Okay, this… this is more like it.
Recap
A Quarren ship is stopped by a group of Mandalorians—Bo-Katan’s old group, now led by Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides). They were sent as hired mercenaries by the parents of the Mon Calamari prince the Quarrens “kidnapped”… in reality, the prince left because he’s in love with the Quarren captain. He is given up to the Mandalorians, who don’t care much about the issue so long as they’re paid. Later on, Din and Bo-Katan arrive on a planet called Plazir-15, the world where Bo-Katan’s former forces have taken up residence, a place that claims to be the last true democracy in the galaxy. There are imperial droids all over and very strict measures to be obeyed; Bo and Din have to offer up their chain codes in order to be granted access to the planet, and are immediately diverted to a different location than the one they requested access to.
They arrive at a feast being hosted by The Duchess (Lizzo) and her husband Captain Bombardier (Jack Black). Bombardier used to be in the Empire, but has started over with the Amnesty Program and done everything in his power to reallocate Imperial resources, turning many old droids from both the Empire and the Separatists into infrastructural resources. There is a problem, however—lately, many of the droids have been malfunctioning, with accidents ranging from minor to incredibly dangerous. They ask to Din and Bo to investigate because their own constabulary have no weapons; Bo and Din can carry their own because it is a cultural concession. They are sent to see Commissioner Helgait (Christopher Lloyd) who is in charge of monitoring all of the droids. He tells them that he has the ability to switch off defective droid units, but cannot use it because the measure was voted against by citizens who are accustomed to having all their needs seen to by droids and wouldn’t know what to do without them. He suggests the duo go speak to the Ugnaughts, who are responsible for droid maintenance and repair, as they will have the list of defective droids.
Buy the Book
Some Desperate Glory
The Ugnaughts in question won’t speak to them until Din proves he can speak their language and brings up his friendship with Kuill. They manage to get information containing the location where the Ugnaughts believe the next malfunctioning droid will surface, a loading area. Din begins harassing the loading droids (which are reappropriated B2-series super battle droids front he Separatist army) until one of them reacts and runs off. Din and Bo pursue, and kill the droid in the street. Bo finds a spark pad on the droid that denotes a droid bar called The Resistor, so they head there next. Din starts harassing the droid bartender until it tells them that it means to comply with their investigation because none of the droids on this world want are intending to go rogue—they consider their work a small price to pay to the organics that built them. It tells them about nepenthe, the only “drink” that droids can imbibe, which contains maintenance additives. The droid that recently malfunctioned drank from the same batch of nepenthe as all the other droids who seem to have malfunctioned.
Bo and Din have this batch of nepenthe analyzed and learn that it contains nanobots causing the behavioral changes in the droids. These nanobots have writing on them that contains a chain code linking them directly back to Helgait. When Bo and Din confront him, he admits what he’s done freely, insisting that he’s survived all these regime shifts and dislikes the current leadership; he’s a big fan of Count Dooku and dislikes being called a Separatist, a word that he considers pejorative. Bo stuns him, and they bring him to the Duchess and Bombardier to answer for his crimes. The Duchess is disappointed in him, but gives Bo and Din a key to the city and knights little Grogu (who has been using the Force to help her win at games because he adores her). The two are granted access to the Mandalorian enclave and take their leave.
Once they’ve arrived, Bo challenges Axe for her leadership position back. They have a drawn out fight, but she does handily defeat him, prompting Axe to tell her that Din is the one she should be challenging—he carries the Darksaber, after all. Din offers to hand it over, but Bo points out that it is not an instrument that can be given. Din then explains to the group that Bo-Katan already won the Darksaber back from him: On Mandalore, he was captured, and Bo-Katan took up the saber to defeat the being that bested him and rescue him from certain death. By the terms of combat, she beat his enemy. The Darksaber is hers, and no one now disputes it.
Commentary
I don’t even know where to start, I am beside myself with joy?
DUCHESS LIZZO!
Sorry, that just came out, unbidden. It might happen again, I’m not sure. I’ll probably shriek that at intervals throughout the day.
Obviously, that was the most exciting cameo, but that’s like getting excited over diamond centerpieces at a glorious banquet because I heard Jack Black’s voice and immediately shouted at my TV because how has it taken this long for Jack Black to appear in Star Wars? And we knew Christopher Lloyd was going to show up this season, but this was such a great role to land him in, a disgruntled Count Dooku fanboy. (The guy has a lot of them, which really makes me wish that we’d seen more of his politicking in the prequels and The Clone Wars, rather than all the Sith stuff. So many people are into him, he must’ve been mesmerizing when he worked a room.) The reactions from his staff when they realize the turn are really what sells the whole thing: Hey guys, did anyone know our boss was evil? No, you’re surprised too, huh?
There’s an awkwardness to how they handle the droid issue here as we’re getting the problem on Plazir-15 from a variety of perspectives, none of which are the droids themselves. We get a brief show of solidarity in The Resistor, but it’s a group showing that has no bearing on their feelings about potentially being framed and used like this. Then there’s the argument from Helgait against droid use because he thinks it makes people pampered and lazy, which reads like a commentary on automation. Of course it’s not, because droids aren’t simply automation, they’re sentient beings, which makes his argument moot because you’re effectively talking about slavery. But then when the bartender at The Resistor talks about the problem, it winds up being framed more like they’re being treated as “unskilled laborers,” i.e. the sort of arguments leveled in “immigrants taking people’s jobs” conversations.
