Summary: Manda returns to Peli who has arranged a deal for him. She found somebody who has information on a Mandalorian living on Trask, but in exchange Mando has to help transport a new character, the Frog Lady to Trask where he gets the information. Mando accepts but gets questioned by the New Republic and flees. In his escape he crashes into an ice cave and is attacked by spiders. The New Republic people find and save him, choosing not to arrest him after searching up his record due to how he allowed for the arrest of 4 other criminals back in "The Prisoner". Mando fixes up his ship and leaves.
The Good: There were more fun Easter Eggs here, as is expected from this show. I enjoyed bits and pieces of this episode. Mando's encounter with the New Republic was fun and it was nice to see that the show had the budget to pull off a ship chase sequence. I really enjoyed the opening scene which served as an exciting standalone opening sequence, showing Mando getting into trouble but fighting off the people who attacked him. Baby Yoda had cute moments in this episode that were fun, especially after he did almost nothing in the first episode. The Bad: This was a huge step back from the first episode and I disliked vast majority of the episode. The biggest problem was how pointless this whole thing felt. Nothing in this episode was important barring a few lines of exposition early on. Quite literally nothing about this episode progressed the storyline and it felt like a meaningless side story that could be skipped altogether. To make matters worse, there was also no character work in this episode at all, and the worldbuilding was lackluster, especially when put up against the brilliant work done in "The Marshal". This was by far the most pointless episode of the show so far. Furthermore, this is the only episode of the show that didn't end with a resolution of some kind. Mando is still flying towards Trask and all that was resolved was the threat of the New Republic and the spiders which are threats that just scream filler to me. I was never emotionally engaged in either of these storylines so getting resolution to them made me feel nothing. Not having Mando get to Trask by the end of the episode was a poor decision, and it feels genuinely perplexing when you realize how short this episode was and how easy it would be to squeeze in an extra scene to finish this story. The story itself was terrible. The Frog Lady is one of the most forgettable characters so far and there were so many inconsistencies with her. For one, she somehow switches from being able to understand Mando and not being able to understand him at will. In the first scene, she doesn't understand him at all, yet when she speaks through Zero (why is he even here, surely the droid-hating Mando would have sent him away ages ago), somehow she is able to understand Mando without translations. It's very inconsistent. Even worse are her eggs. Apparently these eggs are so important that they drive the entire plot. These eggs would be her only lineage so it makes sense. What doesn't make sense are her motives. Is the criminal Mando really the best way for Frog Lady to secure passage to Trask? She is in Mos Eisley, surely there are hundreds of others that could provide passage. Yet she insists on going with Mando for some reason. How did she get here anyways if her species is only able to survive on Trask? The writers don't care enough to answer this. And also, how the hell does she not notice Baby Yoda eating her spawn? The show plays this off as cute but it is quite horrifying to see Baby Yoda eat Frog Lady's babies and I don't find it anywhere near as cute as the show thinks it is. But it also feels strange that these eggs are so important yet Frog Lady doesn't notice when Baby Yoda eats them. Mando's motives in this episode are also terrible. Quite frankly there is no way I would believe that Mando would ever risk going on this mission, especially since, as he said, it's not safe for him to fly around slowly since he's a criminal. The only motive we are given is that Peli vouches for Frog Lady with her life which seems to convince Mando (although I really don't know why Mando trusts her so much anyways). But even that is proven to be worthless since Peli has only known Frog Lady for 10 minutes! So if that's the case, there is no reason for Mando to risk this! And the mission almost costs him his life anyways, so it makes Mando look incredibly stupid for taking this unnecessary risk. The actual story of this episode is based off of contrivances as well. The entire spider plot is only set into motion by the stupidity of the characters. Baby Yoda just has to eat everything to kick off this story (eating the spider was gross television that didn't need to happen) and that is just silly. Mando should know better than to leave Baby Yoda on his own, especially in an ice cave where he could easily get lost. Furthermore, Mando should be watching Baby Yoda closely with the frog eggs being out in the open, so it's absurd that we're supposed to believe he would look away for so long. Lastly, Frog Lady marching out into the cave alone for an inexplicable reason was just awful storytelling, and it's such a bad trope to have an important character leave for no reason and get themselves into trouble. The New Republic's involvement at the end of the episode was awful. First of all, they serve as a very unsatisfying deus ex machina. Secondly, their involvement makes no sense. These guys hunted down Mando and apparently could not find him so they went to the base and ran tabs, which is when they saw who he was and decide to let him go. Yet after that they apparently decided to go looking for him anyways and find him in the ice cave? Somehow? Why on Earth would they go back to find him, especially since he would most likely have been long gone in any other case!? Furthermore, these guys proceeded to save Mando's life by killing the spiders, yet inexplicably left him in the ice cave with a destroyed ship to die. Why did they bother saving him anyways? Nothing adds up and the motives of these characters make no sense. It's horrific TV writing. Furthermore, Mando tried to hide Frog Lady's presence from them in the earlier scene. Why? We aren't given any good reason why she should be kept secret and I was horribly confused by this. The Unknown: What will Mando find on Trask? What is the lead on another Mandalorian? Will Mando have any other encounters with the New Republic? Best Moment: The opening sequence. Character of the Episode: Baby Yoda for being cute in most scenes. Conclusion: This episode stinks. It was pure filler so it was almost impossible to emotionally engage, and on top of that it featured the worst writing that I have seen in this show so far. This was a huge step back after the season premier and it's an episode that I would honestly just skip. Score: 42
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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