THE MANDALORIAN - SEASON ONE RECAP (Patreon)

Alas, time escaped me! I honestly forget what the hell was up back when this first came out, but I remember just not having time to watch it. Maybe it was just Star Wars burn out? Anyway, I’ve seen Baby Yoda memes for a yea now and I liked how the show seemed to be effecting people. In particular, I liked the week to week release schedule that kept people talking about the show as it grew. But as of yesterday, I finally sat down and watched in one lovely sizable chunk! With that, some shoot-from-the-hip thoughts on each episode going into today’s season two release!

Which I will be recapping by the way :)

EPISODE ONE - THE PHANTOM MEN-I MEAN MANDALORIAN

The first episode is sort of everything I was worried when I first heard about this series, specifically when it comes to the deeper story function. I’s not that it’s “bad,” it’s that there’s an inherent obstacle with strong silent type characters. First, we have to acknowledge that they mostly exist to feed into all those cool empowerment ideas. What with our culture’s emphasis the dignity of stoicism and then having the tough ability to knock people out and such. It’s all part of a very masculine fantasy. But the best version of these stories are about cracking that person’s exterior. They’re about finding the thing the person cares about and bringing out the humanity and softer sides (for example, Terminator 2). And to get to that ultimate point in the story, they utterly depend on finding the little bits of humanity and expression you can eek out along the way.

Enter the Star Wars version of this trope! It’s safe to say there’s a nerdy cultural fascination with Boba Fett is because he’s, like, the uber-version of that character. For the barely-talking bounty hounter is at the center of almost everything I described above. But more problematic to gaining something genuine out of his depiction? He’s a bad guy. Even more problematic? When you literally take away the stoic figures face and put them in a helmet? It’s infinitely harder to get the nuggets of emotion. So, how do you even make that work?

Well, for THE MANDALORIAN the first thing you do is make a new character. The kind of character who is the same, but different and not necessarily bad, but not quite good either. This slight shift sort of puts our new Mando in “protagonist” space. The second thing you do is create a functional story around the helment. To do so, you create an established temperament for your character (read: Boba Fett-ish) and then build conflicts around them with your story that signify to the audience what the dude MUST be thinking in a given situation. People act like it’s some big mystery or rooted in performance, but honestly it’s just using established dramatic evidence to tap into behavioral prediction. It just requires super clarity on the story front.

The first episode tries to tackle these core character problems and… doesn’t exactly succeed in the moment to moment. He’s the cold, posturing badass who is just in it for the job and puts people on their ass. Granted, I at least like that it puts Mando on his ass a bit (because I like a lack of polish in my heroes). It’s just it needs more. Which is why I think there’s some cryptic teases to backstory and lots of flashing imagery and trauma, which is vague that it’s not exactly endearing to my hopes. Because this is what happens when storytellers want the essence of emotion without actually just fucking showing it. You’re just teasing “this character has emotions that we’ll get to later.” That’s not doing the work.

Still, the whole episode is really just trying to set up that harsh exterior. And within thirty minutes, they almost prove how little you can milk from the silent badass archetype. But at episode’s end, they finally engage the question of how are they going to crack the exterior?

The answer is the most adorable fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

Random Thoughts:

-Brian Posehn!

-I’m not really an “easter egg guy” and here we constantly get shout-outs to star wars-y things. I’d say The gonk droid is probably the most I could take on that end? That being said, even I can appreciate the image of a Kowakian monkey-lizard (that would be Salacious Crumb’s species) roasting on an open spitfire, complete with another one looking up fixed horror. Maybe I just like when there’s little bits of mean-ness in the references. Not in the way where they take pot-shots at the things people ALWAYS make fun of (like Gungans or whatever), but other random things. I dunno, I’ll keep tabs on the ephemera of all this.

-I really like the show’s moment where they talk about actual impact on people in the world, like the collapse of the economy. And especially when they show the stormtroopers in old, dirty armor because they’re on the run. fThis is the good environmental stuff that actually feels like the events had impact instead of just keeping everything the same.

