Get ready for the first live-action appearance of any member of a very special Rebel crew…
Recap
Greef Karga is making plans for Navarro when Gorian Shard descends and puts the planet under siege. Karga has the city evacuated, and decides to call on the New Republic for help since they’d been offered their protection. He gets out a message to Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) at a New Republic outpost; Teva thinks they should dispatch aid immediately, but Garazeb Orrelios (Steve Blum) knows the government is swamped and unlikely to provide it. Teva decides to head to Coruscant directly to make the request, so he can’t be ignored.
On the capital world, Teva talks to Colonel Tuttle (Tim Meadows), who points out that because Navarro is not yet a member world of the New Republic, they have a responsibility to provide aid to those places first. Elia Kane is on hand to offer advice and suggests that perhaps this will illustrate to the people that joining the New Republic is in their best interest, a line of thinking that Teva finds reprehensible and more to the point, very Imperial. Tuttle thinks that’s out of line, but Teva points out that as a member of Gideon’s crew, Kane didn’t come over to their side willingly; she was captured. He warns Tuttle that all the events happening around Navarro are likely related, and that they ignore the issue at their peril.
Teva then heads to the Mandalorian camp, which he’s able to find because of R5-D4 being an old Rebel operative. He hands Karga’s message over to Din, assuming that he’ll want to help his friend. He also knows that the group will likely move because he’s found them, but swears he would never tell anyone where they are. The Mandalorians have a meeting to discuss how they’d like to proceed, and Din points out that if they help on Navarro, they could still take Karga up on the tract of land he offered Din—perhaps this could be a new home for their people and a chance to live out in the open. Paz Viszla speaks next and surprisingly agrees with Din; the group makes a plan to attack Shard’s forces.
The Mandalorians head to Navarro and work to wipe out Shard and his ships. The battle goes well, and ends with Shard crashing his ship into the mountainside, while Vane cuts and runs as soon as things look like they’re going south. Karga thanks the Mandalorians for their help and offers them a great deal of land to call their home. They accept, and the Armorer asks to see Bo-Katan. She tells Bo that if she saw the mythosaur, it indicates a new era is upon them, and tells Bo she should remove her helmet—only Bo-Katan can walk between all Mandalorian worlds and bring their people together. Everyone agrees and Bo leaves to find more of their people to bring home to Navarro.
Carson Teva is on patrol when he comes across an attacked ship, the one that was supposed to be transporting Moff Gideon—turns out that the rumors he never made it to trial are true. He scans the vessel and finds a beskar armor fragment in the wreckage… suggesting the Mandalorians had something to do with Gideon’s escape from the New Republic.
Commentary
BRING BACK GARAZEB ORRELIOS, SHOW ZEB. ZEB!!!
Ahem.
Sorry, that random tall CGI’d fellow that Carson Teva was talking to was none other than the Ghost crew’s resident muscle, Zeb Orrelios, now rendered in “live-action” and answering a long-standing fandom question—are lasat (that’s his species) covered in fur?
Sidebar (these are getting more frequent, but I assume that’s at least part of why you’re here): Many characters and aesthetics in the Rebels television series were built on concept design work from the late great Ralph McQuarrie, who was responsible for much of the look and feel of the first Star Wars film. His original design for Chewbacca was altered substantially at the practical build stage, however; it was from those original sketches that Zeb’s species was created. As a result, there has been an ongoing question in fandom around whether or not lasat have fur: It’s unclear in Rebels animation (though they do try to pass Zeb off as a “rare hairless wookiee” at one point), while lasat Jedi Jaro Tapal appears furless in the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and certain comics have definitely drawn them furry. Based on the fact that wookiees are covered in fur, it stands to reason that lasat would be also, being based on their original design… and now that we’ve seen Zeb in CGI, the answer seems to be that lasat have fur basically everywhere that’s not their face?
This might divide a fandom, y’all. I’m not sure people are gonna be okay.
