By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Rachel Morrison
• Starring Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Amy Sedaris
• TV-14

One of the small things about The Mandalorian that has been lingering the background of my mind since the first season is how little of it is actually about The Mandalorian. This seems like a weird thing to say, as Din is the lead character and the focus of the plot, but so much of Din’s arc is about finding his own way in life outside of the Mandalorian culture that most of the details about Mandalore itself and life for other Mandalorians that it falls by the wayside at points.

Between this episode and the premiere however, there seems to be a conceited effort by the cast and crew to try and rectify this as this season seems to be headed straight towards “ok let’s make this all about Mandalore”. What initially seems to be an episode about Din simply trying to find a memory chip for a droid – which frankly would have been the least interesting thing to do – it skips over that pretty quickly and instead we jump straight into Din attempting his “redemption” out in the Mines of Mandalore. And while that first bit on Tatooine is mostly just there to service a plot thread change (as well as give the ever great Amy Sedaris something to do), once the show does get to Mandalore, it kicks into high gear.

This is stone cold pulpy adventure fiction done right. Ruins! Derelict locations that once housed great nobles! Weird creatures! Dangerous traps! This is the kind of stuff I signed up for the show back when it first began in 2019, and it’s nice to finally go back to that after so long. And with Grogu almost an equal to Din now – he definitely treats him as such outside of the whole fatherly angle – there is a confidence in the creative team to take more interesting directions with how exactly things go down here. Din’s initial trappings that forces Grogu to be on his own for a bit is a great little piece of filmmaking with very little dialogue, and while it’s a little silly that Grogu is able to literally fly all the way to Bo-Katan without much issue, Star Wars is inherently a little silly and this isn’t even the silliest thing in the show.

Grogu might actually be the star here still though in spite of the greater focus on Mandalorian culture. He gets a taste of both sides of the coin here – both with Din’s more reversed yet awe-reverence for Mandalore as well as, in the second half, Bo-Katan’s more cynical, realistic approach. While the episode essentially restarting twice can be seen as a negative, I actually think it really works here by placing the two characters in very opposite positions. It’s clear that Bo-Katan is something of a co-lead this time around and while I have my own thoughts on that I like it’s continued focus on duality. That definitely seems to be a growing theme this season – specifically, the duality of two opposing factions and growing past that for a common goal.

Massive props as well for the general design team on this one as well. From the look of Mandalore’s glassed out appearance to the dark hallways, this is a moody, gothic episode in a lot of ways and it’s one of the times the Volume has really nailed it in terms of aesthetics. And that robot thing, whatever it is (seriously, what was that, somebody please tell what it was), has such an absolutely killer design and it gets plenty of screentime to show off it’s many moving parts. Between this and the pirate king design last week this season is really killing it in terms of creature design.

And speaking of creatures, let’s talk about that Mythosaur. One of the biggest deviations from Legends yet, the revelation that there is actually a Mythosaur that actually survived from the days of old Mandalore is really great cause it gives us the opportunity to dive into the past of the planet more obviously. But beyond that, it also works thematically – Mandalore can survive, it isn’t broken, it can live. If the Mythosaur can live on, so can Mandalore.

The story details are indeed tantalizing, and if the show continues this track record it could end up being just as good as before if not better. And we are only a quarter of the way in as well, meaning the real surprises are yet to come. Let’s keep them coming!