Summary: Mando finds Bo Katan and gets her help to track down Gideon. The crew steals an imperial shuttle containing Dr. Pershing and they get information from him. They all get in the imperial shuttle and sneak into Gideon's light cruiser, staging an attack from Boba Fett. Once inside, the girls fight off the stormtroopers and stage a distraction while Mando sneaks off to the cargo bay where the dark troopers are. After battling and defeating one, Mando manages to eject the others into space. Mando goes to Baby Yoda's cell and finds Gideon already there. They fight and Mando defeats him, leaving him alive. Mando returns to the bridge and learns that the darksaber is his now since he defeated Gideon. Suddenly, the dark troopers return and enter the light cruiser, trapping everyone in the bridge, which Gideon expressing that only he and Baby Yoda will survive. An X-wing appears and enters the light cruiser. Luke Skywalker is inside and he destroys all of the dark troopers. Gideon tries to kill himself but Cara stops him and knocks him out. Luke gets to the bridge and Baby Yoda decides to go with him. Baby Yoda says goodbye to Mando. Later on Tatooine, Boba and Fennec take over Jabba's palace.
The Good: The second half of this episode was really well done. I thought that the mission to rescue Baby Yoda gave this episode far more stakes compared to everything that came before and there were some excellent moments of drama that came up later in the episode. The action in particular really stood out. Mando's initial fight with the dark trooper was tense and exciting. It was great to see Mando legitimately pushed to the limit against this thing, and seeing him get utterly decimated by just a single dark trooper made it far more intense when dozens of them returned at the end of the episode. The action sequence against Gideon was also excellent. The choreography, visuals and sound were superb in this sequence, and it was a very intense fight heavy with stakes and suspense. The whole sequence felt gritty and real in a way that most lightsaber duels in "Star Wars" haven't felt since the original trilogy. I was very pleased with this skirmish. Amazingly the episode only got more intense once Gideon went down. I thought the twist of Mando getting ownership of the darksaber was a superb moment that ratcheted up the tension by suggesting some ingroup conflict that has been orchestrated by Gideon, who has become more and more enigmatic as the show has gone on. Gideon was fascinating throughout the episode no matter what he did. His attempt to get Mando to lower his guard was great, his cocky words while in custody did a terrific job of demoralizing the heroes, and his terrified reaction when Luke arrived was priceless. Speaking of which, Luke's appearance was a huge surprise that delivered on every level. Once again the jedi feel mythical in nature, and Luke's silent arrival was tense, exciting and mysterious. Seeing him mow down the dark troopers was brilliant entertainment, and an example of fanservice done well. I thoroughly enjoyed this sequence, and I thought that the decision to use CGI to bring in a younger Mark Hamill was the best choice here for the brief appearance of Luke. The ending of the episode was an emotional high for the show. Having Mando say goodbye to Baby Yoda was a sad moment, and seeing him take off the helmet without hesitation to say goodbye was very powerful stuff. I'm pleased that this season ended on such an emotional and conclusive beat, serving as a perfect conclusion to the story of Mando and Baby Yoda. I also quite liked Cara's conversation with the pilot that happened early in the episode. It was some of the best dialogue written this season and it continued to examine the show's themes. The Bad: I had several issues with the first half of the episode. First of all is the issues with logic. We aren't given any explanation how Mando's group found the shuttle that Dr. Pershing was in. How did they know that this shuttle was coming in? Without this convenient bit of knowledge, their plan would not work at all. This needed to be explained. Furthermore, it's very strange that Dr. Pershing cooperates so much with Mando's group. We don't know why he would do this and we don't even know what happened to him since he cooperated. This should have been addressed. The plan to attack Gideon's ship was pretty terrible. Had there been even a single darktrooper activated in preparation for Mando's attack that he stupidly announced last episode, they would have been screwed. The darktroopers need to charge, but can they not just have 1 patrolling the ship while the others charge? Furthermore, it's ridiculous that Gideon didn't immediately fortify Baby Yoda's holding cell. He knows that Mando is going for Baby Yoda, so everyone should have been sent to defend him. Plus, Mando sneaking around unexpectedly should never have worked, again because Mando stupidly announced to Gideon that he was coming. The final scene of the previous episode has gotten worse and worse as the story moves forward. As a final note, why did Gideon just wait for Mando to show up? He's on a ship! Just fly somewhere else. I thought the assault itself was also lacking. It was more dumb, boring action which didn't do much for me until the darktroopers came out. With the stormtroopers being portrayed as total geeks for 3 other episodes in this season, I felt no tension at all when they were attacking the main crew. Furthermore, the entire sequence was blatantly put together to provide a "strong women" moment. I'm fine with having strong women and showing it off, but it's frustrating when it's so obvious that the writers manufactured the story to make it happen in numerous ways. Some key examples being Mando being off on his own, Boba not helping