-Ooooh, Ludwig Göransson music! It’s sort of amazing how many crew figures from Community have gone on to become major fixtures of the Disney Blockbuster empire? Or maybe it just shows they were super talented.

EPISODE TWO - THE CHILD

So let’s start with the obvious: Baby Yoda is fucking delightful. Like, I’ve seen the memes for over a year now and it’s funny because you’re like “yeah yeah, that’s cute,” but this is proof pudding of how much story context can increase the feelings of endearment. Not just because of the all important relationships and emotional context, but because those cute moments suddenly function within in the drama of the story. Which makes it so those moments lend the most meaning possible.

It also means that going into this season I knew that Mando and Baby Yoda was “a duo thing” and that’s okay because it’s a time honored trope. From Silas Marner, to Lone Wolf and Cub, to even films like Shane and Logan. You take the quiet stoic guy and you put em with a kid and that’s what brings out the tenderness and empathy (again, if you do it right). But the difficulty is they’re going full tilt with a stoic more silent personality and now… a baby that also doesn’t talk? And yet this is the episode where they HAVE to build the foundation of that relationship and make it actually work… so, uh, how the hell do you make it work?

Turns out the little cute guy pawing Mando’s helmet is pretty endearing in it’s own right. Same goes for it crawling out of its little ball. Cuteness will get you A LOT of starter mileage. But pretty quickly you see how their dynamic works in terms of the basic action, too. The Mandalorian fights some assassin dudes and basically plays keep away with the little pod and it falls around in there. This stuff is just bread and butter. Maybe it goes back to the old George Lucas quote ““Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck. I’m gonna show you how easy it is.” And we have someone threatening to choke our proverbial kitten and then helmet man stopping it.

Say what you will about simplicity… it works. And then there’s all these little touches that make it work just a bit better. Because they know how to work the “arc” between them so you know that Mando’s got some feeling toward the little guy as they go on their little adventure and the baby even saves his life What’s more is that I like how the show keeps kind of taking the posturing piss out of Mando, like when it shows Mando in his clunky armor and in little cramped quarters. It makes him kind of look like an odd-fitting dweeb. It may seem simple, but it’s actually deeply important to his characterization. Because as much as people THINK they want to indulge in the posturing bad ass, really they’re looking for the anchors of fallibility (which is human). Helping is this is that we’re beginning to understanding that this dude has a bit of an honor code and is willing to make deals / compromise, etc. And this is the way that the show can really build something more substantial.

All and all, this is the episode that makes the show work… at least so far.

Random Thoughts!

-Again, I kinda like the mean-ness of Mando just tossing Jawas like they’re nothing. It’s not that I like the behavior. It’s that I like that the show is willing to go there. Rough edges are genuinely necessary in this kind of story, especially with a universe that’s not had a lot of them lately.

-It’s also great decision to have the Jawas ransack the ship because it de-powers him, and in turn allows him to build the relationship with the weird little guy voiced by Nick Nolte etc.

-I honestly thought this one was much prettier than episode 1? Gonna be paying attention to the director front for this. Speaking of which:

-The mud fight with the horn thing is best action we’ve seen yet (the first episode was honestly a little clunky). Especially that one shot of him getting pinned while shooting the fire. Just really nicely executed.

-I also like that the show is completely unafraid to get batshit weird in moments, like when the Jawas all just start eating out of the egg. I literally muttered to myself: “This is insane… which is good.”

EPISODE THREE - THE SIN

Okay this one is getting a little interesting because, yes, more of the same stuff works. We care about the little baby yoda and don’t want it to get hurt. And by episode’s end the narrative goes full-Hardboiled-baby-gunfight-scene, which is exactly what this narrative should be doing. But!Three episodes in I know *that* Mando cares about the baby. What it still leaves me with, however, is some question of motivation.