At least the CGI was halfway decent? There were some deeply uncanny moments in there, but Zeb does look like himself, which I hadn’t thought they’d be able to pull off. Of course, it helps hearing the gruff, rumbly tones of Steve Blum again. I missed that guy, and I’m glad they kept him to voice the role.
Having said that, I only have one other question: Where is Zeb’s husband?
Look, Zeb had a very… interesting relationship with former-ISB-agent-turned-Rebel-spy Alexsandr Kallus—in that he literally turned Kallus from the Empire by spending exactly one night with him on an ice moon, no, I am not making that up, that’s truly what happened—and the finale of Rebels showed him bringing the man home to meet his ancestors (after his species was presumed largely destroyed in genocidal attacks by the Empire). Don’t be cowards, canonize them. You don’t even have to cast the guy, just have Zeb make an off-handed comment about needing to get back home to Lira San to see Kallus and their presumed brood of adopted kids. Why else would he be stationed so far out?
Also, when/why/how did Zeb become a pilot full-time? I presume that’s what he’s doing given the outfit, but that wasn’t his usual beat amongst the Ghost fam. He was more the lift-heavy-stuff and throw-stormtroopers-at-other-stormtroopers guy. They must need those pilots desperately.
With Teva’s circuit on this episode, we’ve been given a clear indication of whether or not the Amnesty Program is voluntary now; looks like it can be, but you can also just get captured and brainwashed, which is what happened among Gideon’s people. Which, I can understand not wanting to incarcerate every unrepentant soldier of the Empire, but the idea that you’d be dim enough to ever trust those people is plum ridiculous. Amongst my many other issues with how pretty much everything around the New Republic is being depicted.
In continuing the tradition of having random comedians stacked all over this show, we’ve now got Tim Meadows as a harried New Republic bureaucrat who cannot help anyone who’s not on a “member world,” and blows off Teva in short order. It’s great casting, even if the premise is infuriating. (Also his droid, who will stack stuff wherever he pleases, thank you. I love this droid, promote this droid.) But this is again stoking my aggravation that we don’t just have a Star Wars sitcom, come on.
They dispatch Gorian Shard in pretty short order, too. Farewell, Swamp Thing Pirate. We hardly knew ye, or your ship with proper ye olde helm steering.
And then we find out that the Armorer—who should always get fight sequences like the one in this episode, if you please—actually does believe that Bo-Katan saw the mythosaur, and that knowing this allows her to be a little… flexible on her cult doctrine, if you will. She’s okay with Bo taking off her helmet and being the bridge between all Mandalorian ways of life. This is good for the Watch, honestly. They keep this up, and they might stop being quite so culty, between her change of heart and Paz being downright cuddly toward Din after the rescue of his kid.
They’ve got a big tract of land on Navarro now, and all seem fine with the idea of having to permanently defend the place. I mean, Karga makes the big speech like he’s handing over the land as a thank-you, but that’s obviously the catch: No one else want to keep our people safe, so now it’s entirely on all of you. Glad you seem to want the job because our general population only has a few tricks up their sleeves.
I know we’re supposed to be all gasp! over the idea the Mandalorians maybe nabbed Gideon, but that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, honestly. What seems like more of a big deal is the fact that no one has been honest about said nabbing and generally ignoring everything that Teva’s talking about. So who’s hiding him and where?
Bits and Beskar
- The whole bit about R5 working for the Rebellion and then the New Republic begins with Rae Carson’s story “The Red One” in the From a Certain Point of View anthology (which is each movie told from the perspective of bit characters throughout).
- Sorry, you have to hold the beskar mallet to talk at the meeting? I—that’s awful, I love it.
- The soundtrack was cooking with gas in this episode. Nice work from Joseph Shirley on that.
- The Kowakian monkey-lizards help the Mandalorians kill pirates—what strange and wonderful justice is this.
- I get that it’s difficult logistically to manage giant crowds for television action sequences, but that winds up making it extra funny when you’ve evacuated an entire city, and Greef Karga goes into these big speeches like he’s giving a major political address when there’s like… thirty people hanging out.