To be clear, I’m not saying that there’s no merit to overlapping these topics because they are related in a variety of ways that are worth observing and dissecting. But the episode isn’t really up to putting in deep thoughts on that interplay, which feels like a missed opportunity in the storytelling. Instead, all we get is galaxy’s most overwrought revenge scheme, one that you can only assume Helgait thought would work because he never imagined anyone on the planet would be active enough to ever put the pieces together.
It’s too bad that isn’t more cleverly handled because everything else about this episode is brilliant: The location, the costumes, the variety of alien life, and the way this world is situated between all the forms of galactic conflict that have ensued in the past several decades. I need to know more about Plazir-15 and how it came to be this way—a self-proclaimed democracy with countless different species, all allowed to live in relative comfort and leisure (provided they enslave droids, of course), with a former Imperial officer in their high society who ran through the Amnesty Program and then promptly married their Duchess? Bananas.
And then there’s the droid bar, which I am so happy for the existence of that I might cry. Though if Din doesn’t stop treating them all the way he does, I’m gonna steal his kid from him—you can stop any time, sir, no one needs this BS. The battle droid supervisor who told him to leave them alone was right, and honestly broke my heart; I don’t think we’ve ever truly seen a droid in Star Wars even make an attempt at defending its own verbally like that, aside from L3’s freedom fighting, which is a different mode of protesting.
And then we finally get the thing I’ve been waiting for them to bring up, which is acknowledgment of the fact that Bo-Katan technically won the Darksaber four episodes ago and we just weren’t talking about it. While I’m pissed at Din for continuing to be a droidphobe, I do appreciate his desire to not bring this up until the most dramatic moment possible. It’s a good instinct—he’s got timing, at least.
Before I stop, I have to give attention and credit to that opening salvo, though: Quarren lady captain in a tank, her Mon Calamari lover prince who is being returned to his parents, her suggestion that this is just a fling (much to his dismay), their romance cut short by a band of mercenaries hired by prince’s family. Not only is this a great twist—in making them both aliens, and in swapping the genders of this trope because this would commonly be some dude pirate and his smitten princess—but it’s also actually a huge deal politically when you know anything about these species; the Quarren and Mon Cala occupy the same world, but commonly don’t get along to to the point of near-constant warfare between their peoples. (Is the prince Lee-Char’s kid? He’s gotta be, right?) So this romance was always doomed, but it’s actually a major thing? And then the episode does a completely one-eighty away from it like “Anywaaaay, so that’s a thing that happened” which I honestly love. Whoops, sorry, the story we meant to tell is over here, never mind.
DUCHESS LIZZO. See, I can be patient, I waited all that time before screaming again.
Bits and Beskar
- Grogu loves his Auntie Lizzo, he will recklessly use his Force powers to help her win all games forever. Look, when you don’t know what to do with the kid (which is most of the time, let’s be honest), handing him over like that is literally the ideal situation, why doesn’t this sort of thing happen every episode: “Script note: Grogu spends the rest of the chapter delighting Lizzo, having no effect on the story whatsoever.”
- Chain codes! So the first mention of chain codes is in the first episode of this series, but it was helpfully contextualized in season one of The Bad Batch, where they show how the Empire created the chain code program, and how it was used to track and monitor citizenry. Wonder how that’s going to play out in the new era.
- Star Wars continuing to show its whole ass with names like “Commissioner Helgait,” gee, wonder who caused the problem here, definitely not this guy. Thank you for your service, never stop.
- Are the two droids hanging out in front of The Resistor on a date because I need the answer to be yes, and also it sure looks like it.
- A slightly deeper cut, but even more unhinged, the choice to make the droid libation “nepenthe,” which is the draught commonly remembered from The Odyssey as a drug of “forgetfulness” meant to cure sorrow. Just shove my heart through a meat grinder why don’t you.
I’m sad that next week won’t just be more of this, honestly. But see you then!
This was fun, even though it was another side quest in a show dominated by side quests. Impressive to get both Jack Black and Christopher Lloyd in the same episode, as well as a cameo by the lovely voice of Black Lightning‘s Christine Adams as the Quarren captain. (I don’t pay any attention to popular music, so I had no idea who the Duchess’s performer was. I figured she was probably a music or comedy star of some sort, though, since she didn’t strike me as a professional actress.) It was easy to guess who the villain would be, since you don’t hire Christopher Lloyd to appear in one scene as a bureaucrat.
The cityscape was beautiful, though I had to wonder why they’d need to encase the city in geodesic domes when the climate around it is so temperate.
I’m still not entirely convinced by Din’s argument about the Darksaber’s ownership. I mean, clearly Bo-Katan doesn’t think she won it fairly in the rescue, since she gave it back to him afterward. But it’s close enough to work as a politically useful fiction, a way he can finally return the saber to the person who actually wants it in a way that lets her save face.
I’m also not happy about “I have spoken” being a generic Ugnaught utterance. I preferred to think it was something specific to Kuill, a reflection of his own prickly personality.
So Grogu finally gets a knighthood, just not the one he was originally slated for.
The duchess is played by Lizzo (singer), by the way.
I think at this point, they’re not really “side quests” anymore, that’s just what the show is.
And if that means that we can occasionally have another episode of Law & Order: Special Droid Unit featuring Detectives Djarin (Din as a racist cop was darkly funny) and Kryze (her usual diplomacy failing with the Ugnaughts was also funny), then give me all the “side quests.” I think my favorite part of that was the droid morgue, which is exactly like a human morgue for some inexplicable reason. And Christopher Lloyd! I know him!
