Notes on The Mandalorian Season 2
By Ephraim Belnap
Major Spoilers for Season 2 of The Mandalorian!
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Episode 1
Awesome!!!
SO good! I can’t believe they did this!
They just did what fans have always wanted, which is tell a functional, enjoyable story in the same world, with the energy and spectacle of the original films! That sounds so easy, but it’s also so hard (and just expensive, really) that it’s amazing to see!
Cobb Vanth is apparently a character from some books I haven’t read, but Timothy Olyphant (the actor) seems to be doing a GREAT job! He’s most famous for playing handsome, swaggering yet relatable cowboy characters on TV shows (Justified, Deadwood), so this is a nice alignment of circumstances.
The last ten minutes were just non-stop thrills!
So good!
Episode 2
Kind of filler-y, like some season one episodes, but pretty functional overall.
Baby Yoda is a bit of a scamp, isn’t he? Accurate to real children, I guess.
Love how there are giant ice spiders on this planet, even though spiders don’t evolve to exist in icy conditions and never would! Classic Star Wars.
Episode 3
Wooh!! We’re back, baby!!!
I have never been a fan of the Clone Wars show, because everything I’ve seen of it since it premiered has convinced me it’s lowkey nostalgia baiting (“look, a line from the original movies! You like that, don’t you?”) mixed with a genuine kid’s show (“Stealing bad! Recycling good!”).
But ... maybe it’s actually got something going for it?
I’ve seen parts of the later seasons just to see what Darth Maul was doing (they brought him back btw) and it looked like it’d reached about 60% of what the movies successfully manage. But I’ve only seen small bits, so maybe the product overall really is good? Regardless, I recognize this lady from the series! She’s like, the most reasonable Mandalorian leader around. Some days, that isn’t a very high standard, but it still counts! And last we saw her, she was going to lead a retaking of Mandalore back from the Empire! Given how they kept talking about “the Purge of Mandalore” last season, I’m gonna guess that didn’t work out for her. But she’s still going! And they talked about the Darksaber!
The Darksaber, for those not in the know, is kind of a Mandalorian measuring stick/apple of discord. It belonged to a Mandalorian Jedi in a previous era, but it looks so darn cool it’s become an informal scepter of authority. You have it, you can say you’re the Mandalore (Mando president). It’s not universally respected, . but it gives a big boost to legitimacy if you’re trying to unite the clans. The last we saw of it, it was being given VOLUNTARILY over to Bo-Katan, instead of the traditional duel to the death for it. They were trying to do things differently from the old, warmongering ways. But I guess that didn’t work out, because Moff Gideon has it now, and I’ll bet he didn’t get it voluntarily. That Bo is trying to get it back is a sign that she’s serious about retaking Mandalore. Great little segment.
But anyway, they got a clue. They’re going to see Ahsoka!
Episode 4
Great little filler episode that didn’t feel like filler, ‘cause it tied into the over-plot involving Moff Gideon.
Carl Weathers got to do some action! He also apparently directed this episode.
I feel like Carl Weathers kind of played one of his ‘80’s action hero roles here. The way he shoots everything and is so casually mean to the blue guy feels like classic Commando-era tough guy. Nice little throwback for one of the era’s icons. I feel like they should’ve given him some different clothes, though, because that robe thing he was wearing did NOT look action-ready. Small quibble.
Episode 5
Ahsoka, baby!
Some background on Ahsoka -
The hook of the Clone Wars series is that Anakin gets a Padawan during the ongoing Clone Wars. He doesn’t ask for one, Master Yoda just dumps one on him and he has to deal with it. The Padawan - Ahsoka - started out kind of cringy (think Scrappy Doo or Cousin Oliver - the kid-appeal character done wrong), but over time she got better. And when she was in Rebels (Clone War’s sequel show) she had one of the most emotionally resonant moments in the franchise with a new Darth Vader. As the Star Wars TV shows have improved in quality, so has she. And since she has the most screentime of anyone besides Obi-Wan and Anakin, she’s got a pretty massive fanbase. Seeing her in live-action is like the final step in her journey towards worldwide popularity. It’s cool to see.
This entire episode was frikkin’ killer! Classic samurai/cowboy vs corrupt mayor set-up. From the way they built the sets to the way they had the fights was classic samurai from beginning to end. An absolute delight to see.
And we got a name for Baby Yoda! What a delight!
I have a small quibble - Ahsoka saying she shouldn’t train Grogu is malarkey. She’s trained older Jedi in previous series and been fine with it. But I respect that they have to keep her solo to be in her own series. The Search For Thrawn is coming, guys!
