Disney doesn’t want anything to distract from the new Star Wars movie coming out this weekend. Not even other Star Wars. So, they’re putting out this week’s episode of The Mandalorian a few days early. Hey, I’ll take it. There’s been some criticism of this show that boils down to it not having a plot. That because The Mandalorian ends up basically back where he started at the end of each episode, the show isn’t about anything. I’d argue the show absolutely has plot, it’s just largely not serialized.
We’ve gotten so used to long-running series arcs that have to be watched in order, we’ve forgotten that all TV used to be like this. The main characters find themselves in a new situation that’s resolved before the episode ends, then it’s onto the next thing. That style of storytelling also fits the western aesthetic The Mandalorian plays with. The entire genre is full of nomadic heroes who ride into town, fight the bad guy and leave. “Wherever there is injustice,” and all that. Besides, the show revealed its full hand in this week’s episode. Just because the previous four weren’t connected to each other doesn’t mean they didn’t serve a purpose. The characters The Mandalorian met along the way were important. With the season’s penultimate episode, we’re starting to see how.
Nick Nolte, Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
It all starts when The Mandalorian gets a message from Greef Karga. The Mandalorian’s been taking out bounty hunters with ease, but that’s not the only consequence of him running away with the baby. More ex-imperials have overrun Nevarro, turning it into a police state and putting a lot of weight on the guild. He asks The Mandalorian to come kill his old client in exchange for a handsome payment and an end to life on the run. The Mandalorian knows not to trust Greef, but even if he is telling the truth, this isn’t a one-man job. He finds Cara Dune and asks for her help again. She’s glad for the chance to take down a few imperials. Once they’re both aboard the ship, it becomes painfully obvious they need someone who can watch the kid. They head back to Kuiil’s farm, where they find he’s turned IG-11 into a serving droid. The Mandalorian’s not too happy about letting IG-11 near the child again, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. The kid needs a babysitter, and this is the best they got.
Bringing all these characters together in the first part of the season finale is a smart move. It reminds us of the adventures we’ve watched so far, and makes us feel like they mean something. The episodes themselves may have been standalone theme park rides, but they each made deliberate choices to get us here. It also makes us feel like any of the characters we’ve met this season could come back at any moment. That the Mandalorian’s actions have consequences that can come back and either help or hurt him in the future. The Mandalorian is telling a bigger series-spanning story. It just doesn’t let that distract it from the smaller old west tales it also wants to tell.
Carl Weathers (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
The crew meets up with Greef, who has a few bounty hunters with him. The plan is to use the child as bait to get close to the client. Then, the Mandalorian will shoot him, Cara will take care of any stormtroopers who try to fight back, and the rest of the imperials will decide that with their boss dead, they no longer have a dog in this fight. Things are a little suspicious from the beginning. The Mandalorian already says he doesn’t trust Greef, but he feels he has no choice but to give this idea a shot. Greef is being real cagey with the details too. Almost like he doesn’t plan for Cara and The Mandalorian to ever reach the city.
That night, as they all settle down for the night, a pair of flying pterodactyl-looking creatures attacks. They manage to shoot them away, but Greef took a bad scratch on the arm. Whats worse, those creatures were venomous, and the poison is spreading. Cara tries to help him but nobody has any medical supplies yet. Greef has accepted he’s about to die, but the baby comes over to him and puts his hand on the wound. I… totally forgot force healing was a thing. The poison is gone and Greef’s wound is healed. The next morning, just as they reach the city’s edge, Carga shoots the two bounty hunters he’d been travelling with. The plan, he says, was to kill The Mandalorian and Cara, and take the baby. After what happened the previous night, he couldn’t go through with it.
Carl Weathers, Gina Carano, Pedro Pascal, Werner Herzog (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
They come up with a new plan. Cara covers up her rebel stripes, and they take The Mandalorian, along with an empty bassinet, to the client as a prisoner. Meanwhile, Kuiil will take the baby back to the ship and lock himself inside. This episode does quiet tension so well. From the first scene where Cara and Mandalorian meet Greef and he picks up the baby, the whole episode feels uneasy. That feeling gets a thousand times more pronounced when they’re in the room with the client. Werner Herzog just has this quiet menace about him. Like you can never be sure what he’s going to do from one second to the next, even when he’s just sitting in his chair. When he reached for the bassinet to get a look at the baby, I was frozen in my seat.
That’s why it works so well when we’re introduced to the real threat of the season finale. See, Werner Herzog wasn’t the top of the chain. Just as he’s about to check the bassinet, he gets a call from Moff Gideon. Gideon tells Werner to make sure they have the kid before a group of elite-looking stormtroopers shoot up the place. Mandalorian, Cara and Greef survive, but they’re the only ones in the room. The town is flooded by an army of very well-funded stormtroopers in shiny new armor. The Mandalorian has wandered into a trap. Now it’s not simply a rich ex-imperial he has to deal with. It’s an extremely well-funded military. The empire may be dead, but powerful remnants still remain. Now, I have to wonder if this outfit could be the beginnings of The First Order.
Giancarlo Esposito (via Lucasfilm/Disney)
The Mandalorian, Cara and Greef are stuck in a bad position. They’re just three people facing down an entire army. Kuiil and the child are in a worse one. When The Mandalorian contacted Kuiil to see if he’d made it back to the ship yet, two stormtroopers on speeder bikes honed in on his location and rode off. What follows is a great chase scene where we’re never shown exactly how far behind Kuiil the stormtroopers are. His reactions certainly imply that they’re gaining on him. It allows us just enough hope to truly worry for him. And Kuill is honestly my favorite of the characters The Mandalorian has met so far. He’s the one we’ve spent time with and his story is fascinating. Nick Nolte’s gruff dismissive voice fit the character so perfectly. Hell, Kuiil is a big part of why this show won us all over so quickly. That’s why it hurts so much to see a stormtrooper pick up the baby off the ground, leaving Kuiil’s corpse behind, just outside the ship’s doors. He almost made it.
You know we’re almost to the end of the season, when it starts pulling out cliffhangers like this again. It’s the show’s way of telling us to pay attention because everything’s about to pop off. Pay attention, because all those episodes we made as largely standalone adventures are about to come to bear here. The Mandalorian made is care about a guy whose face we never see and a bunch of characters we met once or twice over a whole season. That’s an accomplishment. I’ll miss getting a new small Star Wars story every week, but The Mandalorian appears to be going out with a big one. The timing also works in Disney’s favor here. Whatever you end up thinking of Rise of Skywalker, they’ve already put out a fantastic Star Wars story this year. And no one’s even seen the end yet.
The Mandalorian streams Fridays, usually, on Disney Plus
Previously on The Mandalorian
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 6 recap
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 5 recap
- The Mandalorian Season 1 Episode 4 recap
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