I also had my expectations pleasantly subverted about Plazir. I can’t be the only one who saw such a beautiful-looking, clean planet with advanced technology and a pampered citizenry that all have a voice in governance, led by a former Imperial and assumed that there was some dark secret at the heart of it all. Especially after Elia Kane’s apparent treachery, I’ve been very suspicious of this “rehabilitation” of former Imperials. So I was happy to see that it’s all apparently genuine, and that they even treated Helgait with apparent mercy. Almost as fun a surprise as seeing Jack Black in the first place. I will laugh with joy if it turns out that Grogu being knighted is more than just ceremonial, and actually carries some weight in places.
In short: this is the greatest and best episode of the season… Tribute.
@3/Chase: “I think at this point, they’re not really “side quests” anymore, that’s just what the show is.”
Fair point. It used to be pretty standard for a show to be mainly about the various episodic adventures that its characters got drawn into in the course of pursuing their main goal. But I guess it’s just that the “Previously on” segment was so much about the provenance of the Darksaber that it created the expectation that the episode would be centrally about that.
It cracked me up that, according to the closed captioning, the Quarren captain is named “Captain Shuggoth.”
DUCHESS LIZZO!
That’s all.
@1 – I occasionally blank on current “celebrities” (especially in the age of “influencers”) but Lizzo is really, really mainstream; so it’s surprising that you haven’t at least heard of her. And you don’t have to follow music to hear about her (do you ever read news aggregation sites like Yahoo? That at least keeps me somewhat aware of various famous people)
No idea who Lizzo is. But from what we saw here, really not impressed. The acting was very wooden in those scenes, and she had zero chemistry with Black’s character, with whom she was supposedly desperately in love. The side quest itself was very uninteresting. It was fun to see battle droids up and about again, but the idea of giving droids some pretense of human activity (a droid bar??) just felt… eh??
What’s next, should I expect my cell phone to have a hangover?
Love the resolution to the darksaber situation though, even though Bo-Katan herself doesn’t seem entirely convinced by Din’s giving up the thing.
@7/Austin: I have seen the name “Lizzo” once or twice, in contexts I had no curiosity about, but I’m not enough aware of her to have recognized her in the show. Besides, I was too busy going “Is that Jack Black? Yeah, it’s Jack Black! That’s Kung Fu Panda’s voice, all right!”
@8 I only know who Lizzo is because of that thing with James Madison’s crystal flute. She didn’t dazzle me with her acting skills, but I thought she was fine for the part she played.
Also, I very much doubt this is the end of the Darksaber saga. Just the beginning of a new chapter.
REVEREND JIM! Sorry. First yelled that in a dark theater during Star Trek: The Search For Spock
@10/Chase: “I only know who Lizzo is because of that thing with James Madison’s crystal flute.”
Oh, yeah, I remember seeing some mentions of a racist backlash to that, and that was probably the first time I ever heard of her. Or of the flute, for that matter. Though I had heard of James Madison, at least.
“Also, I very much doubt this is the end of the Darksaber saga. Just the beginning of a new chapter.”
Of course — now Bo-Katan has to use it to unite the clans, and she’ll probably face a challenge from Gideon soon. But at least Din’s finally managed to convince her to take it back.
@11/wiredog: Oh, yeah, we can now add Christopher Lloyd to the list of actors who’ve done both Star Trek and Star Wars. They just need to get him on Doctor Who now. He’s already a time traveler…
And I just realized that Christopher Lloyd’s character was an admirer of Christopher Lee’s character. You’d think that as a Christopher L., I would’ve noticed that sooner.
That was a fun episode. The cameos were a bit jarring, but the actors were having so much fun, it was hard not to like them. I think Grogu bonding with the Queen so well is a big reason the Mandolorians have a new alliance. Way to go, tiny ambassador of joy!
The mystery was also a pleasant diversion, with its cop show vibe. It was nice to see them tie multiple eras of the Star Wars saga into Hellgate’s plot. I like how Bo and Din are falling into a bickering brother and sister relationship. And my thoughts about that rescue on Mandolore and the Darksaber turned out to right.
I had just eaten in a hibachi restaurant a few days ago, and am glad they cut away when that robot chef went rogue!
This episode didn’t really work that well for me, and it’s partially for some of the things Emmet brings up in this review (in fact, my husband and I predicted he would be harsher on a certain aspect of it than they were). Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, and some of the Plazir stuff reminded me of some of the wackier Star Trek episodes I’ve seen. The beginning with the doomed Mon Cal/Quarren romance (I loved some of the details like how the Quarren has a water pod!) who spoke in British accents was delightfully WTF.
But the whole droid sabotage plot…honestly, I was hoping that it was going to be a droid rights/droid rebellion episode! To see the droids just kind of be all ‘we love serving the organics!’ was kind of a let down. I mean, I don’t want a droid rebellion specifically, and I think it does make sense that a programmed droid WOULD find a certain satisfaction in fulfilling that programming, but I guess I was hoping there would be a LITTLE more about taking droids seriously?