Next week I’m hoping we’ll finally see Gideon after all this? But also give Zeb back.
Maybe one of the Mandalorian factions grabbed Gideon, or maybe someone wants everyone to think that’s the case. The most obvious candidate is that Gideon had some kind of contingency plan in place in the event of his own capture. We know from the very first episode of The Mandalorian that Gideon’s organization had a stock of beskar steel. If someone wanted to create a false trail in the Star Wars universe planting some beskar at the scene of the crime (assuming you have some beskar in the first place) seems an easy way to do it.
As for why no one has claimed credit for nabbing Gideon, the easy answer is that they don’t want the New Republic after them for the return of their former prisoner. The New Republic, on the other hand, may be acting cagey because whoever nabbed Gideon did so in a way indicating they have inside information on high-level prisoner transfers, so (hopefully) the New Republic Intelligence Service is desperately searching for the mole without tipping their hand.
I briefly wondered if Sabine and her family might be responsible for Gideon’s abduction, but I don’t think they’d murder New Republic personnel to get to him. Maybe Clan Saxon is still around.
I really enjoyed this episode for a few reasons. First and foremost, I was delighted by the fact that it’s the Armorer who tells Bo-Katan to stop pretending, take off her helmet, and go unite the Mandalorians. So many people have tried to cast the Armorer as having shady motives, but I’ve always liked her. I also liked that we got to spend some quality time with Carson Teva and even got a cameo from Zeb. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to canonize any fan notions about Zeb’s relationship with Kallus, though. I’m sure Disney is happy to let fans who want to imagine that they were just good friends keep imagining that. Finally, all the action was great. The only thing more entertaining than watching one Mandalorian kicking butt is watching a whole bunch of them.
Nice that we’re finally getting some story movement after multiple episodes of meandering around setting things up. And quite a lot of movement at that. A payoff to the pirate and Navarro setups, a nice big role for Carson Teva (a.k.a. soon-to-be live-action Uncle Iroh in Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender remake) as the catalyst for events, a return appearance by Elia Kane (who I’m now willing to bet is Moff Gideon’s mole inside the NR), and some real movement on the Mandalorian covert plot.
It bugged me that Teva had to go all the way to Coruscant to make his case, and that he just happened to run into Kane. That makes the galaxy feel very small. Why did he have to go all the way to the capital? Don’t they have regional administrative headquarters?
It looks like I was overly harsh on the Armorer last week. She’s not as fanatical as I thought, and is able to be flexible and recognize that Bo-Katan needs to be an agent of syncretism rather than ideological rigidity if the scattered Mandalorians are ever going to be reunited. I do, however, think it’s a shortfall in the writing that there’s no real explanation for the Armorer’s character growth beyond “You saw a mythosaur and that changes things.” Anyway, it resolves something I was vaguely wondering, since I couldn’t believe they’d keep Katee Sackhoff’s face hidden behind a helmet indefinitely. I figured she’d grow disillusioned with the cult and would leave it, perhaps along with Din, but it turned out quite differently.
When Viszla was making his speech and sounded initially hostile, I could guess that he was going to pivot and end up backing Din’s plan. I didn’t even remember that Din and Bo had saved his son last week; I just expected the scene to have a surprise twist in it, so if he sounded hostile out of the gate, that was probably setting up the surprise.
As for Zeb, I wasn’t sure whether he was a CGI character or an animatronic one. His facial movements looked more like the latter to me. Anyway, we’ll probably find out in a documentary after the season ends, if they don’t release a video featurette or something before then.
With Zeb back, I wonder if the Mandalorians that Bo-Katan seeks to reunite will include Sabine Wren. I know she’s slated for the Ahsoka series, but she might show up here as a preview.
It bugged me a little that the pirates were all nonhuman while the people we were rooting for were mostly human. Why wouldn’t there be some humans among the pirates too?
