The Mandalorian

[j9ac9k]

****SPOILERS for CHAPTER 10****
-- This was a weak episode to me. The plot jumped around more than usual in a way that dragged the pacing. Mando is usually thrown into some familiar western scenario and has to do a thing to get one step closer to what he wants. This one was either one too many steps to get to the premise, or it just seemed more contrived than usual. First he gets ambushed, then he happens to run into an Ant guy who has info he needs, then he gets drafted to shuttle the Frog Lady. By the time we get to the challenge, they just run and shoot and hide, then it's over. Usually there's some kind of complication or challenge in the course of the quest, sometimes where Mando has to make a moral choice, etc. but the spiders were too simple to be interesting.
-- A few things just didn't make sense to me other than "the plot needed it."
ONE - Why weren't the eggs more secured?? The first thing Mando tells Frog Lady (they should have given her a name) is to strap in. Cut to the egg creche not secure in any way. We see it get tossed around only at the end of the chase when the Razorcrest falls through the ice, but that stuff should have all been thrown around already with all the aerial gymnastics during the chase. Maybe the creche is super-tough, but all that stuff should have been trashed.
TWO - Mando says they should sleep, it's dangerous out there at night, etc. (even though the place looks desolate and he has no idea of any specific threats, fine) but why sleep in the part of the ship with a giant gash in the side where anything can just walk in? If he had said to sleep in the cockpit where it's secure, that would make sense - it would be warmer there too.
THREE - the first thing I thought when the spiders came out was "Flamethrower! Flamethrower!" Why spend all that time shooting them one at a time just to use the flamethrower later? He does it again in the cockpit, where he uses the blaster first at dozens of spiders, just to use the flamethrower later.
FOUR - So, Mando goes from "We'll be lucky to get out of here alive." to "Okay, I'll fix the ship now and we'll just stay in the cockpit." Huh?? Maybe if the X-Wing pilots did something to help them or something, but nothing really changed between when they crashed and when he fixed the ship. Did he just want to wait to do it during the day when it was safer? It's not a good excuse, but it's a reason and certainly not a dire enough situation where Mando thought they were doomed.
--- Some stuff weren't plot criticisms, but just of tone. The New Republic seems like a bunch of A-holes. We got a space "stop and frisk" and Mando almost dies just for not having ID. Not a great way to paint the Republic and how they run things. I know "these are strange times" or whatever, but it still doesn't make the Republic look good. They also leave Mando - essentially to die since he asked for assistance. Dick move Feloni.
--- The ending was a lot of back and forth "will they or won't they" arrest Mando. Just a lot of explaining where Mando just listens. It's not like he makes a point or says something to change their minds. He just listens to them explain his fate. Not the most dramatic of writing choices.
--- I was put off by the "joke" of Baby Yoda eating those eggs. Frog Lady and her husband risked their lives for those eggs - we're told several times how important they are! I thought maybe BY would learn some lesson about how to respect the lives of those he eats or something, but nope. One last egg joke to end the episode, just to highlight that no lessons were learned. Nothing wrong with that in itself as a storypoint, but it just didn't sit right with me.
--- I feel most episodes were about something. This show lives in "it's about the journey, not the destination" but there's usually some kind of takeaway. Here? This episode was the only one where I felt really had no point.

[thwhtGuardian]

I think the point was...that fun is okay. I like that not every episode has to have some message or lesson learned, because sometimes cool fight scenes and monsters are enough. Sometimes you want to be moved and sometimes you just want something cool to munch popcorn in front of and this show can be both.

[Derek Metaltron]

I think the point was...that fun is okay. I like that not every episode has to have some message or lesson learned, because sometimes cool fight scenes and monsters are enough. Sometimes you want to be moved and sometimes you just want something cool to munch popcorn in front of and this show can be both.

Exactly! I have wanted to see a Krayt Dragon for ages so last weeks episode coupled with significant Tusken Raider usage was awesome, even if I was thinking that as a big Star Wars fan and less as a casual audience. But Disney+ is more the place for the fan favourite stuff we might not see in the movies.

[j9ac9k]

I think the point was...that fun is okay. I like that not every episode has to have some message or lesson learned, because sometimes cool fight scenes and monsters are enough. Sometimes you want to be moved and sometimes you just want something cool to munch popcorn in front of and this show can be both.

I feel like we got that last episode. This was just some running and shooting, then someone came around and saved them. There was literally no problem-solving, tension between members, acts of heroism, or interesting action. And like I said, when the protagonist doesn't act in a way that makes the most sense, then it's less than satisfying. But each episode can't please everyone. :/

[ChrisIII]

I think that the New Republic isn't that much better than the Empire has sort of been hinted throughout the Disney canon. (It was also kind of present in the old EU as well). A lot of Leia's resistance in the sequel trilogy is made of people-including OT vets-who were more or less exiled politically or grew frustrated with the NR not doing much about the First Order.