And then as for the incredibly convoluted re-programming (which had his name on it?)…like you said, I don’t really know what the point of this episode is. Is it a commentery on idleness due to…automation? Elites who have a worker class just do everything? Making fun of “democracy” and “pluralistic society” (what with all the – we’re not allowed to have weapons or protect ourselves, but since it’s your ‘religion’ you can have guns thing just seemed kind of…played for absurdity, not to mention the whole commentery on the pampered, extravagent populace voting to keep potentially deadly droids around because they don’t know how to function on their own)? It’s funny that @3 said their expectations were subverted, but to me it WAS dark! And I DO want to know more about Hellgait’s motives, ESPECIALLY in the political mileau. Is it JUST that he wants to free his world from the shackles of indolence, or does he have an actual political motive?
(The Separatists are such a weird thing, politically, actually, because on one hand, they are right that the Republic is corrupt, but on the other…it’s mostly made up by a bunch of rich trade barons/bankers who don’t want to pay taxes…I guess it just begs the question what a healthy government on a galactic scale looks like, the right balance of autonomy for systems, and unity)
I really wanted the droid bartender to tell them ‘we don’t serve your kind here’, haha.
I didn’t actually recognize Jack Black right away (my husband did) but I recognized Lizzo immediately. And I love it (and her dress) but I admit after awhile I did find it distracting, and she wasn’t always the greatest with some of her deliveries. Especially the scene at the end when they were all just, like, ‘hee hee, everybody makes mistakes’.
I don’t know – the whole thing just felt like the germ of a bunch of interesting potential ideas that all got muddled.
I was really worried that Bo was going to challenge Din at the camp…so I’m glad it had the resolution it did. I was actually hoping it would from the early episode…like an Elder Wand kind of thing!
@13 – haha, so had we! Eaten at a hibachi restaurant, that is.
Oh, I did want to add that there was a ton of awesome music.
And I loved the droid ‘caution tape’ and the whole vibe of the night club district. It’s actually quite fun to see some “futuristic” space cities in live action Star Wars – I feel like we’ve gotten quite a few of them in Mando/BoBF (and Andor).
I think you’re missing what a “direct democracy” is – it’s a very specific term. Where you say that Plazir 15 claims to be the last true democracy, you’re paraphrasing something that shoudl not be paraphrased.
A Direct Democracy is one where every citizen can vote on every issue, which the episode takes pains to explain is possible because the droid labour grants the citizenry all the free time they need.
For those who don’t know her – Lizzo is a musician and rapper who is regarded as an icon for body positivity, among other things. If her acting wasn’t up-to-par for you, she’s not an actor, but there are a lot of people out there who are fans and who are undoubtedly ecstatic over her appearance here. If you’re not impressed, let her fans have this.
@13/AlanBrown: I keep seeing people call the celebrities’ appearances “cameos,” but that’s not the right word. A cameo is a brief appearance of someone well-known, usually just a quick, uncredited walk-on like Alfred Hitchcock or Stan Lee were known for, or a bit role like the various brief celebrity appearances in The Muppet Movie. Often it’s a self-referential appearance, like Noel Neill playing Lois Lane’s mother in Superman: The Movie. Black, Lizzo, and Lloyd were the featured guest stars in the episode, and their characters weren’t self-referential in any way.
Speaking of familiar characters with bit parts, I’m surprised that Din and Bo still have R5-D4 tagging along on their ship, now that they know he’s basically a spy for Carson Teva.
Of course Lloyd was the bad guy — I mean, he was totally doing Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? there…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
My reaction to this was “Christopher Lloyd? Well, that can’t be the Christopher Lloyd, he died years ago.” [Checks Wikipedia] “He’s 84 and still alive? Flipping heck!” Some sort of Mandela Effect at work there, I think…
What a delightful episode. It felt very much like a Clone Wars episode, and I mean that in the best possible way. The tone was just perfect with a lighter vibe, lots of action, great dialogue and great pacing. If they hadn’t gotten the tone right I would have found a lot in the episode jarring, particularly the large number of cameos and the very Disney kingdom of Plazir. But it just works here.
Showing Bo Katan and Din as a double act worked extremely well and I hope the show leans into that. There was real chemistry in their performances (and please please Disney I do not mean that in a romantic way). I loved how it gave both of them natural opportunities to flesh out their characters. At a superficial level there was a good cop/bad cop dynamic but it wasn’t written in as a lazy use of the trope. It was an opportunity to let the characters better define themselves and their differences to each other through taking different approaches to problems.
There were a few minor points that I thought were particularly cool. I really liked how they integrated the jetpacks into the action (Jet-fu?). It was really clever to work in a hint of that by giving Bo Katan a double-jump in the chase scene and added a very unique feel to the fight at the end.
I thought Din’s solution for finding the malfunctioning droid was just great. Another example of actions illustrating character. Din doesn’t get a lot of ‘Din moments’ but this episode had many.
This is a teeny item, but they CGI’d some motion into the face tentacles of the Quarren captain. It made the prosthetic look much more natural. Nice detail.
I didn’t know who Lizzo was either. Am I old now? I might be old now.
Now onto the droid bar. There are a couple holes the franchise has dug for itself and droid slavery is a big one (child soldiers is #2). I don’t believe it’s something the franchise will ever address directly—it’s a pervasive part of the world building that’s been reinforced countless times even if it’s deeply problematic. But showing droids socializing in a bar seemed really tone deaf to me. If my car had to go unwind at a bar I’d feel much differently about leaving it ignored in the driveway for the majority of its existence. The scene put droids in a humanizing context that didn’t have anything to say about the larger issue. And then having them say they love being slaves because humans made them and gave them jobs was a whaaaaaa? moment for me.