Like we get why WE want him to rescue Baby Yoda. It’s cute. It’s a Yoda. And it’s like this little magic force child we know is important for a billion reasons. But WE know these things because we know Star Wars, pretty much. And that makes it easy to assume that he’d just grok these things naturally behave as character the way we want him to behave. But it is not “the way” of making the most solid writing. Good characterization is about fully digging into psychology of someone and really understanding them inside and out. Thus, we need to know the motivation for Mando in order to really, truly be behind the show in the best way possible.

Yes, we again get some semblance of the idea that he was orphaned too. But it’s doing the whole teasing flashback thing right now (like, literally a literal repeat tease from the first flashback montage in the forge) and I can feel them getting trapped in that kind of vague allusion. I’m worried they’re not going to put a stamp on that crucial thing by the time they really neat . I’ll put it this way: when you are writing, the narrative always telling you what you need. If you’re teasing in a given moment? It usually means you’re hearing what it needs, but instead of getting to the point, you’re just stretching the narrative and trying to cheat your way to legnth before finally revealing your cards. But as is often said, play your cards early because it forces you to come up with new cards… So let’s hope they do it soon.

Random Thoughts

-Okay, let’s talk two quick things. I think it’s wonderful as fun thing to watch, but on an overall thematic level? I hate that this is making the force a species-dependent thing once again (just sort of like what they did with force biology and Midichlorians). No, it’s not “logical.” It’s not good world-building. It’s not even that it de-romanticizes the philosophical nature of the force (which it does). It’s that it’s gross uber-mensch-y eugenical bullshit and I can’t stand it… and yet with baby yoda, I have some cognitive dissonance because the baby is cute as shit. Which brings us to tangential conversation…

-Remember when after The Force Awakens all these dude bros were like “hOw cAn ReY use tHe foRcE so gOoD if sHe’s jUst a nobody?” which again is a super eugenical gross. But at the same time, I imagine a bunch of people who said that didn’t bat an eye at a LITERAL BABY force lifting a rhino. This just shows the obvious: people love to default to “logic” and bloodline shit as the basis of basic fucking prejudice. They didn’t like Ray (likely for other crappy sexist reasons in their gut) so they resented her ability and chalked it up to a “logical” nitpick. Now the problem is this used to be a pretty clear argument and then in the JJ actually fucking went back and catered to that gross genetic shit and made her a Palpatine… *deep existential sigh*

Let’s move on.

EPISODE FOUR - SANCTUARY

So this episode finally has me worried. Not just because of the lack of motivation with Mando, but that lack of clarity completely bleeds into the actual objective of this one. I know he’s looking to lie low and like protect the little guy, but… that’s it? Shouldn’t there be something a little more in terms of a bigger plan now? Like it doesn’t feel like this journey has a real end point the audience can follow them to. Because you really need that kind of shit to fuel an overall season arc that’s build on episodic journeys like this. Just ay he’s trying to get to Z, but to get there he needs to do X and Y along the way. And wait, why is hard to find lodging hard exactly? Unlike the broken ship stuff, I just honestly don’t understand the basic drama mechanics of what’s going on here and why- which really hurts the foundational existence of the episode.

It also doesn’t help that the episode is pretty paint by numbers. Which stinks because the “stranger comes to town and fights for the people” plot is one of the mainstays of pretty much all Westerns, etc. But in order for those stories to work you actually have to really put in the work and care about the relationships. You need to find funny specifics that make those townspeople come alive and the fight has to have some real meaning to their development that isn’t just survival. But instead, the episode just runs through a greatest hits of familiar tropes and montage shots we’ve seen so many times without really digging into any of it. It’s skipping the real story work that’s needed.

Part of the reason I think it doesn’t succeed is because it crosses its wires of attention and spends so much time on his new partner in crime, Cara, which is fine on it’s own right, but it really has nothing to do with the whole town situation. We spend all the time on their relationship and yet at the end, we’re meant to think about Mando’s choice with the placeholder mom as being THE CHOICE, which isn’t what tracks. It’s just unfocused and incomplete stuff. And as cool as shotgun orcs and the AT-ST walker are, there’s no specificity to their part of the story either. So by the end, I don’t really care about this town at all. Which is the opposite of how “stranger comes to town” narratives should really be :/

Random Thoughts!

