Warning: light spoilers ahead.
Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s masterpiece, “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ gets better with every episode. The first episode released last week was chock full of call backs to wonderfully obscure Star Wars references, while building a world that is definitely of that galaxy far, far away, but different than all the Star Wars that has come before it. This is the Star Wars we need.
In the second episode last Friday we saw our titular hero take the adorable “Baby Yoda” on a “Lone Wolf and the Cub”, style journey to reconstruct his ship after a band of filthy Jawas dismantled it. In order for Mando to get his ship back, he had to do the Jawas a favor, in this case, kill a giant beast and retrieve the egg it is guarding. It’s an episode that featured a wonderful homage to a 1990s SNES Star Wars game, a chant that sounded an awful lot like “Toga! Toga!”, and the confirmation we’ve all been waiting for since the moment we first saw the adorable Baby Yoda, that yes, it is in fact force sensitive.
As our hero is battling a Mudhorn, the Star Wars version of a rhinoceros mixed with a woolly mammoth, he’s getting hiss ass kicked, thrown around like baggage at an airport. Just as he’s about to be crushed by the beast, Baby Yoda reaches out with the force and saves him by levitating the dangerous animal out of the mud and into the knife of Mando. It’s a certifiably fantastic moment of cinematic magic, and everything that we’ve wanted from the very minute we met Baby Yoda.
After Mando and Baby Yoda defeat the beast, Nick Nolte’s Ughaught helps Mando recover his ship parts and then rebuild the Razor Crest before the (surprisingly short) episode ends with Mando and his asset in space, ready to face a new adventure.
This week’s episode took the pair’s journey to the next level. It. Was. Epic.
In the very first episode of “The Mandalorian” we met an underground group of Mando’s people. They ran around a hidden bunker where their armor was being made. In this third episode, after he (reluctantly) hands over Baby Yoda to the Imperial Remnants, Mando heads back to the special Mandalorian armorer for a full shiny suit of new armor complete with some “Whistling Birds.” Before The Armorer can fashion Mando’s new duds, a skirmish breaks out between the other Mandalorians in the room and our hero. They complain that Mando got his bucket of Beskar from the Empire, Beskar that was stolen from their people. The Armorer calms everyone down after she reminds them that “this is the Way.”
Covered in shiny new Beskar armor, Mando meets with Greef Karga, head of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild to get another job. This is when he finds out that every bounty hunter in town was also looking for Baby Yoda, and they’re livid that Mando got to the target first. Concerned over what is going to happen to the cutest Star Wars character ever, Mando asks Karga if he knows what the Client intends to do with the child. Karga insists it’s not his concern, and besides, it’s against the code of their guild to question a clients motives. Ready with another job, Mando heads to his ship, but before he takes off he’s reminded of Baby Yoda and decides to go after the powerful tot.
After dealing with some incompetent Stormtroopers, Mando steals Baby Yoda from the Imperial Dr. Pershing and heads back to his ship. Before he can arrive though, each and every tracking fob in town begins pinging. All of a sudden an army of well armed bounty hunters are bearing down on the lone wolf and his cub, including Mando’s boss, Greef Karga. A huge fire fight breaks out, the biggest of the season so far, and just when it looks like the Mando is outgunned, his army of fellow Mandalorians appear and save the day. Mando and Baby Yoda escape aboard the Razor Crest, but now the hunter has become the hunted, as every bounty hunter and Imperial soldier in the galaxy will be after him. This, changes everything.
