Last week’s season premiere of The Mandalorian had some serious space Western vibes. But although it picks up shortly after last week’s adventure, with Mando and The Child still on Tatooine, “The Caretaker” foregrounds a different, but equally essential, ingredient in the Star Wars recipe book: Puppeteering and creature work. Although the link between Star Wars and the Muppets has always been unofficial, they’ve been fellow travelers since Frank Oz took up Yoda for The Empire Strikes Back. And by featuring one (helmeted) human interacting with two practical creatures throughout most of the episode, “The Caretaker” evokes Lucasfilm’s corporate cousins at The Muppets Studio—who also like to stage scenes that have more puppets than humans in them.
Speaking of The Empire Strikes Back, the majority of this episode takes place on an ice planet, which may have enhanced the Empire/Frank Oz association in my mind. (Knowing this show, they did it on purpose.) Much like last week’s episode, “The Passenger” uses the overarching narrative of the season—Mando’s goal to deliver The Child to his people with the help of some other Mandalorians—as a catalyst for a side adventure. This time around, they’re escorting an unnamed, amphibious friend of Amy Sedaris’ Peli Motto—referred to henceforth as Frog Lady—from Tatooine to the estuary moon of Trask, where her husband has found a home for them on the only planet capable of supporting their species’ reproductive cycle. I figure it’s kind of like moving to the suburbs to start a family.
Anyway, with all the “helping the innocent” and “chasing his adopted green son around telling him to take things out of his mouth” that’s been going on these past couple episodes, it’s easy to forget that Mando travels in a shadowy world of criminals and mercenaries. But “The Passenger” reminds us of that, by having Mando flee from New Republic cops in X-wings when the Razor Crest is pulled over (so to speak) on a routine traffic stop. Aside from facilitating cameos from co-showrunner Dave Filoni and Kim’s Convenience star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, the X-wings and their pilots serve a couple of narrative purposes: They get the Razor Crest onto the surface of the ice planet, for one, as well as tying this episode back, however confusingly, to the season-one episode “The Prisoner.”
They also underline an aspect of The Mandalorian that creator Jon Favreau has emphasized in interviews, namely that the show takes place in the period immediately following Return Of The Jedi, just in a corner of the galaxy where the fight between Rebels and Imperials is as distant as politics are to many ordinary Americans. (Well, not recently, but you get the point.) The presence of X-wing pilots hunting for “Imperial holdouts” reminds us that somewhere, at this same time, Princess Leia is becoming a general, Luke Skywalker is rebuilding the Jedi Order, and the Empire is mutating into the First Order. Asking for “pings” and stopping the Razor Crest because it wasn’t up to current transponder beacon standards also shows that bureaucracy is alive and well in the New Republic, which is actually kind of amusing when you think about the larger political allegory at play.
But first, ice spiders. When a character walks into an ice cave in a Star Wars property, an ice monster can’t be far behind. And thanks to The Child’s insatiable snacking, in “The Passenger” it’s a mama ice spider with a Sarlacc mouth and her creepy-crawly babies. For some, that’s the most terrifying thing they can think of, and while I wouldn’t call myself an arachnophobe, seeing thousands of any type of creepy-crawly swarming over something always produces a shiver. This scene gave us more of the high-quality visual effects we saw last episode, which combined nicely with the practical puppet work and sticky spiderwebs that end up all over the hull.
And while this week’s deus ex machina was a little too convenient for my tastes (both in having the X-wing cops return and them letting Mando off with a warning), tonally “The Passenger” balances out its cute with a playful streak of black comedy. These are combined in The Child, who played a more active role in this episode, justifying his screen time more effectively than last week. Just as we forget that Mando is technically an outlaw, The Child’s so gosh darn cute that we forget he’s also a bit of a trash panda. He doesn’t care if these are the last of Frog Lady’s eggs, they’re yummy and he’s going to eat them—leading to a parting bit where The Child pops one more precious egg into his mouth as Mando jokes not to wake him if the cockpit door comes open, because they’ll all be dead. Like father, like son…
Stray observations
- Today’s recap is a little late, but you all understand, right? There’s, uh, some other stuff going on.
- Naming this week’s guest star “Frog Lady” seems kind of lazy, until you remember that original production notes give Mos Eisely cantina patrons names like “Weird Girl” and “Local Ugly Men.” So, you know, whatever.
- Speaking of the Cantina, this week’s episode was directed by Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed, a film it seems safe to assume is being referenced with the return of Dr. Mandible, the Killik Peli beats at Sabacc.
- Peli seems like the kind of person who’d be best friends with someone she just met. And she does love kids, as we learned when she babysat The Child in season one.
- The Child was a combination of a 12-year-old boy eating everything in the fridge and a puppy nosing through a trash can on this episode. He’s a growing boy, he’s hungry all the time.
- Speaking of The Child’s eating habits: Ever been to a bar that has a giant jar of pickled eggs behind the counter, and the liquid they’re floating in is either orange or a dark emerald green? That’s what Frog Lady’s egg backpack reminded me of.
- The character of Frog Lady also marks the return of Misty Rosas, the 4’9” suit performer who also played Kuiil (RIP) last season. She made her screen debut playing Amy the Gorilla in Congo.
264 Comments
MR. KIM!!!!!Another fun episode, pretty much had it all. When they showed Zero in the recap i was wondering if Bill Burr and crew would actually show up, but still fun to have Richard Ayoade return
When they showed back up I yelled “Appa!”
“Get ping fixed. OK, see you!”
My husband remarked that after binging 4 seasons of Kim’s Convenience it was a little weird to hear Lee’s Canadian accent.
I know After watching the whole show (so far), I feel like we need an Appa/Umma special where they finally take that vacation to Cuba.
This episode had plenty of potential. I love seeing the slow rebuilding of galaxy under the New Republic, I love getting to see the lives and journeys of people in galaxy who aren’t religious space wizards or criminals. I like seeing new creatures and planets and the effects were great.But damn this killed suspension of disbelief. Why did she have to go with Mando specifically when they know he’s a wanted fugitive? Why’d she leave the ship?Also, if you want her saving her kids to be the conflict we’re invested in, don’t have Baby Yoda eating the eggs being a joke.
Uh, toddlers are bad! Like really really bad!!!Also our human laws do not apply to space wizards… they are out there eating dragons.
Why did she have to go with Mando specifically when they know he’s a wanted fugitive?Because nobody else was going there, and certainly not at sub-light speed. Why’d she leave the ship? To warm herself and the eggs at that hot spring. Mando was repairing the ship and she had nothing else to do except freezing.But I agree that Baby Yoda eating the eggs felt like a tone-deaf joke they kept repeating again and again, which made it worse at every iteration.
Assuming that she needed to warm her eggs in a hot spring to keep them warm, how the hell did she imagine that there was a hot spring somewhere yards away from the ship with no clear view of such a spring on an ice planet she had never been to or that leaving the ship to go have a soak was a safe thing to do in the situation they were in. That was all severely off target quality wise from previous writing.
No clear view? Humans are so ocularcentric.
It doesn’t seem that big of a stretch, espeically in the Star Wars universe, that a reptilian species would have senses that could tell if a warm area was nearby. Especially if it was a mother that had to protect her eggs that would be harmed by the cold.
Poor Baby Yoda. He’s obviously not getting enough to eat.
Fuck Baby Yoda.
The big action scene was fantastic, and mostly made up for the rest being fairly average. Even more than last week, the Amy Sedaris scene just didn’t work for me. I was glad to get Richard Ayoade back, if only briefly (if people want more Ayoade, he hosted tonight’s Have I Got News For You).
This episode had me on the edge of my seat. I give it an A-. Also, there’s a lot of questions. You got to wonder who exactly this Frog Lady is? Is she leading Mando into a trap, maybe even by accident? I look forward to what unfolds in next week’s episode.
The show is not subtle and it is rarely clever. There’s no reason to think the Frog Lady is anything other than she seems to be. Her motivation to protect her eggs was obviously legit.
Her motivation to protect her eggs was obviously legit.
However her ability to do so….
Look man, as someone whose 2 year old is constantly finding new ways to court death, I feel for Frog Lady. We’re all just tryin to not let our kid fall down a flight of stairs and/or not let our unfertilized eggs be eaten by mischievous mystery babies.