-Pillboi from The Good Place is in this! But he doesn’t really get to do anything!

-I don’t know why, but “uou want some soup?” made me laugh really hard.

-Can’t those kids, like, see him helmet-less in the window? What is happening.

-“Looks like this planet’s taken” Okay, one logical thing i never EVER get about Star Wars is that planets are like really big right? And I know they treat it so all the planets have these singular ecosystems and we’re supposed to treat them homogeneously, but the second you call such direct attention to this the cognitive dissonance collapses. More importantly, it makes the entire universe somehow feel small.

-I wrote a note about the action of this really falling flat. I literally wrote a note “why do random shots look like they’re from Xena?” (which I like the writing of btw). But, I mean… you hire Gina Carano because she can actually fight, right? (my god the fights in Haywire) And instead her work is cut up shoved into the same clunky mid shot stuff I see everywhere else (note I wrote all this and I saw at the end this was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard? Which is like something I’m rooting for I guess, but also… I dunno I have a lot of thoughts).

-I love the concept art of the end of eps. It’s just a really nice touch.

-Okay it really bothers the OCD part of my brain that this one wasn’t called THE Sanctuary. If you have a “THE” naming convention to your episodes, stick with it!

EPISODE FIVE - THE GUNSLINGER

So I’m really afraid we have a “Baby Yoda ceiling.” Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Baby Yoda in and of itself. It’s that you only get a limited amount of times you get to do “baby is in danger” before it loses it’s effect. The problem is that it is also the cornerstone relationship of the show and the thing we love most… that means inescapably the center point of the show… yet, it actually can’t be at the center point of most of the episodes. So in order to keep up that status quo of them being together and him worrying about Baby Yoda’s fate, then it arrests the narrative of the show from really having other crucially-needed center points. So it’s really more of an existential problem.

Take this episode, where we got to Tatooine and are supposed to get caught up in this bounty chase with a gunslinger and punk kid and the whole time I’m just like… “I don’t care.” That may sound dismissive, but the show has the thing that I care about, which is exactly why it all ends with them putting the baby in danger again.

More over, like the last episode, the plot-line just isn’t very solid. The motivations on all fronts are wishy washy and feels like Mando is just going along with things. But part of that problem is the other characters feel undefined and surfacey, too. I mean, I love Ming Na Wen, but I worry that so many people just use her steely glancing toughness as shorthand when really she has so much more dexterity. How much would this have worked better if it was more about her and Mando going at each other?

Instead, it’s about the young kid who is literally sitting in Han Solo’s chair… which is a hell of a choice. And I get what it’s ultimately trying to do in taking the piss out of him, but it’s one that one suffers a crisis of “what do you want me to think about this RIGHT NOW?” Because you actually have to turn stronger in the “wannabe” direction or actually making him more competent to be a threat. But instead his character sort of gets stuck right in the middle of either and honestly the actor just feels a bit like a charisma hole to really make any of it work.

Like I was wondering why they even cast this kid and when the credits ran I was like, “huh, I wonder” and yup, he’s Bobby Cannavale’s kid? First off, I’m not prepared for the people I like and still see as relatively young in my brain to have children this old. Second off, I’m sorry there’s just a crushing lack of specificity to the performance and the writing behind it… Ugh, I don’t even like his character design. So let’s just leave this one in the dust.

Random Thoughts!

-I literally freaked out when Amy Sedaris showed up. Like. What. How. Also why does she weirdly look dressed like Ripley? What is happening.

- At this point I both like and dislike the 37 minute-ish run times. I like them in the sense they don’t feel the need to stretch shit out and can just cut whatever isn’t really necessary. However, on old disciplined 42 minute tv you really developed a knack for making compelling chunks. So I feel like this show is both well-pruned and somehow unfocused at the same time?