As for the twist about Gideon, it’s possible that he has one of the Mandalorian factions working for him (he was a former Darksaber holder, after all, and maybe they think he’s still it’s rightful owner because Din didn’t kill him), and that divide between factions will be an obstacle to Bo’s efforts to bring the clans together. That may be the climactic conflict of the season.
@@.-@ “It bugged me a little that the pirates were all nonhuman while the people we were rooting for were mostly human. Why wouldn’t there be some humans among the pirates too?”
If the pirates are working with an Imperial Remnant, the notable human-chauvinist Empire might have recruited all the space-hand competent humans it could find.
@@.-@ Pirates being almost exclusively non-human goes back to at least Clone Wars with Hondo’s crew. It’s a pretty proud Star Wars tradition at this point. Which is fine, because it gave us Ugnaught Mr. Smee.
I’m seeing a lot of negative reaction to this episode in other places. I thought it was a lot of fun, and gave some intriguing setup for the last three episodes (and probably next season?). I think Andor might have broken the brains of a lot of Star Wars fans.
After wondering last week where all of this was going, this week got it going. The battle scenes were excellent and it was nicely set up as to why the numbers were low on both sides. I didn’t mind that the pirates were all alien- I can imagine on the face of imperial racism that a criminal gang would be made up of entirely non-humans.
Speaking of crowds, I agree with the need for more extras to represent the citizens It struck me as way too few people
While I loved Tim Meadows in his part, I don’t think I like the overall story that the New Republic is essentially the Empire. It’s a huge switch in what is not a very long period of time. I think there’s a way to get the same result (the rangers not being available) without the tarring of incompetence Have them shipping out to Corellia the day after tomorrow or something like that.
I also agree with the choice to unhelmet Katee Sackhoff and I love the development of the character, I guess my question is someone going to address the fact the Din has it even though Bo Katan is way better at wielding it and what that implies for overall leadership of the Mamdalorians
Zeb’s back!!! And he doesn’t look half bad in live-action. Also appreciating all the SW Rebels love as always.
The show does feel a lot smaller these days. It also doesn’t help when The Bad Batch is pulling off a better more interesting show atm. Makes me wish we could continue Ahsoka’s and the Rebels crew story with the Star Wars Animation team, rather than the live-action version. Especially with so many of the live-action shows really ending up sucking quite badly.
@7 I think it was more a case of the New Republic being overstretched rather than trying to say it’s just like the Empire. They just didn’t have the forces to spare at that exact moment.
@6/Chase: But what does that say about the culture if pirates are predominantly non-human while governments, legitimate or tyrannical, are dominated by humans? There are some disturbing implications there. It’s one thing for the Empire to be racist, but if the differential persists in the supposedly more benevolent New Republic, that’s a bad sign (on top of all the others).
@7/MikeKelm: “Speaking of crowds, I agree with the need for more extras to represent the citizens It struck me as way too few people.”
Well, a lot of the citizens probably died in the barrage, or were too badly injured to be part of the crowd with Greef.
I’m not sure I would describe the Mandalorian side of the conflict as being populated by non-alien humans, either. Are these people really human? I mean, I know there are plenty of boring members of our species (I’m one of them), but good grief, when can we ever see them be the anti-Jedi? They’re just as wrapped up in lore and rituals and violence as the people who wield the glow sticks. How about some music? Sports? Dating? I’d even settle for a knock-knock joke.
I’m sad to see Swamp Thing go so quickly. I bet he knew how to party at least.
Well, it looks like The Mandalorian has finally just given itself up to Fast Travel. That airbase (space base?) is obviously not on the well-trodden path, and probably somewhere in the mid- to outer- rim, but Teva goes from there to Coruscant to the Covert within 30 minutes of runtime, with no indication a significant amount of time has passed.
Being a score afficiodado, I couldn’t help but notice that when Cpt. Teva is talking about how he’s sure “it’s all connected,” the ominous and unmistakable first notes of Kylo Ren’s theme played in the low registers, heralding (apparently) the rise of the First Order, which I found to be disheartening as I never really found them to be compelling villains. Also with Teva was played (more explicitly) some lines of March of the Resistance, which has accompanied him before.