I’m wondering how she did not notice that a few of them were “missing.”
She’s not very bright.
As as anyone with a big family will tell you once you’ve more than four kids , its hard to keep count..
Well frogs lay tons of eggs and not all of them get fertilized, I expect it’s the same here. She was probably carrying a ton of eggs in the expectation that only some would get fertilized to carry on her line. It’d be easy to lose track with everything that went on.
Just stop watching if you’re not enjoying it man, easy – life’s to short to hate-watch, spending your time like that is just sad ..
I enjoyed this episode. It’s just not very challenging or complex. The show could be better if it tried to be. It’s content to be simplistic and shallow. It is still occasionally fun. That has been my takeaway basically since day one. When I cease to derive any enjoyment from it, I will stop watching. As I do with shows all the time. Thanks for your concern.
(Okay, that’s not entirely true. I finished all of “Bly Manor” despite not really enjoying it all that much and wish I had stopped sooner. What a snooze!)
it’s psychopathic troll behavior, just wants to ruin everybody else’s enjoyment, shit in the well
Its more enjoyable to skip reading every post by LawrenceQ while reading the comments. I get great joy out of watching this show, its almost perfect, everything I ever wanted out of a star wars story.
He’s determined to stick around, hoping that the show will eventually decrease in quality so he can say “See! I told you from the first episode that this show sucked! I was right!”
The tension really was high through the whole episode.
The Speeder bike trap (whoever lives from those crashes?)
When the X-wings opened up their wings (i was like ‘they’re going to kill him!’)
And then the Alien homage, I mean…jesus….
Gotta tell ya, this dude Mando, he can’t stop fighting the universe!
Is Dr. Mandible the actual name? Or is it pejoritve, like calling Chewbacca Professor Fur ball or Lobot Mr Robobrain?
That’s how I took it.
I find it very disappointing and shocking (and, maybe, a union violation?) that Misty Rosas never received any on screen credit for playing Kuill, only Nolte was credited. Generally, both, the body actor AND voice actor are both properly credited for a performance like that.
This episode, while moderately entertaining, was just more proof (as if we needed any) that this series just has zero interest in crafting sophisticated, meaningful story arcs.The show is very content to be a lightly amusing, disposable pez dispenser, dropping a tiny sweet pellet out a few times a year, but has no greater ambitions beyond that.What a stunning waste of potential. Truly.
Not every show need everything to be deeply connected from episode to episode. Not having greater ambitions isn’t a show problem. Your putting some sort of expectations on the show and that is not the shows fault.
Exactly. This is a show that just wants to be a fun space western, and I reckon it does a pretty damn good job at it. It’s not trying to be The Wire But Star Wars, more a Wanted Dead or Alive But With Cute Baby Alien and that’s okay.
Exactly. It’s Wagon Train. Yeah we know they wanna get somewhere, but the whole series is the journey. Not everything has to be super serialized
My expectations are merely that the show be good.
That’s very subjective.
I never said it wasn’t. I’m stating my opinion, which is by definition, subjective.
Your definition of good is one among several.
The show is good.
Thanks for disagreeing in a polite and civilized manner. There’s some bat shit craziness elsewhere in the thread.Glad you’re enjoying it! 🙂
No, your expectation is that the show “craft…sophisticated, meaningful story arcs.” It’s right there in your first, way-too-involved-and-angry comment.
It’s not remotely angry. That’s in your mind.
Are you saying this show is not good? Because I believe you are wrong
The show is good. My expectation is did I enjoy the show. There are plenty of shows that are “good” that I do not enjoy.
Glad you enjoy it. Not looking to ruin anyone’s fun with my opinion!
The show is good. It’s just not good in the very specific way that you outline above with heavy serialization, “meaningful arcs” etc.
It is actually the show’s fault for not trying harder. Serialization is not the only way the show could be/should be better, but it’s a big one. The episodic plots themselves are usually extremely simplistic and there is virtually no character development. The writing across the board is just deeply mediocre, as if they’re not really even trying in that department.
People are going to slam you but you’re 100% correct.I’ll also point out that the best episodic television typically centres around the interpersonal conflict within a dynamic relationship: Kirk and Spock/Bones, the Doctor and companion, Mulder and Scully, Buffy and Angel/Spike, Pembleton and Bayliss, even Number 6 and the various Number 2s. The best writers ask burning questions about their leads’ core values. Those concerns propel one-off plots and pay off in season finales.It’s kinda difficult to tell such stories when one character barely speaks and the other can’t.
Thanks! I know I’ll get slammed, I’m used to it. This show is the most ridiculous case of the Emperor’s New Clothes I’ve seen in years. I guess people really hated the ST that much that they slavishly fawn over this trifle.
And you make a terrific point that really cuts to the problem of the show.“Hey, let’s have our lead be a stoic badass and you never see his face and he barely talks!”There’s just no…personality there. He’s a cool suit, but an empty suit. The show (briefly) came alive in the third episode where Mando went against his code and made a moral decision, by rescuing the child. That was the only episode that was remotely resonant dramatically, had actual weight, stakes and character growth.
The rest of the show is as shallow as a puddle on a sink.
“The rest of the show is as shallow as a puddle on a sink.”Sounds like you are describing every Star Wars movie but yet this show bothers you.Odd.
You are allowed to stop watching, nobody is forcing you.
What’s it like being such a brave iconoclastic truth-telling badass?
Lonely.
Andrew, your comment reminded me of why the usually terse Main Character on Cop Shows (or Westerns before them) always has a talkative, “quirky” partner. S/he’s the one who has a family, and tells us about the MC’s life (usually by trying to persuade the MC to come by for dinner, or has a cousin/niece/neighbor who might be a good romantic partner, or just to engage more with other humans), and comments on the action so we get some idea of the nuances of what’s going on.
Maybe that’s what Mando needs — a talkative partner who’s full of stories….
You’re not wrong. Stoic and talkative go together better than stoic and speechless.
I think the writing is intentionally derivative, just like the first movies. A New Hope was Flash Gordon, and this is Gunsmoke. Unfiltered old school Star Wars, just the way it was when it was at it’s best.
The prestige tv era has broken peoples’ brains
It’s just shown us that the medium has much more potential than this show is even aware is possible. This show COULD be so much better. And it doesn’t need to have “complicated plots” or heavily serialized storytelling. It just needs better writing.
The problem with the prestige TV era as it’s made people associate very specific tropes as being the markers of what constitutes quality television: dark anti-heroes, heavily serialization, a generally dark worldview and tone, and made people think there’s no room for other types of shows and storytelling
This is certainly a good point and I’m not saying it needs to follow the dark, anti-hero model which certainly has become its own kind of trope recently.There are lots of ways to make a good show even if you’re not copying the Tony Soprano/Walter White/Don Draper model.Nor am I even saying it has to be one long serialized storyline.I’m saying that the writing is currently exceedingly shallow and simplistic. Lots of people obviously like the fact that. It’s why “Friends” ran for ten seasons and is still arguably the biggest sitcom in the world 20 years later and why “Arrested Development” ran 2.5 seasons.
But the show fails on multiple levels for me, not just the lack of serialization. To compare it to the other current space franchise, I think “Discovery” actually has way too much serialization. It’s no guarantee of a good show and I’m not saying everything needs to follow that formula.
To me, this show isn’t even trying in the writing department. The plots in a given episode are very basic and there’s virtually no character development at all. I appreciate your thoughtful comments on this, even though I don’t necessarily agree with all your points.
Not all shows need giant story arcs that take forever to see payoff.
Isn’t the giant story arc that will take forever the return of the child to its own kind?I don’t expect it this year for sure.
That can’t be acceptable, surely? Even procedural fantasy dramas like Doctor Who, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica and Life on Mars ultimately answer key questions every season even if they don’t resolve the major threads until the final episode. There’s a reason why the ‘00s reboot of “The Fugitive” failed and now it’s back as a Quibi series. You cannot sustain 40 hours of drama by repeating the same question over and over.