-Okay, I’m genuinely tired of going back to Tatooine. I just am, I’m sorry. Like it’s literally the same Cantina?!?!?!? One they somehow make more sparsely populate, less gritty and sweaty, more sterile, but not with any REAL changes that make the setting feel meaningfully different… Wow, that feels like a metaphor for a lot of new Star Wars in general.

-Wait, instead of Mando shouldn’t it be Manda? Based on the spelling?

-If this is the way they are going to be doing their stand alone adventures… they are going to have to do a whole lot better.

EPISODE 6 - THE PRISONER

They did better! Yeah, the fun of this one is obvious, but on the dramatic level it’s really good at making every interaction feel dangerous / loaded and giving a meaningful sense of history to it’s main character. More than that, it’s just stock full of fucking A+ actors bringing it to fun parts. We got Mark Boone Junior, Natalia Tena, Bill Burr, Clancy Brown, and Richard freaking Ayoade? Damn. That’s like “cast of your movie” level good, not just episode of TV level good. And I really feel like I really don’t need to write much because the fun of it, along with the turns and reversals are super clear.

I will point out one structural thing though! One of the main reasons to add a ticking clock of doom is it puts pressure on your characters. Here, I get how it plays into the final comeuppance, but after they establish the ticking clock half way through, there’s the sequence where they are wandering around he’s hunting them one on one and it really lets the air out of the pacing? It’s just a really funny thing because I’m like “don’t they have 10 minutes?” Also funny: where Mando would normally kill any and all people who screw him over this bad. He’s not here. Why, exactly? Because they’re entertaining characters the narrative wants to bring back! Which is fine by me, honestly.

What, I like television.

Random Thoughts!

-Little did I know I was waiting my whole life for Bill Burr to yell, “I wasn’t a stomtroopah wiseass!” in a Boston accent while on a spaceship.

-I get why they feel the need to make Gungan jokes…. i just… wouldn’t. I really feel like the universe is past that particular wound and thus we need to actually fix the narrative of Jar Jar for a whole lot of reasons that clean up the toxicity in multiple directions.

-The moment that group of assholes found Baby Yoda was the first moment I was hit with genuine dread in the show. Note that it’s not because they’re directly pointing a gun at the baby. It’s because they’re cretins and their mere interaction is dangerous enough. It’s really well executed.

-Okay when is there space gravity and when is there not? The dramatist in me is fine with it, but other parts of me are less so.

-Is it me or did the prison droids look like the old old Battlestar Cylons kind of?

-The fights have been good-ish, but Mando’s fight in the hallway with the droids is the first one I really really liked / felt highly inventive. Also loved the action beat where Mando shoots the fire at Clancy and he’s not phased for a second. Also also, I love how it turns the “mandalorian is now hunting you” into pure horror vibes.

-I always love in TV when it’s super clear they’re just using the same set again and again for hallways.

-The last thought I’ll say is this. We get into Mando’s past a bit on this one and we can infer that he’s grown a bit. But in writing, so much of being “the badass with morality” is really about the ways we’re having our cake and eating it too. So note the way his morality hops around to suit our own fun moral needs of what we want out of the story. It’s not so bad that I would say his characterization is getting lost, I just think it’s… well… it’s just another reminder that I still want them to go deeper into his core by this point. We really need it.

EPISODE SEVEN - THE RECKONING

And so we enter our endgame! Which was never really an endgame, more just coming and facing the same exact conflict that was at the root of things in the beginning. Which sort of just proves how aimless the last three episodes really were (even though they were hit and miss in terms of quality). But in terms of overall story and character development there wasn’t anything to it. Which also makes me realize how much Mando and Baby Yoda’s relationship exists in stasis. It just must hold the status quo so that it can be the proper mcguffin when the baby gets put back in danger… If I’m being blunt, I don’t mean to be. Again, it’s just conflict is something that can wear out its welcome really, really quickly if it’s not invigorated and evolved.

