The Mandalorian (TV Program)

It is up to Bo-Katan to try to play peacemaker with her people. But she harbors a sad secret that won’t make it easy.Season 3, Episode 7: ‘The Spies’The original “Star Wars” opens with a Rebel Alliance ship being pursued by an enormous Imperial Star Destroyer, which — in one of the most famous and fearsome images in the entire series — slowly fills the screen, obscuring everything else in the frame. This week’s episode of “The Mandalorian” features an echo of that moment, as Bo-Katan’s reassembled army of Mandalorian privateers descends on Nevarro in an old Imperial Light Cruiser, sending the locals into a momentary panic.High Magistrate Greef Karga though reassures his anxious droids, however, that this massive warship is a welcome sight. It is, perhaps, a harbinger of a brighter tomorrow, signaling that the scattered Mandalorian tribes are reuniting.I say “perhaps” because one of the themes of this episode is that “getting the band back together” may not always be such a good thing. While the Mandalorians are gathering on Nevarro, the freed Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) is meeting virtually with “the Shadow Council,” consisting of former Imperial warlords who have been dismissed by the New Republic as a mere disorganized “remnant” of the former Empire.With the Grand Admiral Thrawn still in hiding (including from “Star Wars” fans, who have been waiting for him to make his debut on this show), Gideon takes control of the cabal, insisting that the time has come for them to stop focusing only on their own territories and to begin sharing resources. Specifically, he would like them to give some of their arsenal to him so that he can eliminate the growing Mandalorian threat.“The Spies” is an odd title for this chapter given that there is not a whole lot of cloak-and-dagger action. Instead, the bulk of this nearly hourlong episode is about the different Mandalorian sects struggling to put aside old grudges. The more devout types, like Paz Vizsla, seethe in the presence of the more independent types, like Axe Woves. Those two get into a dispute over the proper rules of a combat board game, letting their lingering anger over what happened to their planet spill over into a violent skirmish. (To be fair to Axe, though, Paz should have known that only a wing guard can flank-jump.)It is up to Bo-Katan to try to play peacemaker with her people. But she harbors a sad secret that won’t make it easy. When a large cohort of Mandalorians travels to Mandalore to assess the state of their home-world and plan for its future, they run into a group of haggard Bo-Katan loyalists, who stubbornly survived “the Night of a Thousand Tears” because they knew their leader would never surrender to the Empire.But the thing is: The Princess did, in fact, surrender. She handed over the Darksaber to Gideon to save her people. And then he slaughtered most of them anyway, leaving the divided remainder to fight among themselves.Something unexpected happens, though, after Bo-Katan admits what she did. Din picks up on something she says — about how “Mandalore has always been too powerful for any enemy to defeat” and how “it is always our own division that destroys us” — and he acknowledges that the planet was probably dying long before the Empire swooped in.“We were taught that everyone but us had forsaken the Way,” he says, noting that his faction did not even care about the Darksaber or its meaning. “Your song is not yet written,” he tells the Princess. “I will serve you until it is.”The director Rick Famuyiwa and the credited screenwriters, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, bring a sense of grandeur and heft to this episode, with a lot of scenes that survey the assembled forces and their various vehicles and weapons. The action sequences really pop, too — including one that is not necessarily essential to the plot but is still very cool, as the giant land ship piloted by the survivors on Mandalore is wrecked by an underground monster.Everything builds steadily and cleverly to the big climactic twist, when the Mandalorians arrive at the planet’s Great Forge only to find a secret Imperial base, filled with fighter ships that hang from the ceiling like bats. They also find Gideon, surrounded by next-level stormtroopers and protected by three Praetorian guards. He is sporting his new state-of-the-art beskar alloy armor, boasting, “The most impressive improvement is that it has me in it.” In the ensuing attack, Bo-Katan is able to lead a safe retreat for almost all of her people; but Vizsla is killed and Din is captured, setting up next week’s finale.What is most troubling about Gideon’s ambush is what he says to the Mandalorians before he orders their destruction. He ties many of the threads from the past few seasons together, saying that with the help of old and new technology he is building a new Dark Trooper army that will combine the ancient skills and lethal modern power of the galaxy’s