@1, CLB: “I’m still not entirely convinced by Din’s argument about the Darksaber’s ownership.”
Yeah, the Darksaber isn’t the best MacGuffin. For me, the concept makes the Mandalorians look like rubes. But I feel similarly about the trope of fighting the leader to become the leader. That’s a story idea that’s never worked for me in any context. Especially as shown here where it’s not to the death. Worst case is you get your tuchus kicked, best case the leader’s having an off day. The risk/reward calculation would result in leadership constantly changing, leading to chaos.
But the real disappointment was Bo Katan didn’t give us her power of Greyskull pose. I know the framing worked better this way but, c’mon, it’s tradition!
@20/kurtzwald: “This is a teeny item, but they CGI’d some motion into the face tentacles of the Quarren captain. It made the prosthetic look much more natural. Nice detail.”
Why assume it was CGI? Tentacle movements are very easy to do with animatronics.
“Yeah, the Darksaber isn’t the best MacGuffin. For me, the concept makes the Mandalorians look like rubes. But I feel similarly about the trope of fighting the leader to become the leader. That’s a story idea that’s never worked for me in any context.”
Which is why I like it that Din found a way to rules-lawyer a workaround for the silly arbitrary ritual instead of having to go along with another stupid fight.
“Especially as shown here where it’s not to the death. Worst case is you get your tuchus kicked, best case the leader’s having an off day.”
Well, as shown here, it could be to the death, but that can be averted if the loser yields at the point where death is inevitable if they don’t. Which is a common enough option in that context. Bo proved that she could kill Woves, so it wasn’t necessary to actually go through with it. The fact that he only lived because she allowed it makes the point well enough.
Like watching one of those glossy Superbowl commercials with random celebrities. Now here’s… Brian Cox in Caddyshack for some reason.
Okay, on rewatch, the more I’m just really upset by certain parts of this episode.
To be clear – I love the bizarre, chaotic energy this episode had. I don’t actually mind a meandering story (I do agree with some of the criticisms that this season has felt a bit wandering, but it doesn’t *bother* me all that much) where they just go to some batshit crazy planet. I do see a lot of elements coming together behind the scenes, and a lot of movement – the unification of the Mandalorians, the New Republic crumbling from the inside. I do kind of feel Grogu has been a little neglected, story wise, and I kind of wonder if maybe they should have kept him written out, but even he has gotten some development in terms of his own identity.
Regarding Lizzo, I do feel like saying ‘let her fans have this’ is fine to a point – I think it was a really fun appearance…but it’s still really jarring when she’s opposite both Jack Black and Christopher Lloyd which looks like it’s trying to be an emotional conclusion and it just…doesn’t work for me. Even Jack Black starts to be a bit hammy, although that works for aspects of his character. Contrast that with the Bill Burr appearance in the last few seasons which just felt way more ‘real’ within the context of the show.
I guess part of that is still influenced by my not really enjoying the pacing of this episode; Bo reclaiming the Darksaber feels like it should be given more weight instead of what felt like a five minute afterthought at the end. And I didn’t even mind the side quest here, except for the motivations feeling really out there. But it does feel like we missed out on a lot of potentially interesting story directions/conflicts/development opportunities with Bo, especially given that Din was in possession of the Darksaber – it would have been interesting to see how she dealt with that. I AM glad she didn’t end up challenging Din for it though – I really thought she was going to throw him under the bus when they arrived at the compound!
I still kind of wish they had dug a little deeper with this – I was thinking at first that maybe the Ughnaughts and droids were in cahoots because they are treated like crap. When that didn’t turn out to be the case, I think it might have made more sense of Hellgait’s motivation just kept leaning into the ‘the people don’t know what’s good for them, and they’re just turning into indolent dittelantes’. But then with the Separatist twist at the end…okay, but what does that MEAN? What, specifically, about Count Dooku made him a visionary? What does it mean when he says he “believes in democracy” but his whole thing is specifically overriding what the populace voted for. What, exactly, is he rebelling against/separating from? Is it something to do with the Imperial past of Jack Black’s character? (I kept waiting for that to be some kind of twist as well, and to find that all this time he had basically seduced his way to the top and was waiting for the chance to take over…although I’m glad he was basically just a reformed Imperial who wants to party with aliens in peace.) I just felt like I had no grasp on what his motivations actually were, and maybe that’s kinda the point (in that it doesn’t really matter to Bo/Din) but it also feels like they didn’t really even think about it. So, why did we spend the majority of the episode with that, as fun as it is?
We did get some good development with Din/Bo working together that I did enjoy, and it’s also possible that building up the good will with other systems is also important. Grogu has shown he’s a good ambassador!
Okay, I just needed to get that off my chest – I’m guessing this is kind of a light hearted romp before whatever is going to go down in the next two episodes. And it was fun, I’m not hating on it!
The reference to direct democracy is salient, as noted by lerris @16.
I was going to mildly gripe about how on-the-nose “Plazir-15” sounds — “plaisir” is “pleasure” in French — but decided that once you’ve named a race of squid-headed people Mon Calamari…
Christopher Lloyd is pretty much Judge Doom here, yeah, his character’s name likewise fairly unsubtle — although its spelling as “Helgait” makes one think of Cate Blanchett sashaying villainously in Thor: Ragnarok.
While the guest-casting in general was rather conspicuous, Lizzo popping up still wasn’t as distracting as Stacey Abrams playing the President of Earth in Star Trek: Discovery. I say this with genuine admiration for both women.