But at least, here it feels like it’s culminating. Yet again, I also don’t have much to say with the episode. It’s setting up the series’s big stand-off. Characters from the journey team up. Nick Nolte Alien guy gets killed and I feel sad about it because he was a functional character. The empire gets the baby. It’s our all is lost moment and it all pretty much works. So let’s tackle a bunch of…

Random Thoughts!

-After much hemming and hawing, I’ve decided I don’t really like Mando’s ship. Part of it is that Boba Fett’s Slave I is just so iconic and specific and this one… I don’t know… I can’t help but want more and curious why they went with this one..

-Me, regarding the early brawl: “is that a darf maul dude?” I spelled that wrong in my notes, but I’m keeping it.

-Please note the heavy emphasis on the robot re-building montage of IG-11! Any time you see this sort of thing it’s because the character is going to become important for some reason…. hopefully.

-“None will be free until the old ways are gone.” Yup!

-When Baby Yoda went all force choke-y I was genuinely weirded out and like “No Baby Yoda! That’s a sith move! No! Bad!” And I realized Star Wars is just inescapably a part of me and there is literally nothing I can do about it.

-Quick cinematography nerd talk: I know a lot is made out of their super awesome soundstage they use with the real FX projection and I want to be clear: I love this effect, but it’s also something still in it’s early stages of use, which makes it feel limited, particularly with shot selection. Note HOW MANY times they’re standing relatively flat and the camera angle is directly parallel to a ground so that it puts the horizon in the same 1/3 of the frame spot behind them. They do this because if they raise the camera higher (as many shots should and would) it would reveal the “boxy” angle of the stage. It may seem small, but it REALLY de-emphasizes the natural surrounding and I’m worried it’s hurting the overall look of the show. I mean I just keep seeing that same masking vignette shot as an attempt to give depth to the edges and it’s just… I hope the second season is a huge improvement on this. I also feel like some natural helicopter shots getting cut into would seriously help some shit here. Thank you this has been nerdy cinematography talk.

-Okay, I’ll say it. I think force healing is dumb (especially in the movie that shan’t be named) because it basically OPs the character and takes away stakes and seems like a solution for so many given problems and makes me never worry as much.

-I’ve heard Werner Herzog talk A LOT and I genuinely feel like he’s purposefully amping up the Herzog-ness in this… don’t get me wrong, I am here for it. I mean, I saw all the “I WOULD LLIKE TO SEE THE BABY” memes on twitter, but it is 100 times funnier coming in context as a sudden transition from Herzog’s rambling speech about order in the galaxy. Just an aces moment.

-Me: Is that guy coming down i a regular ass tie figh-ohhhhhhhhh neat! AND IT’S THE GREAT GIANCARLO ESPOSITO. Man they’re really killing it with the casting game.

EPISODE EIGHT - REDEMPTION: THE RAID 2

Say what you will, Taika’s got a deft light touch.

I know some people don’t like his work (I’ll get to that in a second), but the opening teaser for this one just absolutely slayed me. Our two stormtroopers come in for a quick version of our own Rosencrantz and Gildernstern Are Dead and it just plays so well. Comedy isn’t easy. ISo often things things like this would be way too winking or putting to much oomph on the joke, like it was Robot Chicken or something. But this one takes the broadness and plays it naturally, rapidly, and straight forwardly, no matter how absurd (I mean they keep punching Baby Yoda). And it all actually crests in this amazing reveal of Nanny Bot to the rescue and it’s just pitch perfect example of “stupid smart fun” to me… Of course, I know people sometimes don’t like that because anything this light supposedly “undermines” the seriousness of the narrative…