strongest factions: like the Jedi, the cloners and the Mandalorians.In other words: He is reassembling the broken pieces of the old order. And this particular reunion is not so sweet.This is the wayThe closing credits this week feature a softer orchestral version of the theme music, sounding a note of solemnity rather than the usual triumphant fanfare. A nice touch.Famuyiwa and the crew bring some cool noir vibes to the opening scene, which sees Elia Kane slipping stealthily into Coruscant’s red light district — bathed in “Blade Runner”-style neon and mist — to deliver a message to Moff Gideon.Grogu has a new toy! The Anzellan mechanics have remade the killer droid IG-11 into the armed and armored vehicle IG-12, with a little seat for a Baby Yoda-sized pilot and buttons that make the machine’s voice say “yes” or “no.” In a rare bit of comic relief in this episode, Grogu has fun grabbing things and lurching dangerously about while pushing the “yes” button repeatedly. (As the Anzellans would say, “Bad Baby!”)This was a good episode overall, but it remains somewhat troublesome just how much Favreau is leaning into the B-movie roots of “Star Wars” this season, with even clunkier dialogue and hammier acting than in seasons past. Esposito is an excellent actor who usually has a keen grasp of behavioral subtleties, but he goes distractingly broad at times this week as Gideon. And some lines — as when Din says, “This isn’t working for me,” to Grogu after his IG-12 adventures cause him problems — sound jarringly modern.Isn’t it weird that Karga still calls Din “Mando” when Nevarro is now full of Mandalorians? More

This week filled in some of Baby Yoda’s back story and offered yet another thrilling aerial chase. Then another.Season 3, Episode 4: ‘The Foundling’One aspect of the Baby Yoda special effect that has been hard to get used to is how weightless the character often seems. Granted, the little guy is … well, a little guy. But whenever Grogu jumps around or Din picks him up, it feels a bit like one of those TV scenes where someone pretends to drink out of an empty coffee cup. It disrupts the suspension of disbelief, if only for a moment.I mention this only because aside from Grogu flipping around like a thumb toy, this week’s “Mandalorian” episode is a fine showcase for how the character’s overall design works a rare kind of magic. “Realism” has never been the goal with characters like Grogu. Instead, watching slick-looking science-fiction characters interact with tiny puppets or actors in big, bulky costumes recaptures the spellbound feeling of watching old children’s shows, like “Sesame Street” or the work of Sid and Marty Krofft.The big set-piece in the middle of this episode plays like an technologically advanced version of classic kiddie television. The sound of pounding metal at the Armorer’s forge reminds Grogu of when he was forced to flee Coruscant during the violent purge of the Jedi Temple. Escorted by Master Kelleran Beq (played by Ahmed Best, best-known in “Star Wars” circles for his controversial voice and motion-capture performance as Jar Jar Binks), Grogu zips through Coruscant’s traffic-ways and train tunnels, past Monument Plaza to a rescue ship, all while being chased by relentless hordes of Stormtroopers.The sequence is thrillingly reminiscent of one of the best scenes in “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” where Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi thwart an assassination attempt and pursue the killer through Coruscant’s vehicle-packed airborne roads, moving in multiple spatial dimensions, through the x-, y- and z-axes. The action is heightened by Grogu’s scrunched, saucer-eyed face, filled with awe and fear.Grogu’s physical presence also functions superbly well in a smaller, more comic sequence at the episode’s start, when Din encourages him to plunge into the Mandalorian training program by challenging the foundling Ragnar Vizsla (Wesley Kimmel) to combat. Ragnar chooses to battle with darts, so Grogu gets fitted with a ridiculously cute little cuff, containing three projectiles. He then proceeds to humiliate Ragnar, thanks to one of those fake-looking weightless leaps.As has been the way so far this season, “The Foundling” tells two stories, with the Coruscant flashback holding down the middle of the chapter, flanked by a daring rescue mission. After Grogu defeats Ragnar, the boy is snatched away by a giant flying creature, very similar to one of Earth’s prehistoric pterosaurs. He is then taken to its home to be fed to three hatchlings.Ragnar’s ward/father Paz Vizsla (voiced by Jon Favreau and embodied by Tait Fletcher) is distraught; but Bo-Katan reassures him that they can reach the peaks where the creature has its lair. Echoing Luke Skywalker when he compared blowing up the Death Star to shooting womp rats on Tatooine, Bo-Katan says, “These are no higher than the peaks of Kyrimorut. I used to climb them in basic training.”And so they climb, in heavy armor, arriving just