Well, based on 10 episodes it appears to be following the single thread and using each episode to squeeze in fan service. SW fandom seems almost infinite in its hunger for anything star wars and Favreau/Filoni seem to have a good handle on how to tell small stories that originate from a single idea.I’m not sure how far they are going to branch out, or how fast they will speed to the “return the child” resolution, but they have an infinite galaxy to explore and enough SW material to sprinkle in a little bit each week.Whether or not it is acceptable, will depend on their ability to tell their small bits in a way that is interesting.We still have the threads of Madalore, Bounty Hunters, Empire, Republic, etc.
I mean more so in the vein of Mad Men or Lost.
But the show has one. It’s called “returning The Child to its species”.
Exactly. Every show must be Lost.
Like I say above prestige TV has broken peoples’ brains
Most other non sitcoms are serialised to fuck now, and often to their detriment (like whatever the hell they’re doing to Star Trek), why would I want more of that without a good reason?I’m happy with a moderately entertaining episode over a shoddy arc that lasts 3-10.
Star Trek is a good example of bad serialization only because the show is so….bad. Serialization itself is not the enemy, though I do admit that it does feel strange given Trek’s history of 5 other series that were standalone (with some serializaiton in the case of DS9.)But The Mandalorian really stands out in the era of peak TV as not only being seriously retrograde and behind-the-times, but just….childish and basic. It’s SOOOO stunningly simplistic.
‘but just….childish’Oh no! Is the kids show based on a kids film too childish for you?
Here’s why it’s a big deal that Mandalorian is thin soup. Star Wars has been shoved down our fucking throats since ROJ ended its theatrical run, as essential American culture, and I’m fucking done with Star Wars hanging shit content on a “brand”. Every dad shows off their man boobs through “vintage” SW T-shirts. The stupid car stickers. The Space Hitler costumes for toddlers. The SJW rage over the yawn reaction to the stupid plot holes in that middling middle movie. The fucking theme park we’re all supposed to care about. The endless “the next one is going to be amazing, we promise”. The ridiculous, insufferable fan base. The naked cash grabs. It’s like college football for people who don’t watch college football. Now the Mandalorian comes out and every family is talking about it in terms that SHOULD be reserved for really quality cinema. Instead of sharing something good, we’re sharing something bad and paying money for it. I don’t care that it’s empty. I’m sick of the world thinking it’s full. I’m sick of everyone telling me to watch a 1990s second tier syndicated fantasy show. After so MANY years of people twisting themselves into knots convincing themselves, and everyone else, that SW is quality… I’m fucking sick of SW. The one-off movies, and Episode IV, are the only ones worth giving your precious time to. All the other movies & shows are vampires.I’m shocked there isn’t a Black Mirror episode on fucking Star Wars.
I disagree with you about modern Trek, but I’m with you on The Mandalorian. the problem isn’t that there’s no major ongoing story arc, it’s that each episode’s internal story ranges between bad and mediocre, there’s almost always some sort of plot contrivance (like the X-Wing pilots coming back to kill the Spiders but deciding to not help repair the Razor Crest. It really feels like Favreau wrote himself into a corner and said “fuck it, this will do”), or the story takes an obvious turn. Plus, Because Djarin is still largely a cipher and the supporting cast only shows up for one or two episodes in any given year there’s very little emotional resonance with the characters.
I think it’s supposed to be a kid show. Or at least an all-ages show. Like most of the movies. It’s never going to be, say, Watchmen.I’m with you that I’d love it to be even a PG-13 type show in terms of a bit more sophisticated or semi-adult, but it’s definitely PG (if you discount the violence, I suppose.) The Timothy Olyphant character from the premiere is much more engaging than Mando, so it’s too bad we don’t follow his adventures.
That’s the double-edged knife. I see the convenience of writing a central story over an 8-10 episode season as opposed to bottle episodes but if that story isn’t well conceived and the pieces don’t all come together to its logical conclusion, then the entire season is a tiresome pile of shit with little to no payoff.I’ll gladly take entertaining filler over having to wade through a whole season for a payoff or resolution that may ultimately disappoint.
The lack of meaningful story arc kills me. I am just so used to longform television. I think this ios a lost opportunity. I hope the ObiWan or Cassion Andor show are more arc driven.
I hope at least Obi Wan will be different/better, as it’s planned (IIRC) as a single, one-season limited series
Obi Wan can’t have a new one off adventure every week.
How have you managed to ignore the main purpose of why Mando is having to ferry the frog woman in the first place?
I get your point but it’s still pretty episodic. There is one simple arc. It seems like there is more of an arc so far this season.
Have things really gotten so out of hand that people can’t watch any show that’s not completely serialized? This is sad
No but I prefer a serialized show.
You’re right; I wouldn’t mind if it yielded a truly satisfying product in some other way but it just doesn’t. Honestly, the way Mando’s objectives are parsed out and purposefully vague enough to be the start of any type of adventure, it truly feels like this is a TV adaptation of a video game. I can’t think of any show, even ones in the old west which traffic in all sorts of lawless quid-pro-quo, that feel so rote. Characters in this show promise pieces of info with the exact same words NPCs use in modern games. Quick transitional scenes like this week’s repair and last week’s speeder ride across the desert with the Marshal feel like cutscenes used to mask loading screens. Star Wars was always jankier than I’d probably like to admit but damn if the structure here isn’t some of the worst in the property.
haha. Well put!
it truly feels like this is a TV adaptation of a video gameMy 12-year-old made the same observation after this episode.
It’s a fucking Star Wars tv show.
What is your fucking point???? You have a Star Wars username for fuck’s sake?? So we should be okay with having zero expectations?Star Wars is one of the best movies of all time! There’s a reason why we’re talking about it 45 years later.Star Wars should be GOOD. Objectively, actually GOOD. Not just “fine.” Or “okay.” Or “well, what did you expect, it’s for kids.”
This show could actually be a legitimately good show if they tried. The pieces are there. It takes just a little vision. There are so many actually good shows on TV I only have time to watch maybe 5% of what interests me.
Have. Some. Fucking. Standards.
Dude. It’s just a ‘television’ show. Chill.
Mandalorian is at the upper end of Star Wars media produced over the last 43 years. The “simple” and “basic” nature of the stories and characterizations is completely of a piece with previous Star Wars movies TV shows and games. I realize “The Last Jedi” and “Rogue One” stretched the form a little bit but for the most part “Star Wars” has never been synonymous with complex characterization or with ambiguity or nuance or any of the markers of quality in “prestige TV”. The Mandalorian is definitely behind-the-times. It captures the spirit of 1977 perfectly and that’s what makes it good
It doesn’t have to have complex characterization, but it has to have SOME characterization. The show has as close to none as is basically possible.TV shows are also different animals than movies or even movie series. We’ve spent 11 episodes with the Mando now. Given the short runtime of the episodes, that at least six hours – the equivalent of the run time of the entire OT. The difference being, he’s the ONLY main character and is onscreen over 90% of the time. He has almost no personality, he hardly talks and he doesn’t even have facial expressions.Those SW characters may not have had depth, but they had charm and charisma. We get a gruff metal bucket who can’t even smile.
A straightforward, simple storyline is also okay for a movie every few years. But when it’s 11 consecutive episodes of the same old shit with little variety except setting and very little happening….it’s just seriously dull and pointless.
If you honestly think it’s dull and pointless, and I understand why you do based on what you’re saying, I’m not sure why you’d keep watchingI agree that Mando isn’t as charismatic as any of the main characters from the original trilogy but that’s the problem. Those of us of a certain generation have been chasing that initial high since Jedi first left theaters with nearly always disappointing results. Mando and the main characters in this have more charisma than basically anyone in the prequel trilogy and I’d argue more than a lot of the characters in the 2010s trilogyTo me this is a fun take on Star WArs material. AS opposed to going heavily serialized doing it like a 60s TV western that Rick Dalton might’ve acted in makes a lot of sense and I think is in many closer to the spirit of where this whole franchise started than a lot of other attempts have been
Last week you couldn’t even decide on the run times and called this series empty in content.
I’m guessing you’re just a troll account at this point.
If you’d like to engage with my posts based on their content, please do. Agree, disagree. Just post something of value. Saying “troll account” is just pointless b.s. Next time, don’t bother.
This is essentially your review of every episode of this show. Why are you still watching it?