Din Djarin’s direct democ– uh, diplomacy with the Ugnaughts was a nice touch, carrying on from how we’ve seen him interact with other peoples in culturally sensitive ways, but it seems a stretch that Kuiil would be known by this group unless, as is entirely possible, I forget something relevant there.
I find the droid stuff kind-of problematic as well.
The Mandalorians having a base on the outskirts of town like those on Nevarro, except that they’re not like those on Nevarro, and the decadent Plazir-15 is very much the opposite of Nevarro in terms of its privilege, makes for an interesting contrast that might come into play or might be entirely unintentional.
@16/lerris: “If you’re not impressed, let her fans have this.”
Never said they couldn’t. I just said it was evident that she probably wasn’t a professional actress. And in any case, I see no reason why my opinion should prohibit any other person from thinking or feeling what they want.
@24/Arben: “Stacey Abrams playing the President of Earth”
That was another case where I could tell it was some kind of celebrity non-actor but couldn’t figure out who it was, because I don’t pay enough attention to the news. Though I was quite pleased when I found out it was Abrams.
“The Mandalorians having a base on the outskirts of town like those on Nevarro, except that they’re not like those on Nevarro, and the decadent Plazir-15 is very much the opposite of Nevarro in terms of its privilege, makes for an interesting contrast that might come into play or might be entirely unintentional.”
I think the difference is that Plazir is overtly paying Woves’s group as mercenaries, while Karga awarded the land permanently to the covert as thanks for their assistance. Navarro is probably implicitly counting on the Mandalorians to protect them, but it’s more of an equal partnership.
I understood this to be an extension of the storyline from the Scientist episode – the droids are relieved and ridiculously grateful that they weren’t scrapped by the New Republic simply because they were used by the Empire. Which is its own level of problematic, yes, but I feel that it informs the trauma and instability of the political situation – and their fear that someone else’s boat-rocking could result in them getting destroyed.
(Like you, I’d love to see some grassroots droid-rights actions – at least in the background – maybe I’ll poke around for some fanfic on that topic.)
A fun space adventure that doesn’t take itself too seriously? I’m glad that this kind of Star Wars still exists. I loved all three of the celebrity castings. Sure, Lizzo’s acting chops aren’t all that, but she played her part well enough. She’s not there to wow you with her performance. She’s there so people like the reviewer can get the chance to squeal with joy about Lizzo showing up in their favorite franchise.
As for the ending, I’ve seen fans complaining that the way Din handed over the Darksaber wasn’t cool enough or whatever, but I loved it, because I thought she should have kept it after she rescued Din instead of giving it back to him. Now she can get on with what has obviously been her destiny since Star Wars Rebels.
I loved the little case In the episode and Lizzo and Ground. It was fun in general and I like we are going for the “retake Mandalore” story.
About the droids, honestly, it isn’t just the show. Star Wars mostly downplays the uncomfortable parts of the droids being sentient, I disliked Din’s behavior too.
They’re not “side quests” they’re stand alone episodes.
Yeah the whole all ugnauts know each other thing is basically a racist cliché and not necessary just say the I have spoken thing and value their work and done.
Was it just me, or did anyone else notice the RX droids from Star Tours in The Resistor??
This was a decently fun episode, but I keeps running into the same problems the rest of the series has.
Every time there is a cameo, we get less of a character in the story and more of an actor dressing up as themselves in Star Wars. I’m sure its fun and very exciting, but the performances have really taken me out of the story more than anything else because they don’t seem to fit in the world. They are playing themselves more than a character.
What was the motive for the droid plot? What was he trying to accomplish? If everything goes successfully, what happens? It made no sense. Also, if the droids don’t misbehave until someone starts literally kicking them for no reason, it seems the easiest way to avoid having them go rogue is to, you know, not abuse them.
Lastly, why do they keep landing capital ships on planets? If you are a defense force and someone shows up to attack, they will be in orbit while your giant ship is on the ground for some reason. Same for the scrap yard episode. On a planet that is so crammed with city space and life forms, why in the world would you have your scrap yard in downtown and not in orbit or somewhere else in the system?
@33/themattboard: “Every time there is a cameo, we get less of a character in the story and more of an actor dressing up as themselves in Star Wars. I’m sure its fun and very exciting, but the performances have really taken me out of the story more than anything else because they don’t seem to fit in the world. They are playing themselves more than a character.”
I didn’t get that impression. Jack Black’s character was not Jack Black, nor was he a copy of other roles I’ve seen Black play; he was rather more prim and soft-spoken, not as edgy or brash as many of Black’s characters or as goofy as some of his others like Po in Kung Fu Panda. And Christopher Lloyd was just playing the bad guy in the way that Christopher Lloyd would play a bad guy. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t see any way in which they don’t fit the world.
I mean, when they made the original movie and centered it on a trio of unknown young actors alongside a bunch of characters in robot suits and monster masks, they also made sure to hire two iconic elder statesmen of the silver screen, Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing, and rely on their famous, familiar faces to draw in an audience. So I don’t see any way in which celebrity casting doesn’t “fit in the world” of Star Wars. It’s part of what got that world off to its start. And as for more recent productions, the prequels featured Cushing’s longtime co-star Christopher Lee, as well as big names like Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson. The franchise since then has featured a fair number of big-name actors like Forest Whitaker, Rosario Dawson, and Stellan Skarsgard.