According to the source material, the New Republic had a rotating capital system, wherein the government moved worlds every few years. I suppose it just happens that Coruscant is the current capital. It would make an interesting plot for the capital rotation to be exploited by the Imperial Remnant or another villain as a time of particular vulnerability on the part of the NR.
Since others have already mentioned the laughably small crowd sizes for the evacuation of a city, I will note my other suspension of belief issue with the episode, which is Teva making it all the way to Coruscant and back in approximately no time at all. Granted Star Wars has never been the most consistent when it comes to travel times and just how long it takes to get from one place to the other, even when they are canonically supposed to be separated by a vast distance, but it would be nice for shows to occasionally remember that people just can’t teleport across the galaxy whenever they feel like it.
In her first appearance this season, Bo-Karan mentions that her warriors abandoned her when she failed to secure either the Darksaber or Moff Gideon.
With the beskar reveal, I immediately wondered if Axe Woves and Koska Reeves from season 2 had grabbed him
I’m on vacation (just disembarked from the Halcyon, actually ;) ) so haven’t been around lately (and have totally lost track of time) but I happened to remember it was Wednesday! (Time? What is that?). But a few thoughts:
1)WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE ZEB!
2)Some awesome music. I love the March of the Resistance reprises they use for Carson.
3)Loved the stuff with Armorer and Bo, definitely somewhat resonant with some of my own experiences. I was actually worried for a second that whole scene was going to play into some of the more sinister theories about her character (that she is a Maul loyalist) but so far she seems legit.
4)The Armorer is SAVAGE.
5)My first thought about the beskar was that it points to Thrawn being involved – in season 2 we know the Magistrate had that beskar spear. We also know that the Empire had a bunch and the Client (who was I working for Gideon) used it as payment (which also potentially lends credence to the theory that Gideon and Thrawn are connected….although it’s also possible Thrawn was the person who hired IG-11). But I’ve also seen the theory that Sabine was involved, and perhaps Carson will tell Zeb, and then Zeb will pull them in – so it could be more than just a cameo.
6)Regarding your link-text about Zeb being the first Ghost crew in live action, I do have to remind you that Chopper has already appeared in live action in Rogue One ;)
7)Random question – how did Teva know R5 was with Mando in the first place? I guess maybe he could have tracked him to Peli and then found out who she sold him to, but was that somehow intentional? That part did strike me as just a tad convenient.
Oh…and regarding the New Republic’s general lack of efficacy…I don’t know, I’m not sure they are wrong, exactly, to say they can’t prioritize a non-member state over people they are obligated to protect (although it appears they can’t even handle that right now). Although I at first thought Elia was going to say they should show them the value of NR membership by helping them out as a good will gesture (wondering if part of her plan was to get back to Navarro somehow). I’m still not sure if I think the pirates are connected to Gideon or just pirates from Greef’s past.
Anyway, I don’t think that makes them the ‘same’ as the Empire, but I’m sure to some people it will seem like it’s a downgrade, especially if the Empire wasn’t actively terrorizing them. Still, that’s kind of a low bar (not actively terrorizing their population) for a functional government.
Kane’s continued existence as a character makes no sense. She sloppily brain zapped the doctor after asking to be alone in the brain zapping control chamber. Like, even if the Republic is supposed to be staffed by the biggest idiots and fascist huggers (which seems to be the vibe they’ve been building) they could at least put two and two together that the former Imperial was mind wiped by the other one. It just doesn’t work that she’s still around.
This was a nice fun campy light hearted episode, a nice change of pace after a bunch of needlessly heavy stuff and filler. The pirate ship and pirate crew were gleefully goofy pushovers. Long live Captain Kelp-beard! Ugnaught-Smee forever! Pew pew pew!
The makeup for Vane and the sound of his voice made me think the same actor played a Drazi in Babylon 5.