Hot take. The was easily the worst episode so far, but still very good and better than the SJW trash we got with the last 3 movies.
Dance for me!
Wow, way to miss the point. The show is examining the Star Wars universe, not trying to weave a tapestry of mysteries and plot lines like other shows have tried and failed to do. This episode also gives us a good look at the father-son relationship that’s been growing between Mando and Baby Yoda, and how that can sometimes be a frustrating one. You have no idea what you’re talking about. A thousand downvotes.
It’s impossible to “miss the point” of a show so stunningly basic. Other shows have “failed to weave plotlines”?? What the hell are your referring to. Guess what, there are plenty of shows in existence that are actually good at what they do and are successful in “weaving mysteries and plotlines.”
What nonsense. And yet, “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Sure.
Well I guess it’s not satire and you’re the type of insufferable douchebag who gets upset when a straight, white man says “the sky is blue” because a straight, white man said it. Take your bullshit somewhere else. Does whining about something people enjoy get you off, you hipster dipshit?
Dude needs to get attention somehow, clearly noone loves him in the real world, this is probably as good as it gets for him ..
Oh boy it’s amazing how fucking bent out of shape you folks get if someone dare criticize your beloved properties. You don’t find this kind of insane reactionary vitriol in literally ANY other discussion forum on this site.
But, nope, express a less-than-favorable opinion in SW (or Star Trek) god forbid and you all lose your damn minds. Yet somehow it’s my fault.
Our beloved properties? You assume a lot.I haven’t watched anything Star Wars in years; stumbled onto the Mandalorian and have enjoyed the low-stakes silliness of it.
Also, the reason that we don’t see ‘reactionary vitriol’ of the type you seem to generate here on any other forums on this site is because you aren’t around.
You’re literally not making a damn bit of sense. I mean, zero. Apparently you’re the kind of insufferable douchebag who gets upset when someone dares criticize something you like.Good god, get some help.
I’m making perfect sense. You’re just a fucktard who has a hard time with sentences. Don’t bother replying because you’re not worth my time.
You don’t appreciate Star Wars on the same level I do.
Well, to be fair, and as far as I remember (and felt about it), one of my all-time favourite show kind of had that same quality to it (at least in some regards) : a distant main plot motivating things in the background and a very episodic aspect in the foreground every week.
I’m talking about “Justified”. Especially the first season : it felt very “crime of the week”, until the show just developped, piece by piece, into the “The Raylan’s and Boyd’s Adventures Show” later on (and got better for it, if anything).
I’m willing to let “The Mandalorian” take its time getting somewhere. Especially since everything about it is at least pleasant. Also, Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale having a guest (or cameo) role in “The Mandalorian” as a Mags Bennett-like space crime family boss would be neat, now that I think of it…! ^^
I love justified and I actually miss those standalone episodes. The one with Alan Ruck from the first season remains one of my favorite moments of that show.
I don’t think there’s any reason why, even in a heavily serialized show, you can’t occasionally have a good standalone.It definitely would have helped the Marvel netflix shows, which never managed to properly structure their seasons, as the stories were routinely stretched too thin across the season.
I just think the Mandalorian can and should do more. Not make it the dreaded “Ten hour movie” concept that you often hear thrown around, but that they just challenged themselves more to come up with more sophisticated plotting both within an episode and across a season.
I’m actually happy about this because when the showrunners for Star Wars turned the original movie into a bloated and self-important franchise that had seven movies too many and an entire “Extended Universe” that got utterly wiped out from the canon by the advent of the third trilogy, it made a mockery of serialization.I like watching a Star Wars property that has a narrative thread connecting its episodes that is thin enough to let the plot breathe on its own.I also like the feel of the show – it’s the one Star Wars property that most closely plays by the “rules” (hah!) of the original film’s universe. Star Wars’ hero’s journey was an entirely self-contained entity of a kid from a total backwater having a nearly accidental major effect on galactic politics. Everything that followed polished everything up too much, made it too arcane and glossy, and ruined (for me) the whole aesthetic (i.e. everything that happened concerned the Skywalker family, etc.).The Mandalorian feels lived-in, like Star Wars. I like that.
weren’t you here all last season complaining that this isn’t the show you would have made, and now you’re back to say the same thing week after week after week? This isn’t like pointing out that Kanye West was trying to trick black men into throwing away their votes…it isn’t something that bears repeating. You made your point! You may think you are elaborating on it, but it was a one-sentence point, which we all received, give it a rest.
The shows only real purpose is to keep the lights on at Disney+.
I’m fine with this. I wish there were more shows that didn’t take itself so damn seriously.
Oh, good god, just shut up. It’s Star Wars, and this series has been about a million times better than any other Star Wars… anything.
yeah you’re 100% correct except for the “potential” part
I’m trying to be nice! 🙂
It’s funny. I love that it’s decided to be episodic.
Glad you like it!
It’s not like The Empire Strikes Back was King Lear or something. Star Wars in general only needs to succeed in being an entertaining romp; if you want “sophisticated and meaningful” you’re looking in the wrong place.
I agree, but I have quickly made peace with that. Honestly sometimes I’m tired of deep metaphors and meaningful character arcs. Sometimes you just wanna watch a Mandalorian blow up a Krait Dragon or get chased by spiders in an ice cave, and the show delivers. It’s strangely refreshing to watch a show where the characters end up roughly in the same spot they left, and the most complicated parables hold messages like, “We should all work together, despite our differences and prejudices” or “Sometimes good deeds pay off later.”
I don’t understand why you continue to watch the show if you hate it so much. There’s plenty of other SW media to choose from.
So? What’s wrong with the Star Wars equivalent of Lone Wolf and Cub rolling into a town, fixing a problem A-Team style, and then rolling onto the next Adventuretown?
The difference is that the A-Team had a, well, team of four (or five) colorful characters with distinct personalities that bounced off each other in amusing ways.“The Mandalorian” has one guy who barely speaks and a puppet.
Someone else made the “Firefly” comparison. While I think that show is overrated at least a touch, at least it also had a solid ensemble of individual personalities.“The Mandalorian” fails both in its storytelling and character development.
Counterpoint: I found the first season to be an entertainingly well-executed throwback to the action adventure series of the ‘70s and ‘80s, with the “advancement” of a greater sense of continuity.And while I don’t think “lightly amusing, disposable Pez dispenser” is actually too far off the mark, given how low the Lucasfilm bar has dropped, I think it’s clearly the high-point their live-action productions in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy (with the arguable exception of Rogue One).
I felt the same way about season 1 and I think I’ll skip this season. Mushi-shi is an anime I want something Mandalorian to be modeled after. It’s serialized with a village of the week format and a subdued protagonist like Mandalorian. The key difference, to me, is that Mushi-shi makes the “side characters” the protagonists of the episode to tell a full short story and Mandalorian kinda leaves every character a thin sketch.
Believe it or not, back before, oh, 2000 or so, this was the norm for TV and THAT’S OK. Star Trek TNG from Season 3 onward is some of the best genre television ever made, with barely a story arc beyond a two-parter to be found.
You have to get off the ride. I did this same kind of hate watching with Walking Dead for a long time. Watch it every Sunday. Bitch about it every Monday. At some point you need to just accept that the show is never going to be what you want it to be and stop watching it just so you can complain.
Honestly I would be extremely happy with Mando being more like SNG / Kung Fu / X-Files, etc. as long as the seasons were 20-22 episodes.
I don’t agree with this take at all but I fully get why probably 50% of the folks watching this show feel the same way as you. I LOVE the decision to do a 90s style serial space western rather than double down on the mythology to do a “prestige TV” epic story that includes a web of mysteries and new mythology and character stories and converging and diverging plot points… it gives them tons of room to play with the wealth of characters and locales, both known and new, without having to spin a particularly coherent story outside of the mcguffin of “cool suit man take cute baby to somewhere + there are hijinks”.I find this show to be an nice palate cleanser after a decade of being fully absorbed in the occasionally overstuffed world of prestige TV thanks to Breaking Bad/Sopranos/Mad Men/Lost. This isn’t looking to those for a template for how to do their show, they’re looking at Cowboy Bebop (I think of all the shows, Mando is most derivative of Cowboy Bebop.)