Star Wars doesn’t need already famous celebrities to find an audience anymore, though. The audience is there and it’s quite large. Now, me personally, I would be impressed if they gave more of these roles to struggling actors needing a boost in their careers or those we haven’t heard from in a very long time — looking at you, Ke Huy Quan. Either way, Disney, you’re likely to get a heartwarming story about the underdog… ahem-hem, and that means positive press ink.
Anyway, far too often the middle class of actors get shoved aside for the big name celebs (Chris Pratt as Mario?!), those with lots of recognition and, most important of all now, a big following on social media. It’s all business.
@35/Dingo: “Star Wars doesn’t need already famous celebrities to find an audience anymore, though.”
But there’s no reason it can’t cast actual capable actors just because they happen to be well-known. I can understand seeing the singer’s appearance as a gimmick, but I really don’t understand the hostility to casting Black and Lloyd. How is it any worse than casting Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka or Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera? Lloyd in particular is not just a “celebrity.” He’s a busy working actor and has been for decades. He’s earned his fame. I mean, this was only one of two TV episodes that Lloyd appeared in on April 5, the other being an episode of an ABC drama called A Million Little Things. He’s 84 years old and he’s still working hard enough to be in two different TV shows on the same day. I think that deserves enormous respect.
It’s interesting that, after years of Star Trek trying desperately to be Star Wars, we have an episode of Star Wars that feels like it could be an episode of Star Trek; the crew visits an allegory-of-the-week planet where the citizens are willing to accept potentially fatal danger rather than give up their lives of luxury and decadence.
You know Jim Kirk would have resolved the situation by disabling all the droids and forcing the locals to learn to fend for themselves.
Also, here’s a deep-cut reference: That’s BOLLUX in the droid bar! Sitting next to a couple of battle droids.
Also, regarding droid slavery, I feel that it’s a bit of a forced metaphor. Think about why slavery is bad: it forces a person (who is capable of doing and being many, many different things) to do one specific thing that they are not necessarily suited for, and then punishes them when they fail to do so. It treats people as less than they are.
Droids, OTOH, are created to perform specific functions. Assuming the Makers did their work well (admittedly not always the case*), a droid’s body and mind are perfectly adapted to carrying out its function. The situation is more akin to a vocation or a special talent –the believe that your Maker put you on Earth (or wherever) for a Reason. For humans, this is a matter of faith (and we spend years or decades trying to find this sense of fulfillment), but droids know it as a certainty, from the moment they first come online.
To that end, being refurbished or reprogrammed (as the bartender notes most of the droids on Plazir are) would be akin to a religious experience –you have been saved from obsolescence (the one thing any droid would truly fear, because if you cannot fulfill your function, why bother existing?) and given new life, and a new purpose.
Most of the droid abuse we see comes from people mistreating their droids (the same way any employer can mistreat their organic employees; “freedom” has nothing to do with it, some people are just bad bosses), or from a droid being dragged into situations it is not suited for (like bringing a protocol droid into a whole series of raging warzones –the few times we see 3P0 actually getting to do his job [on Coruscant in The Clone Wars, and storytime with the Ewoks in RotJ], he seems both happy and superlatively good at it).
(* Battle droids being mass-produced by the lowest bidder kinda explains everything about their personalities, doesn’t it?)
@37/Cybersnark: I think the reasons that slavery is bad are far, far more numerous and profound than you suggest. I’m sure that most slavers throughout history (at least those in societies where slavery was defined on racial grounds and intended as lifelong, as opposed to those where it was a status one could earn one’s way out of) have argued that their slaves were naturally suited to servility and should be perfectly happy to be slaves as long as they aren’t mistreated.
I mean, why should the definition of a droid be limited to what they were created to be? I mean, we evolved to be upright apes, but we managed to build on that foundation and go beyond our initial potential, because we were given the freedom to do so. What you’re born to be is merely the foundation of what you can become, not its absolute limit. Anyone can learn to be more than they are — for instance, an astromech droid becoming a stalwart fighter in the Rebel Alliance.
A droid being happy to do the job they’re best at is fine, if they have the choice to do something else instead. But droids are treated as property, and disposable property at that. It’s meaningless to talk about their preferences in a context where they have no right to say no. An owned being, by definition, cannot give consent.
As mentioned by many, we can’t have droids being sentient and “alive” and then accept that it’s OK to destroy them because they were on the other side in a war or we just didn’t need them any more. I grant you, that still happens to people in our world so why I hold a show to a higher standard is confusing even to me.
I liked the good cop/bad cop back and forth with Din and Bo. I do have to wonder about why they would want to take back their mostly destroyed planet.
Did anyone else notice that a couple of the space ships had a piece of the ship pulled out like a shade canopy on an RV?
@32: It wasn’t just you. I noticed the RX droids immediately.
L3 was my hero and I’m a little sad we haven’t dug deeper into droid rights issues in the shows.
@Emmet: Of course Count Dooku was mesmerizing when he worked a room, have you SEEN Episode II?* That’s pretty much when I became a Dooku fanboy.
@CLB: I wonder if the misuse of “cameo” will come to be more of an accepted definition, much as “remastered” now seems to mean “completely redone effects/graphics.” To be sure, I’m on your side; I would call Deborah Chow’s appearance in the previous episode a cameo, whereas these are guest roles. If they are more well known persons, that’s not any different than how guest appearances have been since the early days of television. So I do agree with you on the proper use, I’m just wondering if the language will change such as the misuse will become the norm.