A lot of folks had been complaining about the show’s lack of direction, but this episode started pulling all the disparate threads together. The Mandolorians now have a new home where they can work in the open, Imperial sympathizers and lack of resources will limit New Republic assistance, and Gideon is about to step out into the open. There have always been Mandolorians collaborating with the Empire, and I think that’s who freed Gideon. I also believe his forces are hiding in the ruins of Mandolore, which means Mano, Bo, et al, are about to stir a hornet’s nest.
I think that New Republic base, in addition to showing Zeb, gave us a taste of what we would have seen if the Rangers of the New Republic show had gone forward; and I for one would still like to see it; scrappy, underfunded heroes trying to keep the peace on the far frontier.
The scene with the evacuated town being 30 people reminded me of the television versions of Sharpe where Napoleonic battles with thousands of combatants in the books became like 20 guys shouting at each other in the tv show :P
@21 – At least Sharpe mostly had the sense to keep the camera tightly focused on those 20 guys and use sound effects and the like to give you the impression that were thousands of other people involved off screen. (Admittedly that worked better in some cases than others, but I am also sure their budget was a tiny fraction of what this show gets.) For Mando though… I mean even in this episode, the shots in the city itself where there were still only a few people around, but you have buildings blocking your view so you can imagine lots of other people running around and screaming worked fine. Why they thought some wide shots out in the desert showing just how few extras they had scrounged up for the crowd shots was a good idea is beyond me.
@19 – Yes! Which begs the question, Green or Purple?
@12/Echthelion: “Well, it looks like The Mandalorian has finally just given itself up to Fast Travel.”
Star Wars has always had fast travel. In the original movie, it takes less than a day to get from Tatooine to Alderaan, even though that’s subsequently been established as a trip from a remote rim system to one deep in the galactic core. (After eluding Imperial pursuit from Tatooine, Han says they’ll be at Alderaan by 0200 hours, meaning early the next morning.) And the Death Star hops around among multiple systems over the few days the movie spans.
“Teva goes from there to Coruscant to the Covert within 30 minutes of runtime, with no indication a significant amount of time has passed.”
No indication that it hasn’t, either. The pirates had time to ensconce themselves in Navarro’s capital and install that big gun emplacement on Karga’s balcony. I’d guess they were there overnight at least, maybe 2-3 days.
@17/usakar: We still don’t actually know what Kane did to Pershing when she turned up the machine. She tortured him, yeah, but we don’t know how extensive or permanent the effect was. She may have used it to brainwash him with an implanted command, then sent him back to his work as a sleeper agent, with no one the wiser.
I’d have liked the scene in the office of the New Republic official if Tim Meadows could act. Great to see Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s Carson Teva back, though, with more to do. I just wish I enjoyed Katy O’Brien’s Elia Kane, once again oh-so-obviously dripping with agenda, as much as I like seeing the person who plays her.
How did Teva know that Din Djarin had R5-D4 now? I’m fine with no actual scene on Tatooine — especially since while I find Amy Sedaris delightful in some contexts Peli the mechanic is not among them — but one line of dialogue would’ve taken care of that.
Yeah, I had to laugh at the small group of townsfolk, and Teva zipping everywhere in such an apparently short timeframe. Did get a kick out of the Armorer using her tools in combat; loved the development of her mission for Bo-Katan Kryze as well. I’d much prefer seeing more of life in the covert or amongst other Mandalorians than the New Republic being awful.
As 45 minutes (or whatever) of fun Star Wars TV I think this was the best we’ve had this season. It was tied into other episodes in the details but I think a viewer could skip from season 2 to this week and still follow the plot and have a good time.
Spending a good bit of of the runtime time with unmasked actors added a lot. I’ve realized that an episode with nothing but masked Mandalorians would be very dull.