I’d be happy with the one-off storytelling of this show if it gave us better stories. And at least a whiff of character development.In its current form, it’s exceedingly shallow. There’s no “there” there.
I mean I’d argue there is a whiff there last season, but yes the first two episodes of this season it’s pretty thin. Amy Sedaris is criminally underused, I wish she’d actually travel with him so at least one main character…yaknow….talks. I still really enjoyed the first season and am looking forward to the second, but all your complaints are totally valid. I personally find the vapidity refreshing, I guess? It’s a decent nostalgia fix and I don’t spend much time thinking about it after the episode ends. Are you going to keep watching or are you like “fuck it i’m out”?
I will keep watching because I find it mildly entertaining and it’s low commitment viewing.To compare it to that other space franchise, I gave Voyager and Enterprise each two damn full seasons before I bailed because I like the franchise and desperately WANTED it to be good. I watched Discovery 1 and 2, but I ain’t going back to that shit show. I watched all of “Lower Decks”, which was horrible at the outset, but became pretty good by the end of the first (short) season.So while I don’t really expect “Mando” to drastically improve in quality, it is still worth checking in on. If it gets much worse, though, I’ll probably let it fall away.
I will keep watching because I find it mildly entertaining and it’s low commitment viewing.Your begrudging reason for watching is my enthusiastic reason for watching. I like that I don’t have to pause if I gotta get up to do something. The music is good, Amy Sedaris is great (they were like what if Jeri Blank was a space mechanic? and did the damn thing) I like seeing new planets. Anyway, we can at least come back to this thread after each episode and you can kvetch about the things you hated and I can reply that those are the EXACT things I loved. It’ll be a whole schtick we get going in these here comments to get us through These Trying Times.
Speaking for myself, I DON’T want ‘Game of Thrones in space.’ I’m very happy with the direction of this show. It feels like Firefly with a smaller cast, in a way. I’m down with it all the way.
Christ Star Wars fans suck. Y’all just hate Star Wars. Truly.
Cracking up thinking about people who seek out Star Wars stuff for “deep meaningful story arcs” or whatever and not just for light entertainment.
It’s exactly what I like about it, it’s not as beholden to the 10-hour movie of a season schtick as so many other shows have done. I wish Picard was more episodic, the overall story just drags in the middle of the season
Such a joyless existence you must lead.
It’s like he decided after the first episode that he hated the show and was convinced that everyone else would agree with him. Then when he found out that everyone else loved it, he couldn’t understand why. So he decided it was his mission to keep watching until the public turned against the show – then he could say “See! I was right all along!”
Asking for “pings” and stopping the Razor Crest because it wasn’t up to current transponder beacon standards also shows that bureaucracy is alive and well in the New Republic, which is actually kind of amusing when you think about the larger political allegory at play.Sure, but we should also note that it’s a softer and friendlier sort of bureaucracy. It’s not that the Razor Crest’s beacon isn’t up to standards, it’s that it doesn’t exist, meaning the Republic has no idea what ship it is, and whether or not it’s Imperial.And the Razor Crest isn’t stopped exactly. The X-Wings fly alongside, inform him of the change, and say the equivalent of “yeah, we get it, just sort it out when you can, after we get a ping to make sure you’re not an enemy”. Its a treatment less hostile and obtrusive than getting pulled over for having a busted taillight.Something else to note: They don’t shift to attack position until after the ping’s notified them that the Razor Crest is connected to the prison break. At every moment this episode (aside from just leaving instead of helping Mando leave, which is understandable given all the slack they’ve already given him, and already having saved his ass), they act responsibly and maturely, and seem to show little concern that going easy on Mando would be punished.Maybe… just maybe, the good guys winning and replacing the bad guys is actually a good thing! Shocking! (at least to anyone that seems to write a lot of star wars stuff >_< )
yeah, the good guys love agencies, agencies need bureaucracies
It was odd to me, at first, that they just let Mando go, as if his good deeds somehow undid his crimes.
But then I remembered this is soon after the fall of the Empire, which means that these pilots were very likely part of the Rebellion. Which is the same group that made generals out of not one, but TWO former criminals for its pivotal operation to destroy the second Death Star and win the war. So maybe they’re not quite as by-the-book as I first assumed. And that’s kinda cool.
I read “These are trying times” as “we’ve definitely got better things to do than try to take in this Mandalorian, who will probably kick both of our asses anyway”. Their mission is to find Imperial holdouts, and there are lots of mitigating factors (that they list) which means that Mando isn’t exactly Public Enemy No.1.
I was utterly shocked by the horrible tone deafness of the “joke” of Baby Yoda eating the eggs. It was disgusting and horrifying.
I’m waiting for a statement from PETA condemning Baby Yoda.
I do wonder if there’s an angry corner of fandom that is heartbroken that this show is so removed from TLJ’s vegetarian-friendly animals-are-nice themes, and closer to the first six movies’ insistence that anything that can eat you will probably try.
No Ice Spiders or infant Frog People were harmed in the making of this episode.
And yet completely appropriate because babies will put anything — anything — in their mouths.
Seriously, you should find another show hot-take the fuck out of.
Hear, hear.
Is this supposed to be satire?
I dunno…caviar is pretty good
Trying to mask a horrifying act with cuteness is very what the fuck
I kept waiting for The Child to learn some sort of lesson about not eating the eggs, or Mando to find some sort of solution to stop him from eating the eggs, or for Frog Lady to friggin notice that her eggs are disappearing, but none of these things happened. What was the story here? I love Mandalorian filler episodes more than most, but this one was kind of not good.
“Trying to mask a horrifying act with cuteness is very what the fuck”Remember when the Ewoks wanted to eat Han? I just told myself the eggs weren’t fertilized and she was trying to get to her husband to fertilize them.
or for Frog Lady to friggin notice that her eggs are disappearingOh, she knew. You can see it at the end as she covers her egg container while glaring at the child.
They were, very specifically, unfertilized eggs. Technically no different than what you buy in the supermarket, if supermarket eggs were the unfertilized eggs of a sapient species with limited reproductive options.
I thought it was a darkly funny joke the first time, but not a very good running gag. I was really hoping they were doing something where the egg pod would be destroyed, but then all the eggs that The Child had been glorping up whole would be horked back out unharmed, showing that he’d actually been trying to help the whole time.
Instead, yeah, he’s just being a toddler who puts everything in his mouth and eats the stuff that tastes all right.
We don’t sell the eggs of humans in the supermarket, so no, it’s not the same.If you were freezing your eggs in a desperate bid to get yourself pregnant (to save your family, among other things!) and your roommate’s toddler just started tossing them in the fire, I bet you’d be pretty horrified.
If humans regularly ate human eggs, you might think differently. And the Child is not the same species as Frog Lady.
They are both sapient species, as I noted, so it’s a perfectly acceptable response to be horrified, but so far as the kid is concerned they’re just eggs. Delicious, delicious eggs.
Babies (or toddlers) will put anything and everything in their mouths. It was played as a joke. Christ, it’s really not that deep.
Yoda ate totally gross stuff. That seems to be what this species does. The child eating an unfertile egg is no different than you eating a chicken egg.
I feel the opposite, that Baby Yoda needs to be shown as not some pure soul, but like any other child, impressionable, ignorant and possibly going in the opposite direction, especially considering the violence he’s been exposed to. Dark Baby Yoda that they have to kill would be a ballsy move
Dr. Mandible might be my favorite character name on the show so far. As names go, it’s right up there with Doctor Senator and Mantis Toboggan, M.D. (and I guess there’s kind of a theme there).
I didn’t like this episode.
It really tried leaning into the comedy which seemed to be at the expense of the plot. You’ve got this reptile mom who needs transport her for eggs, and the eggs we’re told (because we have to be told) are real important. But she decides to never really be by them, this allows for baby Yoda to eat her spawn. How hilarious is that? Not a lot really, because we were told the eggs were very important.
Meanwhile, while she’s smart enough to fix a droid, she’s not smart enough to help fix the ship, or stick by said ship, and the only time she does take her eggs, it’s to put them in danger.
Oh well, hope next episode is better. So far this season has seemed too on the nose.
Agreed. The was easily the worst episode so far, but still very good and better than the SJW trash we got with the last 3 movies.