when the mother bird is regurgitating Ragnar. What follows is another exciting aerial chase and battle, which ends when the big bird gets eaten by a dinosaur turtle — the same beast that interrupted Ragnar’s creed ceremony in the season premiere.This episode’s director, Carl Weathers, and the “Mandalorian” team of designers and effects artists effectively emphasize the size disparity of all these animals, aliens and humanoids. The large flying monster is felled by an even larger water monster. The hatchlings are brought back to the Mandalorian covert, where they dwarf their captors. At the start of the episode, Grogu is fascinated by what looks to be small moving rocks, which turn out to be scuttling crabs. Who is big, who is small, who is friendly and who is a threat … It is all a matter of perspective.Still, before it becomes clear that Grogu is playing with crabs, it appears briefly that he is using the Force to move these objects around in the sand. This serves as a reminder that the Mandalorian’s new trainee just left another training program, with the Jedi. As the Armorer gifts him with a new chest-plate, she says, “You will grow into this rondel as you grow into your station.” Part of the whole Grogu mystique is that we never fully know what he is thinking. But I do wonder: Does the kid ever get tired of devout spiritual/military organizations telling him what’s what?This is the wayIt is always nice to see Best, who had a rough time with “Star Wars” fans during the Jar Jar days. He also plays Kelleran Beq in the children’s game show “Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge.”There was a fair amount of confusion and frustration on social media after last week’s episode. To some extent this is understandable, given that the long detour through Coruscant’s current political situation was so unlike “The Mandalorian” norm. Nevertheless, I was surprised to see so many people dismiss “The Convert” as pointless. It seems clear to me that Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane are going to be important players later this season, at which point understanding what they have been through may matter a great deal. We will see.On the other hand, for the past few weeks I have been certain that a major story line this season will involve Din — swayed by Bo-Katan’s skepticism — questioning the Mandalorian lore and codes. Instead, this week Bo-Katan embraces the imagery of the Mythosaur when the Armorer replaces her broken shoulder-piece; and she seems open to the Armorer’s theory that she merely saw a vision of the great beast in the Living Waters. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Bo-Katan is walking the path toward become a true believer.How do the Mandalorians eat without removing their helmets? We have an answer: They do remove their helmets, just when they are totally alone. (The next question we need answered: How long before a Mandalorian takes a ride on one of those giant baby birds?) More

Now that the Empire is dead, the New Republic allows its citizens to live freely. Or does it?Season 3, Episode 3: ‘The Convert’The planet Coruscant is an ecumenopolis: a city-covered world with a trillion residents, where after thousands of years of civilization and construction, only the peak of the mountain Umate is still visible from the original lands and seas. This outcropping juts up in Coruscant’s Monument Plaza, and when the former Imperial scientist Dr. Penn Pershing (Omid Abtahi) strolls by it — while enjoying a glowing ice pop and watching the street performers roaming about — the former Imperial communications officer Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian) suggests he touch the mountain. After all, the Empire is dead and the New Republic allows its citizens to live freely. Right?So Pershing reaches out toward Umate. But then a droid buzzes by and stops him. Startled, he drops his dessert. The droid picks it up and whisks it away, sternly saying, “No littering.” Meet the new boss … maybe the same as the old boss.About three-fourths of this week’s hourlong “The Mandalorian” is about Pershing, a familiar face whom you may recall was tasked in past episodes with extracting and studying Grogu’s blood, as part of a cloning program. Pershing always seemed conflicted about his work; and indeed helped Din rescue Grogu in the Season 2 finale.As this episode begins, Pershing has been accepted into the New Republic’s amnesty program. He has been assigned the alphanumeric identity code L52 and put to work cataloging all the Imperial spacecraft and machinery about to be destroyed by the government. He works in a nondescript cubicle in a huge office, and barely gets through one tray of electronic files before a droid plops another on his desk. He is a brilliant scientist who once did groundbreaking work, and if allowed to he knows he could help the New Republic make use of the Empire’s discarded bones. But all of the supervisors and droids assigned to his case are too busy — and too