I thought Paz Viszla’s bit was very awkward, and might have had a tad to do with putting the showrunner’s character in the spotlight. I think rescuing the child last week is being overplayed as some transformative event between Din, Bo Katan, and the Watch. I mean, these are all highly trained warriors helping someone by rescuing their kid from an animal. They have the skill and tools to do it, and helping someone’s kid if there’s no greater authority to step in is kinda basic decency. So the train of logic seems to be:
– Person A is involved in B’s friends being killed
– Person A is not a heartless villain and does the decent thing
– Person B is now willing to argue to possibly get more of his friends killed on behalf of person A.
Sorry, that doesn’t track for me. ‘Warrior culture’ doesn’t equal ‘heroic culture’ and I can’t recall the Mandalorians as a group being presented as the latter. Just give Din dialogue sufficient to make the case and go from there. He’s the protagonist after all.
Karabast! Zeb’s probably the most cameo-friendly of the core Rebels cast and as a big fan of the show I appreciated seeing him. I can’t wait to see my favorite spacemom again but Hera’s less of a drop-in character. But she would give us a Chopper two-fer, and Chopper is Filoni so that adds a bit to the odds. With Sabine a guarantee perhaps we’ll see the other Spectres in substantive roles soon. Pretty sure Ezra’s just going to be the MacGuffin for a while, but c’mon. Spacemom now plz.
Does anyone else feel like Din’s not driving the plot lately? I’m currently more interested in Bo Katan’s story than Din’s. There’s stuff happening around Din and to Din but I’m not feeling a ton of plot being done by Din himself. He could have been written out of last week’s show and I think it would have worked fine. His primary function in this week’s show was to link Navarro to the Mandalorians so they’d be willing to step in against the pirates. Now I feel even more strongly that Paz Viszla’s bit was a distraction. Din needed the big speech on his own.
Oh, total side note: The least convincing effect in this show is that Bo Katan’s hair could look that good after wearing a helmet for any length of time.
@3, David Pirtle, et al.: “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to canonize any fan notions about Zeb’s relationship with Kallus.” I think this is a case where Disney not making an overt statement either way is a choice that best serves the largest number of fans. I’d never considered a romantic pairing between them but I can’t see anything in the source material that invalidates that interpretation. I saw them as a tight male friendship in a show that was very focused on family relationships. But neither interpretation affects that they have an intimate bond.
@@.-@, CLB: “She’s not as fanatical as I thought, and is able to be flexible and recognize that Bo-Katan needs to be an agent of syncretism…“ This scene was hard for me to read. We generally see Din in scenes with unmasked actors, which gives one actor the full set of tools (voice, expression, body) and it makes the lack of facial expression available to Din less of a handicap to performing the scene. In the scene with the Armorer and Bo Katan there wasn’t a lot to go on other than the dialogue itself. The Armorer sounded calculating, but she always sounds calculating. My instinct is one of these characters should be out to manipulate the other but the evidence is thin.
“It bugged me a little that the pirates were all nonhuman …” I think @5 and @6 give a logical explanation. But watching the episode it jumped out at me that all the pirates were aliens and most were from ‘evil’ species like Trandoshans. It felt wrong, even if there’s an in-universe logic to it. It’s got an ‘all orks are evil’ vibe.
@8 @12 “…the Mandalorian has finally just given itself up to fast travel…”: Yeah, FTL seems to have become teleportation lately. And the scale of Star Wars is galactic so it’s even more jarring. But they wanted to put Teva in the room so I guess they felt that trumped making a holo-call, the standard franchise way to put distant characters in the same room.
What’s becoming the more glaring issue to me is how stretchy time has been. We had Din imprisoned in the mines for a strangely long time, considering it looked like Iy Botborg meant to cook/disassemble him. We had the bird who flew around 24 hours before returning to the nest to feed, and this week we have a pirate raid that went on as long as needed for the cavalry to arrive. It’s disorienting—you need to make space and time clear to the audience.