Dance for me!
this allows for baby Yoda to eat her spawn. How hilarious is that? Not a lot really, because we were told the eggs were very important.Yeah, I was waiting for some sort of reveal that Baby Yoda wasn’t actually eating the eggs but storing them in a safer place inside his body or something. I mean, they keep having him look around like he’s some sort of Little Buddha with heightened awareness of the universe. I’d like to get a better grasp on what exactly he understands of his surroundings, Mando’s directions, and his own powers (which he almost never uses anyway).
I believe, sir, this will actually end up being the case next episode.
He likes to eat frog. That is all the motivation that he needed.
I was hoping for some scene where Frog Lady realizes she’s short a few eggs, get angry at Mando, Mando scolding Baby Yoda and it would end with the child pooping out a bunch of tadpoles.
The whole thing was kind of filler-y. I didn’t like the child eating the eggs, which probably could have been handled in a more subtle way (i.e., leaving more ambiguity about whether he actually ate any) but it felt like they wanted to give us those meme-able shots of him scarfing them down. I kind of felt bad for the Frog Lady, but then it also seemed wildly irresponsible for her to just plop her eggs into a random hot spring on some unknown planet. (Was this also supposed to be some joke about a frog in boiling water not recognizing the danger she was in?) The resolution of the episode was also a head-scratcher. It felt like this was probably more fun to make than it was to watch.
thank you for making me aware of the possible frog in boiling water point, that makes the whole thing worth it 🙂
I thought baby-Yoda was at least going to spit the eggs back up, or recognize the emotions that the mother is feeling, the baby itself having Mando as a caretaker might recognize the need or want to be with a maternal figure.
But it did seem like this episode was made with gifs in mind.
I swear they had a shot where it looked like the baby did understand some of the pain the mother felt and then they still ended that scene with the baby eating another one.I’m not sure if the point is that the baby is just like an animal and pure id that we shouldn’t be ascribing too much intentionality and awareness to, or if they’re setting up that the Mandalorian is normalizing a life of violence to the baby and the idea it can just do whatever it wants/needs to survive. (The episode opened up with the black comedy beat of the baby seeing someone fall out of the sky and not reacting at all.)
I think the point was to get more baby Yoda gifs out into the internet.
They were unfertilized eggs, not embryos, that’s why she was going to be
with her husband. Basically the same as what we all eat from a store. People like complaining just for the sake to have something to complain about.
Not even just in the hot bath. Frog Lady just plops her eggs in the middle of the floor, unsecured, on the Razor Crest? Turns her back and goes to sit down where she can’t see them? Doesn’t go lunge for them when the ships starts to do evasive maneuvers? And Mando sees the kids eating them. He’s appalled. He tells BY not to eat them, closes the tank and leaves it still exposed on the floor? Frog Lady didn’t count her eggs? None of it made any sense. That was some bad tv ri’ chere. The spider stuff was pretty creepy…but it seemed like it was ripped off from The Mist…also, those fast moving spiders get pretty slow when they’r about to catch up to someone.I thought this ep was bad.
Eating sentient beings is usually not funny on its own. But there are exceptions. See Futurama and “Poplers”
Yeah, this episode just beat out the “save the village”episode as worst so far for me. Some of the stuff characters I just can’t wait to leave, and the story was pretty weak. And I don’t find giant spiders particularly frightening….
The first two episodes this season were forgettable. I found the first, Chapter 9, to be very much a repeat of Chapter 2 of the first season. Both could have been plopped into season one as filler, and we wouldn’t have known any different. They were weirdly one off, and didn’t seem part of the over arching story, nor advanced anything. Also, the two x-wing pilots were two of the pilots that arrived at the end of Chapter 6, Mando passed them, and then they blew up Ran’s station. It is a VERY small universe for two pilots to be patrolling such disparate sectors, and running into the Mando again. Or was it just Trapper Wolf again? Anyway, I have watched the first season at least three times, so to then get where we are now, I am at a loss for the lack of story content after the initial season was so fantastic! We were at a sort of cliff hanger and yet it feels like we are floundering or treading water inexplicably. Though I am happy to visit Pelin again, this episode added less to the plot than the last.
And I am really taken aback by Frog Lady’s lack of care of her eggs (in every way) and that she didn’t even seem all that aware that there were less eggs as the episode went on (until the last bit), and horrified by Child eating the last of her line, I think it would have been just as effective and still be humorous to have Mando repeatedly catch and stop the child from eating the spawn. Maybe even more funny than it was that he got away with it every time. Was it okay because the eggs were not fertilized? So it was fine as they were not embryonic? I am still having a hard time with it, it seemed a little over the line. (I am pro-choice and a bit anti-PC, if that means anything) yet I found this more than distasteful, and a bit offensive. It would have been fine if the eggs were for non-sentient beings, but eating a sentient woman’s last chance hope for children was really off-putting and shockingly tone deaf. Maybe it is just me.
You’re not alone. I’m child-free and vehemently pro-choice and this did not sit well with me.
I’m ambivalent about the whole the Child eating the eggs thing. I think they were going for a whole disturbing/funny thing and it was kind of funny in the moment but they pushed it too far. Like I get that these were unfertilized eggs so it was equivalent to humans eating chicken eggs. But they went so far to emphasize how important the eggs were to “Frog Lady” so it seemed strange to have the child eat so many just for the purposes of a joke. Like if these were her last egg maybe he was really cutting down on the possibility of her getting any egg fertilized? Overall it just seemed kind of gross and weird to have the Child eating so many of them. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the eggs weren’t presented as being so important and were the impetus for the episode to begin with
It’s still really early, and who knows, we might see all this add to something in the end, but I’ve already gotten the sense that a writer who was important to the development of the first season has stepped away.
Oh nuts, that sucks! I thought both seasons were shot at about the same time…
Both this episode and the previous one were written by Jon Favreau, so your idea that “a writer who was important to the development of the first season has stepped away” makes no sense.
“while she’s smart enough to fix a droid, she’s not smart enough to help fix the ship, or stick by said ship”Fixing a droid is the not same as fixing a ship. Just because I can repair a car’s engine doesn’t mean I can fix a computer.“or stick by said ship, and the only time she does take her eggs, it’s to put them in danger.”She said that her, and the eggs, were in danger from the cold. If she had left the eggs in the ship they probably would have frozen and died. So she went looking for someplace warm – as a reptilian species it’s not too big of a leap that she would be able to detect someplace warm near her. And she wasn’t putting the eggs in danger, she was keeping them warm so they wouldn’t freeze/die.
If last week’s episode was a B+, I can’t imagine what a turd this week’s episode must be.
The grades seem to have been switched, since this review is mostly positive and states the issues of the premiere have been mitigated.
The flamethrower was criminally underused. I’m really glad they made Amy Sedaris a regular. I was pretty concerned that it was a one-off cameo in her first episode.
As long as Bill Burr doesn’t come back. His acting was actually quite good, but that retarded Boston accent takes me out of the SW universe every time he opened his mouth.
(sip)(sip)(sipping your tears)
I had already completely forgotten his appearance. In fact, all of the characters in that episode that weren’t Din Djarin were pretty forgettable.
Don’t reply to the comments of the over-the-top racist troll impersonating a normal contributor. Dismiss his comments instead.
But every other person having a British accent in the prequels and original trilogy didn’t take you out of it?
Oof a lot of nitpicking in the comments. I think that this is my least favorite ep so far, but it was still a good episode of TV. I am concerned that Mando isn’t feeding Baby Yoda enough (or that he has the appetite of a cat, my cat who wants to be fat specifically).Just thought that it was worth mentioning that those ice spiders are called krykna. They somehow are all over the galaxy and were briefly in Rebels. Still gross.
I got a really strong “facehugger” vibe – at first – from the spider eggs – until The Child proceeded to eat one. My first thought was, “Holy $hit! Is Mando going to fight off a nest of face huggers!!! Awesome!!! My second thought was, “Don’t eat that! It’s got acid for blood!” Alas, they were just spider eggs. Talk about a missed opportunity.
It would also nicely confirm that the Prometheus crew had the intelligence of a toddler.
In addition to Alien, I was also getting strong Borderlands vibes from the ice spiders.