But look I’m writing this at 3:30 am and I’m tired and I will pull no punches (mostly because I’ve written about this a lot already). Just because some scenes are silly does not take away from the seriousness of the overall story. Often, it actually helps lay empathy and groundwork to those serious more moments (like exactly in this case where Nanny Bot sacrifices themselves by episode’s end. Plus the other bad guys are still super effective as antagonists). But there are people who think serious things NEED to have this super serious overall tone in order to be functional… Yeah, they don’t. General audiences have proved this time and time again. And if I’m being direct, the reason YOU don’t think that is because you’re likely afraid that embracing things you see as childish makes you childish in turn (which in turn, is just exemplary juvenile adolescence). Because in order to truly indulge yourself and live in the fantasy of your entertainment, it it has to be a very serious thing for your very serious kewl guy wants. If I were being even more stern, I’d say “I’m sorry the tremendously funny scene that tons of people like made you feel like you couldn’t watch your super serious TV show in your serious big boy pants.” But that’s me being an absolute jerk. And being equally dismissive doesn’t help anything. I just really don’t know how to keep making this point again and again. People just kind of have to hopefully grow out of the instinct. So the open and honest version of this plea is that I hope it’s a way of watching you can learn to embrace because it’s 1) truer to life as adulthood is about accepting silliness and still being able to emote and 2) it’s so much more fun.

Anyway, let’s go back to the problem of teasing backstory.

We finally get “the fuller version” of Mando’s backstory, his real name, some stuff about “the night of a thousand tears,” and more specifically, the complete memory that they’ve been teasing out all season. The problem? Yeah, we basically knew / inferred everything already. That’s the problem with teasing. We’ve seen all this, just “less” of it. The only new thing is a few bits of Mandalorian rescue hero imagery, but we already knew they were his savior. I mean, the scene barely helps reinforce the central notion of empathy in this situation. The truth is whatever they were trying to doing with all this would have worked SO MUCH BETTER if this was new information to us in a way that changed things.

But wouldn’t that have meant they would have had to hide his motivation and character even more so? Well, they didn’t dramatize it anyway, so I’m not sure how much that matters. Besides, what I’m talking about is the basic function of misdirection instead of teasing. Because misdirection is the thing that allows you to get all the necessary characterization before redefining the scope of what is really true and why it’s so meaningful to the relationship. But what do I know.

Much more successful is that by going to talk to Forge Lady, we finally get a big alignment of purpose that draws lines with his backstory narrative and his current one. Because Baby Yoda is now officially a foundling of the tribe, just like Mando was as a baby. He is no longer going against code, the code is now aligned to his purpose. He must teach the child the Mandalorian ways of what he does and / or help Baby Yoda find his people. Core objective finally settled! And it ties to his personal motivation in a way that did not need to go unarticulated this long! But at least we’re here finally! Exclamation marks!

Anyway, it all ends with a cool jetpack vs. Tie Fighter scene, Giancarlo survives, they get away, and we have the parting of the ways. All in all, it’s perfectly fun and serviceable season of television that makes good enough use of the basics (which are hard to do by the way) for me to sign off and enjoy it.

Last random thoughts!

-I like that we finally saw his damn face for a moment. It works. He’s sweaty and nervous and hurt and I think it actually works if we find more good moments for this stuff.

-R2 unit as… a buff Gondalier? That’s a neat thing i haven’t seen!

-“I’m not sad.” / “Yes you are. I”m a nurse droid. I analyzed your voice.” I liked that beat. More of that please.

-IG-11 going into the lava had some real T2 vibes.

-“C’mon baby! Do the magic hand thing!” God bless Carl Weathers for delivering this line in such a funny maner.

-Okay I was wrong, I guess Sanctuary fits with the one word naming convention every fourth episode? I don’t know why this satisfies my OCD brain in some way, but it does. Now it just has to stick with it, otherwise I’ll be off kilter again!

-And so we come to the end! Overall, I think one of the great things about The Mandalorian is how unloaded it is. I mean, I love The Last Jedi and will always fight for it, but so many of the new movies come with this super loaded conversation and it’s genuinely nice to have something that doesn’t tap into that toxicity (at least I don’t think, I’ve sort of checked out of a lot of that dialogue). And the truth is I sort of watched people enjoy this show last fall and maybe I just needed more time before I was ready to dive in. But coming into it now, it genuinely was more enjoyable than I thought it would be and I’m excited to give proper recap treatments for season two.

With that, let’s get cracking!

<3HULK