out with the assault at all, and the third Death Watch member from "The Heiress" (a male character) being conveniently absent. What makes this even worse is that none of these people are well defined characters. This is proven when there is absolutely no interaction between the characters in this episode, which is a shame because fun interactions are a staple of "Star Wars". That tells me that character work was sacrificed in favour of this unnecessary scene where a group of women can dominate the enemies. Again, I am fine with portraying women like this, but the problem comes when the story and characters are ignored in favour of doing this. In this case, it badly hurts the narrative as well as my immersion. I want to return to my statement about fun interactions being a staple of "Star Wars". I firmly stand by this, and I believe that this is what made the original trilogy so engrossing. There's dramatic action, but through it all, there are very strong main characters who are fn to watch and show lots of personality when talking with each other. Nobody in this crew outside of Mando and Cara had any personality, and even Cara hardly has any since she has been handled so poorly this season. Cara had an interesting scene to start the episode where she murders the Imperial pilot who pisses her off, but she doesn't get any character work done outside of that. This is very disappointing since that initial scene didn't explore very deep into the character, and seemed to suggest a character trait that could cause problems during the assault. Instead it never came up again. Something else that never came up again was Bo Katan and Koska Reeves hating Boba for being a clone. This started up as a big deal, but like all other interesting character arcs, was dropped the moment the assault began. I would have much rather seen these stories develop during the assault instead of getting a brainless sequence of women being cool. While I loved the climax of the episode, some small things bothered me about it. For one, when everyone was making their final stand I was confused by the fact that everyone was holding blasters. Blasters don't work on the darktroopers and they know that! Why would they not prioritize using the darksaber and Mando's Beskar spear, the only two weapons in the room that could kill these guys. Also, I thought that Mando taking off his helmet for Baby Yoda had diminished impact since he took off the helmet in the prior episode. Had this been the only time he took off his helmet this season, the moment would have meant so much more. The ending sequence annoyed me a lot. I had hoped that Boba would be an addition to the main cast of this show since he would do well as an engaging supporting character. But since Disney wants more money, he becomes yet another character to get his own spin-off. I'm also very disgusted by his and Ahsoka's presence in this show as they had no impact on the story of "The Mandalorian" and only served to hype up completely different shows that Disney wants us to watch. It's the same tactic they use for the MCU and I'm very upset to see business taking precedence over telling a good story. Furthermore, we still don't know anything about how Boba survived, what he did on Tatooine, how he brought Fennec back, what his motives are, etc. I guess we'll have to watch yet another "Star Wars" TV show to find out, and that's not even a guarantee. Boba's return this season was botched really badly and I'm incredibly disappointed with the lack of character work done on him. The Unknown: What is going to happen with the darksaber? Will Bo Katan allow Mando to have it? Will she fight him for it? How will this be handled? I'm guessing that season 3 will be taking us to Mandalore to see how this is resolved. What happens to Gideon now that he has been captured? I hope we get to see a lot more of him so we can learn more about his motives which are still unclear. The character has thrived purely on Giancarlo Esposito's natural charisma, there is still a lot that we need to learn about him. Will we see Baby Yoda again? What will happen when he joins up with Luke? We know in the future that Kylo Ren will burn down Luke's Jedi temple. Will Baby Yoda die in this sequence or will he escape again? What will Boba Fett do now that he has taken control over Jabba's palace? Best Moment: Mando giving up Baby Yoda and taking off his helmet to share one final moment with the little guy. Character of the Episode: Luke. Seeing him again was wonderful. Conclusion: This episode had a lot of cool stuff in it and the second half in particular was a joy to watch with some exciting twists and dramatic moments. However, this show continues to get in its own way with its insistence on cool stuff being more important than storytelling, and it once again significantly damaged the quality of the episode. As for the season overall, I can't say I was a fan of it. It was watchable stuff, but the lack of character work in favour of self-contained action spectacles that completely lacked in personality was a very uninteresting choice for me. Looking back on this season isn't very pleasant as all I really got out of this was mindless fun that didn't capitalize on any of the potential that this series had. I had a good time for sure since a show as well produced as this will always be entertaining, but I was emotionally unengaged for 95% of this season and I finished every episode except the first one want for more character work, world building and storytelling. This is decent television, but it takes no risks to be anything more and that's very disappointing to me. Score: 62
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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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