I thought Amy Sedaris’ character worked better this episode. Now that running into Mando on Tatooine is no big deal, she’s like, “Oh hey, it’s you. (shrug).” The ep also felt a little orally-fixated what with Momma Frog’s tongue “zip-slurps,” the Child gulping froggy eggs, and Amy gobbling roast-dragon meat. I watched it before lunch and found myself hungry for some Pho noodle soup.
Peyton Reed directed this episode and while jon favreau Wrote it they are both diehard alien fans…this whole episode was a love letter to the original movies…
This is a very good show – the writing is sharp and often very funny, the storylines are pretty entertaining, the acting (well except for Mrs. Please Log Off Twitter) is solid, and it is quite possibly the most stunningly directed and beautiful TV show ever, pioneering amazing technology that is primed to change the SFX industry forever.But, like, it feels like it’s just missing that one little element, y’know? The one thing that feels like it takes the show over the top into truly being great. I’m not sure what it is, (I fully appreciate the episodic storytelling, for the record) but there is a missing ingredient that takes if from “Pretty good” to “amazing”Maybe the show just needs to build out into more of a proper ensemble show. Mando is a likeable character but I don’t think he alone is gonna be able to carry the show for that long.
Not the greatest episode, but the puppetry on here, between the frog lady, the spiders, and Baby Yoda, was absolutely incredible.
Oh yeah. I’m a big Farscape fan and I looked at some of this stuff and thought Damn, now it really feels like 20 years.
I loved that show–it was so much fun!
I was so scared when i saw the speeder bike trap at the beginning, how few people have ever lived from those crashes?!?
But Mando nailed the landing like a champ!
I’m gushing, this is good star wars.
Good goofy fun.I just hope Baby Yoda doesn’t grow up to be Space Hannibal Lecter. He is a little stinker.
If this episode was trying to kill me with Baby Yoda cuteness, it damn near accomplished its mission.As for Frog Lady, I personally named her “Sally” because I thought she was a salamander.
Good to know I’m not the only one who thought of her as a salamander.
Baby Yoda eating babies is cute?
Eggs, unfertilized.
The most adorable form of potential genocide you can possibly have
I only figured frog because that’s what the subtitles referred to her as, and that she jumps around towards the end of the episode
I am having trouble understanding why the Manadlorians are supposed to know where Yodas come from? I haven’t gone back to watch the first season since it aired so maybe I”m forgetting something.
And I’m having trouble understanding why Mando doesn’t know where any of the other Madalorians went after they left their hideout. Didn’t they have backup plans? Didn’t he talk to them? Why would Mando be the only Mandolorian who didn’t know where the others were?
Of course I’m also unclear why Mando and other people would say “may the force be with you” and not know about Yoda. I mean, sure, it has been a few decades since he went into hiding but still, surely there’s got to be some old timer that remembers one of the heads of the Jedi council?
why the Mandalorians are supposed to know where Yodas come from?It seems to be a case of “Mando doesn’t know, and the Mandalorians are the only people he can think of asking about, plus he needs/wants to reconnect with them anyway”. Although it awfully smells like “he’s seeking the Mandalorians because the overarching script for the season says so”.Why would Mando be the only Mandalorian who didn’t know where the others were?Or else, why any single stranded Mandalorian, like the one he was hoping to meet on Tatooine, would know? surely there’s got to be some old timer that remembers one of the heads of the Jedi council?People in the galaxy (though, admittedly, usually on the poor-ridden fringes of it) not knowing about the Jedi is IMO the greatest plot hole created by the Clone Wars era, including and especially Filoni’s show, where we see Jedi roaming the galaxy and being recognized (and hated or feared or idolized) everywhere as, basically, an elite police force of super-powered mutant monks.And even if Star Wars has always been stingy about representing in-universe mass media and pop culture, we saw in the Clone Wars series that newsreels and I believe even movies do exist, and it’s hard to imagine Jedi wouldn’t be heavily fictionalized in books and paintings and through other depictions. And it’d be stuff from a few decades earlier, not lost since millennia, like the original movie seemed to imply.
And it’d be stuff from a few decades earlier, not lost since millennia, like the original movie seemed to imply.It was always just a few decades ago, ever since A New Hope. I don’t know where people got the impression that it’s been millennia since the time of the Jedi, but the original trilogy never, ever implied that. It was plainly stated in the very first film that Darth Vader helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi, and that Luke’s father was allegedly one of the victims of this purge. Since Luke it 19, it can’t be more than under 20 years since the Jedi were destroyed.
Sure, but if you miss a few lines of dialogue and/or don’t bother doing the math (both likely occurrences for a kid in a 1977 movie theater), the heavily communicated tone was of an old superstition whose memory of actually being real was lost in time and nobody believes it actually existed. It’s a trope of fantasy, it’s repeated endlessly in narratives about ancient magic resurfacing in a modern world. And both Obi-Wan and Darth Vader seemed larger-than-life enough figures to be immortal anyway (Obi-Wan as the impossibly old hermit, Vader as being “more machine than man”).Point being that it was and is still hard to reconcile recurring blanket statements about how Jedi are just a myth in the Rebellion era with the fact that they were still the galactic Avengers 20 years prior, so basically everybody older than Luke knew of them or even interacted with them (we saw in Filoni’s Clone Wars how Tarkin himself had Jedi-filled adventures, so his later skepticism becomes nonsensical).
Sure, but if you miss a few lines of dialogue and/or don’t bother doing the math (both likely occurrences for a kid in a 1977 movie theater), the heavily communicated tone was of an old superstition whose memory of actually being real was lost in time and nobody believes it actually existed. Most people had never met a Jedi or seen them in action outside holovids, and that combined with the Imperial propaganda simply made it easy to believe that they were an order of conmen who used religious doctrine as an excuse for holding massive privileges, who eventually got too greedy for power and were crushed. we saw in Filoni’s Clone Wars how Tarkin himself had Jedi-filled adventures, so his later skepticism becomes nonsensicalTarkin was never sceptical about the Jedi in A New Hope. He simply thought that they were extinct and irrelevant. Another Imperial officer mocked Vader for his “sorcerer’s ways”, but even he never claimed that Vader’s powers weren’t real, he just didn’t think that they served any practical use.
he wasnt skeptical that jedi existed, just that they STILL existed…. “The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out of the universe. You my friend are all that’s left of their religion.”
It’s consistent that no one remembers shit in this galaxy. People talk about 20 years ago like it was a million years ago. Considering how long people live, though, that sounds about right.
It’s jarring when you look at the prequels and Clone War era stuff having news reels and celebrity Jedi and whatnot, because Obi-Wan is seen by everyone as a bizarre old weirdo in the first movie. So is Darth Vader, for that matter, and by people old enough to remember the Clone War and the Jedi Order who were in charge of fighting it. The Force is a hokey old-timey religion already by that point, which is weird when one of the biggest buildings on the galaxy’s planet-wide capital city is dedicated to a temple for it.
There is clearly no Google equivalent in the Star Wars universe, because Anakin Skywalker was one of the most famous people in the Republic, and Luke grew up thinking he was a navigator on a spice freighter. Any kind of HoloNet search function or historical data-tapes about the war would bring up hours and hours of his daring adventures. Especially on the planet the famed general came from!
The solution to this discrepancy, for me, is the same advice I always suggest when it comes to Star Wars: ignore the prequels.
I could happily ignore the prequels, but not Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is still the best damn product ever appeared within the franchise.
It’s a stretch, but not a crazy stretch. It’s the equivalent of Stalin eliminating now-executed former colleagues from photographs and any official mention.
First off, as an audience our perception is skewed since, from our perspective, everything is always about the Jedi. But it’s a big universe, very, very few people actually had first-hand contact with the Jedi. Even during the Clone Wars, the Jedi mostly interacted with each other, a bunch of clones, and the droids they were wrecking by the thousands. Those that did have first-hand knowledge of them were either dead, in hiding, or had good reason to keep their mouths shut once the Empire was in control.