@8, Adamus: “The Bad Batch is pulling off a better more interesting show…“ I know Tor has had some articles up about the Bad Batch and has the view numbers from those to judge reader interest in the show. I don’t know if there’s enough of an audience for deep dives on animated Star Wars. But it’s a show I recommend checking out if you are at all a fan of the mid-to-late Clone Wars. I almost bounced off the show at first due to the aching decision to name them like 80s action figures but at this point I’m far more invested in seeing the next season of BB than seeing where season 3 of Mando is going. I mean, Mando is still must-watch, but I’ve been looking forward to the weekly BB episodes more.
@24/Arben: “How did Teva know that Din Djarin had R5-D4 now?”
Since they’re old Rebel Alliance buddies, I’d assume R5 has been keeping Teva posted all along.
I really need to remember to refresh the page before commenting.
Plus, I forgot to add that the crowd size and the Mandalorian aspect of the story could’ve been helped by showing townspeople scattering to fortified aspects of the former covert lair underground.
R5-D4 and Teva were communicating somehow, so the droid could report who its owner is as well as where it is.
The beskar mallet holder has the floor, but it doesn’t prevent everyone else from rhubarbing. How rude.
The whole bit where Teva goes flying around to very distant places very quickly made me wonder why was the choice made to have control not more decentralized.
And yes this is me trying to make things “real” in what is a space fantasy but man shouldn’t Teva go to the local naval detachment/sector commander/ local naval attache/equivalent to get permission to hunt some pirates instead of going all the way home? Sure that takes away this opportunity for Kane to be holier than thou and a bit slimy, but there were other chances.
I guess the writers are, once again, not aware that space is huge and not everything needs to tightly centralized on a galactic scale.
Or something.
If, as has always been the case in Star Wars, you can cross half the galaxy in a day’s time, who needs decentralized authority? Not only is Star Wars a culture that has very fast travel, but it’s one that has had very fast travel for literally thousands of years.
@25 Re: Bo-Katan’s Hair – Bo-Katan has always had impossible hair; in the animated The Clone Wars series her hair was designed with certain cuts that would be physically impossible in real life (I.e. certain parts of her hair would have fallen off instead of remaining attached to the rest of it). Having her hair be perfect after a whole day in a helmet seems par for the course.
I thought it was established that Teva had tried the normal chain of command, but decided to pull rank and go right to the top, or as close to the top as he could get.
Excellent action set pieces. Loved Zeb’s cameo. Though I’m surprised how Din became a secondary character on his own show. This was Bo-Katan’s and Teva’s episode. It seems with his personal arc fulfilled, there really isn’t a lot left for him to do besides starfighter support. I assume between this and Bo-Katan’s Mythosaur conundrum, we’re headed for some big shakeup on Mandalorian society down the line. And given how Din is still very much a traditionalist, I can see a situation where this puts him on the outs with everyone else not named Grogu. Given the way Bad Batch just wrapped its excellent second season, I can picture a less than stellar ending for Din as a character.
My question is, if mythosaurs are real now, will they have to rename them factosaurs?
So happy everyone caught hair issue. Helmet hair is unavoidable. Maybe most of them shave their heads like some nuns. That was worse than the fast travel which seems to happen in so many shows.
I really thought the armorer was going to take her helmet off. The whole never let anyone see your face doesn’t work for TV which is a close up medium. I want to see some faces.
Regarding Zeb being a pilot, note that we see Y-wings flying over the base, and they’re two-person fighters (carrying a pilot and a gunner). Maybe Zeb is a gunner and Kallus is his pilot (just off-screen somewhere).
@33: “Though I’m surprised how Din became a secondary character on his own show. This was Bo-Katan’s and Teva’s episode.”
Obviously the show is now about to be renamed “The Mandalorians.”
Pitch Meeting Writer: So the pirates have this enormous spaceship with lots of guns, and Mando and Bo Katan have to attack it with their little fighters.
Pitch Meeting Producer: Wow! Wow, wow, wow! I bet that it ‘s going to really hard for them to even damage it let alone destroy it!
Pitch Meeting Writer: Actually it’s going to be super easy, barely an inconvenience.