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.
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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!
