that has a large collection of old Mandalorian junk, and he spots Grogu and the chase. We never find out what the market for this guy is, but he’s definitely a bad guy. He’s trying to steal Din’s blood for some reason! It’s disgusting!
Din sends Grogu to ask Bo-Katan help, which forces Grogu to use the Mandalorian navigation skills that Din keeps telling him to learn. In fact, he just points a card and R5 does all the work, but Grogu is a 50-year-old baby. We can give him that. They show up at Bo-Katan Castle, and she does the exact same thing she did last week: ssit in a big chair and have a bad attitude. But when she realizes that it’s just Grogu who came to see her, she agrees to go help him.
Once back on Mandalore, Bo-Katan effortlessly destroys the trolls that gave Din a hard time earlier, even spotting them waiting for her to pass at some point, then quickly executes the mecha. thorny with the Darksaber before he could drink all of Din’s blood, proving, once again, that she’s probably in a better position to rule Mandalore and wield the Darksaber than Din.
Bo-Katan helps Din to the surface and heals him. with some kind of special soup, and even though she doesn’t believe in the tricks about magic water that the armorer instilled in Din, she agrees to take him to the living waters and smiles condescendingly as he goes through the ritual to atone for removing his helmet in front of Bill Burr. There’s a potentially interesting moment where Din insists that as a people they’re nothing without the Mandalorian belief, so maybe Bo-Katan’s arc here will involve becoming a religious fanatic like him. ? Katee Sackhoff could leave the helmet off permanently instead of wearing that big headband.
Together they reach the white waters, and she seems to get a perverse little thrill at how anticlimactic it all is, going so far as to sarcastically read an old plaque commemorating the important cultural site and how it was once the legendary haunt. of the Mythosaur, which legendary hero Mandalore The Great is said to have slain – which is why an image of the great horned beast can be seen on a lot of Mandalorian stuff (like Boba Fett’s armor).
Obviously, that’s just a bunch of hooey, though. There is no Mythosaurus. But…again, what plunged Din underwater when he tried to do his ritual, knocking him out for the second time this episode? And what is this big monster that Bo-Katan sees when she comes down to save him? A weird mythosaur? !
Lost ocomments
- I think that stuff about the mythosaur and the flowing waters under the civic center is pretty dumb, and it reeks of the kind of high-fantasy nonsense that Dave Filoni star wars the stories are riddled with stories (something tells me Jon Favreau never wrote “the Mythosaur” on a whiteboard), but I’m…intrigued by this. If they immediately abandon the quests laid out in the first one in favor of something stranger, I’m hesitating on board. Until we see ancient Jedi temples with magical powers that extend far beyond anything seen on a regular basis. star wars stories (Filoni’s most frustrating trope), it’ll be fine.
- Peli insisting that Grogu tell her real words was adorable. His babble were more word like this episode than usual.
- When the alligator creatures in the tunnels under the Civic Center sprout wings and start chasing Grogu, I wrote “they are flying now” in my notes. Funny, right? They fly now! Hahaha.
- Bo-Katan talking about his father was interesting. His family was prominent in the clone wars cartoon, but I think it’s the first time that a star wars specifically mentioned it. Also, when she tries to chat with Grogu and mentions having met a few Jedi in the past, we, the viewer, know that one of them was Ahsoka Tano. Grogu knows her!
- All right, let’s talk R5-D4. This is the droid that Uncle Owen tried to buy before settling on R2-D2, thus setting the events of star wars moving (and dooming Owen), but both the former star wars canon and the current Disney star wars Canon established that he deliberately blew himself up to help R2-D2 convey the Death Star plans to Obi-Wan. Then, as explained in the weird canonical fan-fiction book From a certain point of view (in which famous star wars fans contributed short stories about supporting characters), R5 was so touched by R2’s commitment to his mission that he escaped the Jawas and went looking for a way to help the Rebel Alliance. This is what Peli is referring to when she entrusts the droid to Din. And Disney thought that made it easier when it gutted the old EU canon.