We haven’t been here since 2020! (Well, we kinda hung out last year in Book of Boba Fett, but you know what I mean). Time to check in with Mando and the kid again.
Recap
The Watch cult are inducing a child into their ranks beside the water when a giant beast breaks up the event. The group try to fight it off and are being decimated when Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu show up in his new fighter to blow the thing away. Din comes back to talk to the Armorer (Emily Swallow) about being reinstated as a Mandalorian after telling her that he removed his helmet in front of others. She insists that the only way he can accomplish this is by purifying himself in the living waters below the Mines of Mandalore, and that this cannot be done because the planet was destroyed and poisoned by the Empire. Din shows her a fragment from the surface that a contact brought back. He believes this is proof that the surface isn’t totally destroyed and that he can complete the task. She agrees.
Din goes back to Navarro, which is prospering more than ever of late. He meets up with his old friend Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) who is High Magistrate now, and they both face down a crew of pirates led by a fellow named Vane (Marti Matilus) who is a crony of pirate king Gorian Shard; the group want to drink at a building that used to be a saloon and is now a school. Din picks off the surrounding pirates when they try to kill Karga after he wins the showdown with Vane. Karga tells Vane to warn criminals in the area that the planet is respectable now. Then he tries to recruit Din to be his Marshall—Cara Dune was recruited by the New Republic soon after their last adventures, and he needs someone to take the spot.
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Dead Country
Din turns the offer down and tells Karga that he needs his old buddy IG-11 (Taika Waititi) back in order to complete his quest on Mandalore. Karga points out that the statue they have raised to the droid is just a statue, but Din knows that some of the droid’s original parts make it up. They take those parts down and try to reactivate him, but it makes IG-11 default to his old programming and he tries to kill Grogu. After his. Head is crushed by a bust of Karga, they take him to a shop for repairs run by Babu Frick and company. They tell Din that they can’t fix IG-11 without a new memory circuit, which is nearly impossible to find. Din insists that he will and departs.
On their way out, Din and Grogu come under attack from Vane and a squad who lead them to Shard’s (Nonso Anozie) flagship. Din powers up the boosters on his fighter and speeds away. He takes them to Kalevala, a planet in the Mandalore system, to a castle where Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) is holed up alone. He asks her where her army is, and she tells him that they left once she no longer possessed the dark saber, and that if he wants their help so much, he should tell them he has it and lead them. Din insists he just wants to atone in the mines, which she thinks is ridiculous. She won’t assist him him, but he vows to go and find out if the Mandalore is truly poisoned. She bids him goodbye.
Commentary
Okay, you know, I’ve let this one slide for two whole seasons, but it’s getting ridiculous: how many giant wild animals does Din Djarin need to murder senselessly for other folks, and why do we think that’s okay?
That space crocodile ostensibly lives on the planet where the Watch have set up, and there’s no reason why they need to do their cult baptisms right there. But they had to do this setup in order to give us a heroic action sequence where Din defends his people against certain death, and honestly? This is their own fault and that crocodile did nothing wrong. There’s nothing noble about showing up in your starfighter to kill a local apex predator who’s picking off your shitty friends.
Again, your Western tropes are bad, y’all. Nature isn’t a thing to be tamed or destroyed, it’s a thing you could be working with. Make Mandalorians more than the sum of their parts. At least indicate that they’ve thought about any of these issues. Even if the Watch wouldn’t, I find it hard to believe Din wouldn’t—he adopted a baby Yoda.
They really did say, “if you didn’t watch The Book of Boba Fett, we do not care that you have no idea how we got here,” which I’m not loving as a choice. Don’t comic book our Star Wars, unless you were just gonna make that show The Mandalorian season three. (Which is what you should have done.)
Anywho, there’s another thing going on here that I’m hoping that show will get around to addressing in depth (though depth is not its strong suit) about how Mandalorians are a people bound by so many arbitrary rules, and everyone has different opinions on which should be enforced or matter, and how they really need to let go of a lot of theses issues in order to revive their people in any meaningful sense. Bo-Katan should be the leader, but she’s all up in her head about the darksaber and so is everyone else. The Watch won’t let anyone take their helmets off on pain of being cast out.
That palace, though. That she’s just sitting in all alone. That’s a mood.
Also, uh, they built a statue to IG-11 knowing that they could potentially revive him from the parts they had left? Clearly Karga doesn’t think it’s possible, but Din does and just left him to be a statue? That’s not cool, guys. And also incredibly annoying from a narrative convenience perspective, particularly since we’ve never seen this statue before, like, could you even try seeding things effectively? Ever? If you’re going to rely on this bare bones chapters in a serial structure, that’s one thing you should be attempting to do so well that it’s unassailable.
I’m guessing Shard is going to be problem going forward, but I do like his Swamp Thing vibe. Though I’m rolling my eyes forever at calling one of this pirate pals Vane, both for the double meaning and the Charles Vane reference.
Grogu continues to be cute as an effective form of distraction, at least. If the entire episode had been him messing around with Karga’s office furniture and eating his fiery chocolates, I would have been far more entertained. I’m guessing the next side quest is memory circuit time? He said he needed IG-11 to navigate the planet (still not sure why that’s a thing, apparently he won’t be able to scan it effectively on his own?), so it’s probable that’s where we’re headed next.
Bits and Beskar
- Got some questions about how Grogu can just crawl from his little pod into Din’s lap in the cockpit. Obviously Peli Motto did some weird conversions, but that used to be a droid alcove, and it seems to me you’d have to gut some pretty significant things to let the kid just slide around inside, but I digress.
- Babu Frick was obviously one of the best things about The Rise of Skywalker (don’t @ me, tiny alien gremlins who fix droids are exactly what I want from Star Wars all the time), and the fact that Grogu thinks he’s a life-sized plushie is so cute I could die probably.
- Also, I love that Karga gets more swag every time Din shows up, and those cape-holding droids are excellent.
- Still pointing out that a starfighter is not a home the way the Razor Crest was, and wondering where they sleep and shower. Get your child a cottage, Din.
See you next week!
