The Mandalorian is nowhere near the first space western. It’s not even the first space western to wear its influences so plainly. It does at least try to answer a question lots of space westerns tend to handwave away. How do they get the money to keep going. My two main reference points for the space western genre are Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. In both shows, the mission more often than not turns out to be more complicated than it initially appears and for whatever reason, the gang doesn’t get paid. We’re left to assume there are a bunch of successful, less interesting missions we don’t see. In those shows it works. The main characters are kept hungry and desperate, which makes the moral dilemmas they find themselves in more stressful. Here, we see The Mandalorian take a job and get paid for it. But like the crews of those other shows, his desperation has limited the kinds of jobs he’s able to take.
This one isn’t quite as morally compromised as the mission that got him into this mess in the first place, but it’s definitely a lot sketchier than most of the jobs we’ve seen him take so far. The Mandalorian needs money. I don’t know what exactly goes into taking care of a baby… whatever Yoda is, but it can’t be cheap. He answers a call from an old… coworker named Ranzar Malk. The episode does a good job of letting us know right off the bat just what a scumbag this guy is. The Mandalorian may have run with this guy once, but that was out of necessity. It’s only now that he’s desperate again that he takes a job with his old crew.
Pedro Pascal, Bill Burr, Mark Boone Jr. (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
At first, the episode seems like a pretty boilerplate heist plot. A ragtag group of outlaws banding together to break someone out of a prison transport. There’s the driver/hacker droid, the muscle, the stealthy assassin type and the snarky sharpshooter. That last one is a guy named Mayfeld, played by Bill Burr. Is this series just an excuse for Jon Favreau to get all his favorite comedians into the Star Wars universe? As for The Mandalorian, his only purpose here is that he owns a ship that can fly under New Republic radar. The first hint that this won’t be just a standard heist storyline is that all these people suck. They are all the worst. As soon as the crew is introduced you never want to see any of them again. That works in the show’s favor. The Mandalorian must really need this money if he’s willing to put up with these people to get it.
In addition to Mayfield, there’s the brawny Burg, a meathead always looking for a fight, Q9-0 a droid with excellent piloting skills and questionable morals, and Xi’an, a Twi’lek who constantly drops hints that she had a relationship with The Mandalorian. Nearly every other line of hers is some kind of innuendo about how they used to be a couple. She even uses it to provoke Burg into trying to take the Mandalorian’s helmet off. The two fight inside the ship, and Burg ends up accidentally opening the compartment where The Child is hidden. Everyone immediately takes an interest. Mayfield picks up The Child and pretends to drop it, just to be a dick. And you know as soon as they see him that at least one of them is going to try and take The Child for themselves, right? How many times has this happened now? You’d think The Mandalorian would be a little more careful who he lets around the kid by now.
Pedro Pascal, Clancy Brown, Bill Burr (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
They get to the prison transport, where the rest of the crew just watches as The Mandalorian takes out an entire patrol unit of droids by himself. It’s another one of those cool fight scenes where he gets to use every tool in his arsenal. It’s more than just a show-off fight scene, though. The rest of the crew gets a good look at every technique the Mandalorian has up his sleeve, and they file that information away for later. They make their way to the control room where they find the one living human guard aboard this ship. The Mandalorian tries to reason with the guy, to get him to put down his tracking fob and blaster so they can get what they want and he gets to stay alive. Mayfield and company aren’t on board with that plan. Xi’an gets tired of negotiating and throws a knife into the guard’s neck. He dies, but not before pressing the tracking fob. The crew now has 20 minutes before some X-Wings show up to blow up the transport ship.
They find the cell they’re looking for, and it’s another member of The Mandalorian’s old crew: Xi’an’s brother Qin. Then, the whole gang turns on The Mandalorian. They push him into Qin’s cell and leave him there to die. Then, The Mandalorian starts acting like Batman. It should be noted this is the second time The Mandalorian’s actions remind me of a certain Dark Knight. We know Favreau is no stranger to comic book movies, maybe this series is his excuse to steal some tricks from DC. The Mandalorian breaks out of his cell by ripping off the arm of one of the droid guards. He makes his way back to the control room where he takes the tracking fob, and strategically closes doors to separate his now former crew. Then he hunts them down, one by one. It’s awesome. He sneaks up behind Mayfield in a room where the flashing lights create a strobe effect. With each flash, he’s a little bit closer to Mayfield until finally, he’s behind him. It’s the first time I’ve ever been a little scared of The Mandalorian’s abilities.
Matt Lanter (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
His fight with Burg is an all out brawl where he uses every weapon in his arsenal. None of it has any effect since Burg was carefully watching him fight all the droids. He ends up taking Burg out with a pair of doors because it wouldn’t be Star Wars if the most threatening-looking bad guy didn’t get defeated by slapstick. For Xi’an, he defeats her in a close-quarters knife fight with her own knives. If all you were hoping for from The Mandalorian was a bunch of scenes starring a Boba Fett-looking dude doing lots of cool stuff, this was the episode for you.
Oddly enough, the actual ticking clock of the tracking fob didn’t do anything to enhance the tension of the story. It was obvious from the jump that the episode wasn’t treating it like it mattered at all. Occasionally, the droid would say something like, “you have 10 minutes, hurry up,” then more than 10 minutes of show would pass and they’d still be running around the ship. What became the actual ticking clock was the droid’s discovery of The Mandalorian’s old recordings. He finds out exactly why the Mandalorian is on the outs with the guild and figures out just how much that baby must be worth. He starts hunting the kid through The Mandalorian’s ship, which adds more urgency than the tracking fob ever could. As The Mandalorian agrees to take Qin back to Ranzar alive, the droid corners The Child. Just as he’s about to kill The Child, The Mandalorian blows him apart from behind. Even though we all knew it was coming, the sequence was so well-directed, it elicited a huge sigh of relief.
Pedro Pascal (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
This week’s Mandalorian was a fun standalone heist story with fun twists and a ton of great action. Somehow though, it managed to be more than that. We got a ton of worldbuilding in all this. We learned more about The Mandalorian’s past which sheds some light on his motivations now. More importantly, we got to see the state of the galaxy during the beginnings of the New Republic. Things are still a bit chaotic after the fall of the Empire. This episode operates in the moral ambiguity that occurs when a demonstrably evil Empire is taken out, but not everyone is convinced the people that did it are entirely trustworthy either. It’s a time period we don’t get to see in the new trilogy of movies, and I love seeing it fleshed out like this. This feels like a Star Wars story only this particular series could tell. That’s what makes this show so consistently good. It has its own voice and point of view wholly separate from what we usually see in most Star Wars stories.
The Mandalorian even got a little character development from the ending. He delivers Qin and takes his money. As he flies out into space, Ranzar gives an order to kill him. Before anyone can carry out that order, Ranzar discovers that The Mandalorian slipped him the tracking fob. A trio of New Republic X-Wings show up and blow up the entire station. The Mandalorian just killed those people, and there’s no question about who shot first here. Still, his time with The Child has softened him a little bit. I was sure at this point that the rest of the heist crew was dead, but as the episode ends, we see them locked up in a cell on the prison transport ship. The Mandalorian may kill when he has to, but here he went out of his way to avoid it. Is this a new trait? If so, will anything come of it before the first season ends?
The Mandalorian streams Fridays on Disney Plus
Previously on The Mandalorian:
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 5 recap
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 4 recap
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 3 recap
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