*This is a rhetorical question. I know you’ve seen it and know a lot about it. I’m am in no way trying to gate keep or call you a fake fan, I’m just attempting to use a common expression.
I’m also in the camp of Lizzo’s acting needing to mature, but still, it’s about damn time!
The droid bar to me was the result of hammering an episode of the show into a different genre (ie: LA noir), and the translation not resulting in a great adaptation. The name of the drink disturbed me as well since it suggested that after a long days’ work serving human masters, the droids needed to go and forget their troubles. Ugh.
I’m surprised nobody else has mentioned that the Ugnaughts have a similar issue. While the humans (Californians? haha) party above, the Sons of Martha toil away underground to allow them that luxury. Sure, maybe you could say that Ugnaughts need the work to feel fulfilled (as a racial characteristic this starts feeling yucky) but that’s pretty much the same argument as saying the droids love serving humans.
@39/goddessimho: “As mentioned by many, we can’t have droids being sentient and “alive” and then accept that it’s OK to destroy them because they were on the other side in a war or we just didn’t need them any more.”
Although just because some droids are sentient doesn’t necessarily mean they all are, any more than all vertebrates are as sentient as hominids, cetaceans, or elephants. Why give sentience to a droid with a simple function that doesn’t require it, like a gonk droid or a cleaning droid or that droid in Andor whose sole purpose was to be a boarding ramp for shuttles? Certainly Separatist battle droids seem to be pretty simpleminded.
@41 – I did mention the Ughnaughts a little. Basically I think the episode would have been a little more satisfying if the resolution had been either:
1)The Ughnaughts and droids working together to protest the dark underbelly of the opulent lifestyle
2)Commissioner Hellgait just being an anti-droid guy Luddite type who is afraid people are losing their self-sufficiency, drive, whatever (I feel like this is a Star Trek plot, haha) which is where it seemed to be going at first (I guess it was just a massive red herring, but it was kind of unsatisfying that it was just brought up and dropped).
The whole Separatist thing just doesn’t really work for me (even though it WOULD be cool because), first of all, the Separatists obviously have nothing against using droids to do their dirty work, and also, I still have absolutely no idea how getting the droids shut down/taking over the planet advances Separatist ideology or what that even MEANS aside from a Dooku name drop. I get that the show is not meant to be a super deep dive into politics but if you are going to bring up the politics then you should at least bring it up. I guess I’m still just inordinately frustrated that I have no idea what the actual motivations/goals were here – way more than by stuff like the Lizzo appearance (which added to the whole chaotic fever dream vibe of the episode) or even the lackluster acting.
As an aside that is also one of my main gripes with the Kenobi show. I actually didn’t mind some of the clumsy blocking/chase scenes because my mind kind of fills in the blanks for action scenes anyway but there were multiple times I felt like characters did things (or didn’t do things) or had access to (or didn’t have access to) certain skills/power because the plot needed to get from X to Y super quickly but within the context of the character it never felt like a genuine, organic decision.
One thing that I haven’t seen in the comments: the Ugnaughts were pretty much giving the game away in that one discussion with Bo and Din: “The droids are not malfunctioning.” They said it several times. It was practically a dead giveaway: someone had programmed the droids to act in ways they weren’t supposed to normally. But without coming out and just saying it and ending the episode too early.
Just a thought.
@44/Bayushi: But that’s exactly what’s clever about it. The Ugnaughts were giving us the answer, but we and the characters didn’t realize it, because Din assumed they were just being proud and trying to save face. So the answer was in plain sight, but disguised in a way that we didn’t recognize it. I like it when a story does that.
Just watched it. I had super mixed feelings about this too. Thank you to those who said the plot doesn’t make sense. If our Christopher L had succeeded, then what? Why make a big button that’ll make droids freak out? Why is it ok to rig droids up to kill everyone?
How did the bartender work out who malfunctioned and who drank from what? Rifling through the cards was an awesome piece of business, but what sense does it make?
I also wanted a line about the droid bar not serving humans. They almost had one.
But, then they come to the king and queen or whatever, with their head of security guy and just go ‘he did it’ and they’re like ‘why you jerk’ and it’s like, no details were exchanged? No story, no “What do you mean, he did it?” etc.
Also just because Din figured out how to make a droid go nuts, that doesn’t mean (a) ALL the battle droids may have gone nuts after more provocation, or (b) that a battle droid that runs away in a panic is malfunctioning the same way that a floating droid that shoots lasers right at you is. So many things that don’t stand up to examination, but I still had a good time.
Oh and if Kara Thrace (sorry, it’s just that she’s the chosen one by prophecy to bridge the worlds and … I mean, right?) is the reasonable one who wants to use reason and be full of reason, then why doesn’t she approach her former army by trying to at least introduce why they have come and what’s going on? Instead it’s just ‘I want to take over, fight me’. I wanted him to at least say “you’ve been gone, why come back and demand this now?”
But…
The one real reason to comment: I was amused by Lizzo being dressed like The Red Queen and playing space-croquet with pillbug creatures. It was absolutely Alice in Wonderland and Jack Black was kind of a Mad Hatter and I’m all about it.
@46/jofesh: “How did the bartender work out who malfunctioned and who drank from what?”
The same way any business owner would determine who ordered and paid for what product. Presumably there are receipts. Yes, they only serve one product, but presumably from different batches, so they’d need to keep track of how much of which items in their inventory were being used, so they’d know when and how much to reorder.