wary — to listen to him.Pershing is “The Convert” of this chapter’s title, though this episode is mostly about his creeping doubts. Out in the Outer Rim, where various Imperial remnants still operate — including the one led by his old boss Moff Gideon — times were hard but the various factions were at least still fighting for something. On Coruscant, on the other hand, one of the first people Pershing meets is a wealthy snob who admits that the change in regime has not affected him, because he and his wife try to stay out of politics. Their only cause is staying rich.It is no wonder then that Pershing’s head is turned by Elia, another Moff Gideon survivor who secretly supplies him with some of the biscuits they both used to enjoy from their Imperial rations. Elia knows Coruscant because she trained there when it was still under the Empire’s control. (“We thought we were doing good,” she says.) She encourages him to continue with his research regardless of what the New Republic says, noting — not incorrectly — that “following orders blindly is how we got in trouble in the first place.”In one of this week’s big adventure set pieces, Pershing and Elia defy their allowed travel zones by sneaking onto a train — avoiding the officious droid ticket-takers — and making their way to an old Imperial ship, to steal one of the mobile lab stations that the New Republic is thoughtlessly intending to scrap. But the heist turns out to be a setup. When the authorities arrive, Elia joins with them and lets Pershing get arrested.In custody, Pershing is subjected to the brainwashing device commonly referred to as a “mind-flayer,” although the pleasant doctor in charge of the procedure insists that his version is much less intense than its reputation. (“You’ll see some pleasant colors, hear some light buzzing.”) But when the doctor leaves, Elia stays behind and cranks the mind-flayer dials into the red, while stoically munching on one of those Imperial biscuits.There is a real “Andor” feel to this unsentimental depiction of the Empire-versus-Republic dynamic, where everyone has their own agendas and is advancing them by exploiting whatever systems are in place. Elia’s motivations are still unclear (though they probably involve Moff Gideon). But in terms of what this week’s story is about, what matters here is that neither “the good guys” or “the bad guys” are doing right by Dr. Pershing.Initially, this Coruscant interlude seems a bit out of line with the rest of the episode, which begins with Din and Bo-Katan shooting down TIE fighters on Kalevala (though not before the armada destroys Bo-Katan’s palatial home). The long opening action sequence is old-school “Star Wars,” full of “pew pew” sound effects, slick aerial maneuvers through narrow passages, and the comic relief of R5-D4 falling down repeatedly. It is thrilling and thematically uncomplicated.But the writers Jon Favreau and Noah Kloor bring their pieces together at the end, by returning to Din and Bo-Katan after they escape Kalevala. Din wants to hide out for a while with the Mandalorian covert led by the Armorer; after he proves to the assembled tribe that he and Bo-Katan have bathed in the Living Waters beneath Mandalore’s mines, they are both cleared of their apostate status and accepted back into the fold.Is this really a happy ending though for Bo-Katan, who resents these fundamentalist Mandalorians for helping to destroy her family’s reign? Unlike Pershing, she is not the sort to follow rules for their own sake. She does what she likes, whenever she likes, no matter what human, alien or droid says no. In other words: This covert is probably not welcoming in another convert.This is the wayThis week’s director is Lee Isaac Chung, making his “Mandalorian” debut. Chung received Oscar nominations for best director and best original screenplay for his 2020 movie “Minari,” a lovely and muted drama about immigrant farmers. He has a real knack for getting subtle and engaging performances from his casts, and this episode is no exception.Dr. Pershing becomes a part of a great “Star Wars” tradition when he tries to defend his theft by shouting — to a Mon Calamari, no less — “It was a trap!” (If only he had added, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”)After Din and Bo-Katan say “this is the way” to each other while flying away from Mandalore, Grogu makes a little mewling noise that almost sounds he is repeating the words. The little guy is getting so, so close to talking.Note that the Mandalorian covert has what appears to be a Mythosaur skull hanging in one of its chambers — perhaps the skull of the Mythosaur that Mandalore the Great was supposed to have killed, but which Bo-Katan may have seen still alive in the Living Waters. How long until she suggests to Din that his people have been lying to him about their history?After the Armorer accepts Din and Bo-Katan into the covert, everyone gathers around to give them hearty claps on their shoulders. This, apparently, is the way? More