Great episode. Great, great time.
Episode 6
THE CREATIVE TEAM: Release the Boba!
This is the coolest thing you’d never expect to see. I thought we weren’t gonna see Boba Fett for the rest of the season! That they were teasing him there for an appearance next year. But no, they went full Boba in the second season. It’s awesome.
I love how they’re justifying all these changes to Boba’s look. His actor is 59 at this point, so he can’t jump around like a 25-year-old, and it’s harder to look 45 like he’s meant to be. But they justify it with the crap on his face. He got messed up from falling into the Sarlaac Pit. No wonder he looks awful!
On a related note, I love how much Pacific Islander culture was built into Boba’s style. Temuera Morrison is famously Maori, and his role as Jango Fett incorporated a few Islander cues. Certain clone troopers wear a lavalava. Their helmeted forehead touches looks like Maori hongi greetings. And the Mando love of adoption calls back to the wider habit of the same. This episode frikkin’ ran with that! They gave Boba robes that looked like the lavalava. And the fighting he did looked like an Islander with a war club. It’s all coming together!
A comparison with the Rock doing this explicitly.
Grogu getting kidnapped is, of course, terrible, but we’ll get him back somehow! And now Boba and Fennec are insisting they tag along, so we get some episodes with the two of them out of this!
Side-note: Ming-Na Wen (Fennec’s actress) is also a total baller, and I love seeing her in this. She was in Agents of Shield first, and it's great to see her in other stuff
Episode 7
I like to call this one, “every car ride with an atheist ever.”
I’ve been the metaphorical atheist on occasion lol. That he’s saying things that should be obvious to the audience - Mandos don’t always wear their helmets - is oddly gratifying. We know Jango didn’t always wear his. And anyone with a passing familiarity with the TV Mandos knows they take their helmets off.
This felt totally Mad Max! I love it! Fighting off hordes of marauders on the roof of a giant truck while they attack you with staves and sticks. Mashed up with a nice little Wages of Fear reference (In Wages of Fear, two men drive a truck full of chemicals that will explode if made unstable through a jungle while facing dangers, and this is more of the same).
That we got that killer section and then that suspense story for the last ten minutes is a real treat to be watching. We’re really getting the business.
Onward!
Episode 8
I can’t believe what they freaking did. Like, really can’t believe it. That was so expensive. Like, up ‘til the moment he took the hood off I was convinced they weren’t going to show his face, ‘cause that’s gotta be some real expensive stuff! And they already had the Dark Troopers stuff, which looks really expensive, and then all the set-pieces from the previous episodes. I’m convinced now that they spent like, a real movie’s worth of money this season. Like, 150 million’s worth. Game of Thrones at its peak was probably spending about 115 million, and it always had about ten hours per season. This season was about - *checks runtimes* - about ... five and a half hours! Not that long! Combine a runtime that small with the assumed increase in budget, combined with Lucasfilm’s well-documented mastery of special effects technology, and it’s not surprising they were able to get the most bang for their buck.
Seriously, though, this episode was so good.
I’m gonna unveil a sneaky for ya. Moff Gideon came out on top no matter what happened -
—
The Move: Attack Mando with the Darksaber
The Outcomes, from least likely to most:
- He successfully kills Mando, takes back the Child, and escapes like he originally planned.
OR:
- He loses the fight and is killed, but Mando wins the Darksaber, forcing Bo-Katan into a quandary unless she wants to kill him.
OR:
- He loses the fight but lives, in which case, Mando still wins the Darksaber and compromises Bo, and Gideon survives to fight another day. This is what actually happened.
In all of these, he either got the Child or compromised Bo. Fair aims.
And then we get Part Two, which is:
The Move: Delay long enough for the Dark Troopers to reboard.
The Outcome: No matter what happens to him, the Dark Troopers are poised to kill everyone and take back the Child. Some of them may escape, or Gideon himself may be killed, but they sure as heck don’t pull off their victory.
—
He had two entirely separate layers of success. One only failed because of a possibility nobody had seen coming (Luke’s rescue). The other one went off without a hitch. Well played. Xanatos would be proud.
They could honestly end the show here and I’d be fine with it. They’ve wrapped up Mando’s arc, which was about getting the Child taken care of. There’s a litany of Star Wars shows coming after this, so it’s not like we’ll be lacking for content. Better to end on a high like this. But if they wanna keep going, that’s fine. I’m sure they’ll do well.
What a great show! This legit felt like a movie to me with the arrival of Luke. Great!
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