[Robotech Master]

Sy-Fy Channel Executive watching Chapter 10: "One way or another, it all leads back to Ice Spiders."

[Frontier]

I mean, I feel like the New Republic soldiers actually did Din a solid. They figured out he had a warrant for his arrest but saved him and basically left him alone because he made up for his crime, even if it basically amounted to abandoning him there. I guess they were kind of tools about it, but they still let him off and killed all the spiders. I'm kind of surprised Mando's helping with the prison break last episode actually lead to trouble here.

How many times is Dave Filoni's X-Wing trooper going to pop up?

Is Peyton Reed the reason there were so many insect creatures in this episode :P?

Baby Yoda needs to cool it with eating all those eggs. I know they were unfertilized, but still .

I thought the mom was going to be a damsel in distress, but she hot-wired that droid so she could communicate, leaped the heck out of there, and had a blaster ready to protect her babies. Cool .

"May the Force Be With You" so apparently that phrase has become so ubiquitous that even Mando knows it, but he doesn't actually know what the Force is.

[ZeroBG82]

I mean, I feel like the New Republic soldiers actually did Din a solid. They figured out he had a warrant for his arrest but saved him and basically left him alone because he made up for his crime, even if it basically amounted to abandoning him there. I guess they were kind of tools about it, but they still let him off and killed all the spiders. I'm kind of surprised Mando's helping with the prison break last episode actually lead to trouble here.

I agree here. They didn't outright help him with his ship at the end, but they saved his skin and let him go. And considering they were probably pissed that he'd run from them and they had to chase him down and fight space spiders. It sure sounded like they would have been cool with letting him go if he'd just come clean from the start, given what the security tapes from the prison ship revealed.

I love the fact that we got the spider creatures from Chopper Base in Rebels. Or at least a relative of them, I'm not sure if it was exactly the same design. They look a lot creepier in live action!

Spoilers from the S2 trailer...spoilers:

We've seen an awful lot of the stuff from the trailer at this point, and a fair bit of what we haven't seen looks like it's probably next week. The damaged Razor Crest is clearly picking up where this left off, and I rewatched the trailer and you can see Frog Lady and what is presumably her husband on the dock where the trailer shows us Sasha Banks' hooded mystery character. So it's a safe bet that water world is next week. Which means there are really only a couple beats unaccounted for. I'm assuming the run in with the Imperials will be at the end of the season, and at some point we go back to Navarro to see Greef and Cara again. So there's a lot of season we have literally no hint about. Makes me wonder if we're going to meet some more Mandalorians next week that will be a bigger part of the season moving forward. Maybe Bo-Katan? Or even Sabine? Probably not, but there's a reason we don't have footage from those other episodes in the trailer, and I'm betting that while it's not The Child huge, it's to hide something spoilery.

end of spoilers

Interestingly, S2 mirrors S1 pretty closely so far. We have the big job/quest episode to start the season. Then we have the broken ship/waylaid by aliens interlude. Makes me wonder if the third episode will serve to bookend the story block the same way it did in S1. Could be something coming, if so.

[tabo61]

Baby Yoda has a heck of a great appetite.

[Steroid]

Kind of a filler episode but Baby Yoda had me cracking up with his eating at least.

[j9ac9k]

Baby Yoda has a heck of a great appetite.

He does like frogs...

[Hiromi]

I know the giant ant playing Sabac was an easter egg by Peyton Reed(Antman director), but I also wonder if that was meant to be a Killik, which have had a mention in a canon short story so they have made the jump from legends

[ZeroBG82]

I know the giant ant playing Sabac was an easter egg by Peyton Reed(Antman director), but I also wonder if that was meant to be a Killik, which have had a mention in a canon short story so they have made the jump from legends

I'm pretty sure the same alien appeared in the cantina back in the first season as well. Could be.

[BeastieRunner]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the spiders looked like the ones from Dagobah.

I'm sure that was intentional.

[ChrisIII]

I mean, I feel like the New Republic soldiers actually did Din a solid. They figured out he had a warrant for his arrest but saved him and basically left him alone because he made up for his crime, even if it basically amounted to abandoning him there. I guess they were kind of tools about it, but they still let him off and killed all the spiders. I'm kind of surprised Mando's helping with the prison break last episode actually lead to trouble here.

How many times is Dave Filoni's X-Wing trooper going to pop up?

The Rebels were technically former criminals themselves, might've been why they mostly let it go.