Even at the height of the Republic, it’s likely for most people the Jedi were already just barely believable stories of magic space-wizards. Since the Empire certainly made it a point to purge all mention or evidence of the Jedi from anything, it’s not out of the question for them to pass from a forbidden subject to a whispered myth in a relatively short period of time. This changes the perception of using “May the Force Be With You” in Ep 4 a bit, since it becomes not a statement of faith, but of defiance. You could imagine it becoming a symbolic phrase over the 20 years since the end of the Republic, starting with those who knew and remembered the Jedi and being passed by word-of-mouth to those who never had first-hand contact with them and even those who were too young to have ever really heard of them. From the perspective of someone living in that time, under the boot of the Empire, the idea that the Jedi were ever real would seem like wishful thinking from crackpots and weirdos. “Oh, yes, before these dark times, the Jedi were magic wizards who traveled the galaxy defending peace and justice. But they’re all dead, now.” “Yeah, sure buddy. Have another drink and tell me the one about Santy Claus.”
It’s not hard to believe that, once he took power, the Emperor scrubbed the HoloNet of all mentions of the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, etc – either deleting information or replacing it with fake news about how the Jedi weren’t real.
Unless he also did the same thing to the trillions of beings in the galaxy who have memories of at least 20 years ago, I’m not sure how effective that would have been.
Sure, lots of people could be scared into toeing the party line on pain of torture or death by Imperial authority. But a high-ranking Imperial officer (who’s presumably more than 30 by the look of him) calls Darth Vader a phony poser and zealot to his face on the first Death Star. He’s clearly not concerned, pre-telepathic strangulation, that there’s any validity to the claims of people like Vader having special powers.
As other already mentioned here (and in previous episodes’ comments), the galaxy is full of billions of people, and there are only 100,000 (?) Jedi Knights. So the vast majority of people in the galaxy have never seen a Jedi. To the majority of the galaxy’s inhabitants, they’ve only heard storied about the Jedi, or never heard of them at all. And for those that have heard stories, if they read “facts” on the Holonet saying that they never existed, or turned evil, most of them will say “Huh. Makes sense.”
The Mandalorians are a loose network of contacts spread across the galaxy. They can contact each other and gather information more effectively than just one guy. Djin doesn’t know where they are currently since he was separated from his group. And it’s the New Republic that made “May the Force be with you” a widespread greeting. As far as I’m aware, the phrase was mostly used by the Jedi in the Old Republic.
From my understanding, it’s not about other Mandalorians automatically knowing where they’re from, he just needs help on his quest and thinks they’re his best shot at finding others to join him.
Honestly, it’s just a plot device to ring in the Boba Fett cameo. There’s no larger mythos here they trying to expand on or anything.
“Of course I’m also unclear why Mando and other people would say “may the force be with you” and not know about Yoda.”I say “God bless you” when someone sneezes. I don’t think God will hear me and prevent demons from entering the body of the person sneezing. Plus, Mando probably just knew that was something an X-Wing pilot would say and was trying to be nice to avoid trouble.
Well I’m an arachnophobe and all the skittering ice spiders from small to big to too freakin’ big freaked me out. And I didn’t want to close my eyes unlike the spider scene from The Hobbit, so I got real queasy towards the end.
I’m gonna have nightmares tonight from, of all things, Star Wars.
While I get that the election is the most important thing happening right now, you’re being paid to write for a pop culture site — can you at least get the episode title right? Jesus.
Enjoyed the Buck Rogers / Battlestar galactica nod during the pulled-over-by-cops bit, with the (gotta be intentional) shonky vfx and the starfield scrolling in the background
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I kept expecting a similar seen between the child and Mando.“THESE ARE NOT BABY YODA EGGS!”
I really enjoyed the puppetry and the cgi was high quality, but there were a few times they went too far into CGI, especially with the child near the beginning of the episode, plus there should have been at least one clear spider puppet other than the new-embryo the baby eats. I just loved that moment of you’re like “this is definitely alien, this will definitely not end well” and then baby Yoda eats the face-hugger! I did think it was interesting that they were comfortable making us a little uncomfortable, Yoda eats both Salamander lady (don’t be speciest!) and the big spider’s babies, then they kill spidermama…that’s the way the cookie crumbles but it definitely was less family friendly. Doctor Mandible lol. As long as they keep nailing the fantastical settings and keep things moving along (adventure!) I’m in it forever, Star Wars itself has enough underlying mythos for me to give a shit about arcs.
It reminds me about Luke rebuilding the Order or Leia becoming a general, but it definitely doesn’t remind me of the First Order. Since the Mandalorian will never reach that point in the continuity, I will happily continue to ignore it forever.
i’m enjoying this season more than the first. not sure if it’s the execution, having a larger budget or simply my expectations being adjusted but it’s a lot of fun so far.i hope when (if?) they re-introduce some larger plot elements i’ll keep enjoying it. would be funny if this season had the opposite problem as last season, wherein i prefer the standalone, serialized episodes more than the story-based ones.
Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fans: “Where the hell are our ice spiders?!?!”The Mandolorian: “I got you, fam.”
Misty Rosas is also a singer!
Does Baby Yoda get any leeway points considering those eggs weren’t fertile yet? (that was the whole point of the rush of getting them to the Frog Lady’s husband, wasn’t it?!)
I have never in my life craved pickled eggs until now.
Did the Frog Lady keep count of her eggs? Did she notice that any were missing, or that The Child’s breath smelled faintly of her?
I thought it was really really cool how the ship chase had no music. That was fantastic restraint by the showrunners, and it really paid off, as it heightened the tension in a very interesting way.
I can’t be the only one who kept thinking, “you’re eating our babies! And it’s pronounced ‘guacamole’!” every time Baby Yoda went for one of those eggs.
My personal theory is that someone working on the show wanted to see if the Child is so beloved that even watching him kinda-sorta eating babies would turn the public against him.
This was easily my least favourite episode of The Mandalorian.In the pre-credits sequence, Mando manages to knock out two bandits by pulling a rifle towards himself which just – didn’t seem like it would have had enough momentum to do that.Meanwhile, the tiny metal bandit is standing next to a clump of rocks, with the Child a good ten feet away, and then suddenly he’s holding the Child but standing next to the same rock formation. Like he didn’t move and the Child teleported into his arms? It just didn’t seem like a well sketched-out action scene.
Meanwhile, Amy Sedaris happened to find a giant ant that knows where more Mandalorians are, when in the previous episode it seemed like that was *very* difficult information to come by (Mando had to string up a cyclopean crime lord to get single, threadbare lead).It stressed me out watching the Child eat those eggs. Any time he wasn’t on screen I assumed he was chowing down on them. Weird that frog lady didn’t seem to notice/care.The slower-than-light travel stuff I actually liked. It’s silly (our nearest system is 4 light years away, but this episode implies systems are less than a light week apart) but Star Wars has always been silly with this stuff so no big deal.But then it’s another monster’s den episode straight after a monster’s den episode? I didn’t hate the creature design, and I appreciate they didn’t go with a wampa-clone (or just a wampa), but the set-up just felt a bit familiar.Overall, just an episode that felt like it was transitioning from last week’s destination to next week’s without offering that much in between.
I have spent a lot of time in a lot of bars in a lot of places, and I have never in my life seen a jar of pickled eggs. I assumed this was something that had faded away in the 1950s. From Katie’s comments, I guess that’s not the case?
I’ve seen ‘em alot in the UK. Some small town bars . It used to be a bigger thing..
I’ve seen some bars. I’ve seen a jar of pickled eggs at a dive bar once, in Eastern Canada.
This show consistently looks great, but I just have trouble getting over how simplistic and underbaked the narratives are in each episode. I don’t even care about whether the show is serialized (although I’m perfectly fine with heavy, even byzantine serialization in TV shows); I just wish the individual episodes would do things for reasons other than “wouldn’t it be cool if.”
First, Larry, fuck off. This is Star Wars, not Dune. You are basically being pretentious about the quality of a Big Mac here. Or a Twinkie. You want sophisticated, seek out real scifi. Again, fuck off.As for the whole “OMG, Baby Yoda is eating eggs,” They are eggs for crying out loud. He is essentially a toddler, and we really do not know much about his species. He looks somewhat like a reptile and, guess what, reptiles eat eggs. Did you people never see The Lion King? Circle of life, folks.Overall, I liked the episode. Yes, it was a side trip, but it revealed another subtle part of the post-Empire universe, in that the New Republic is trying to root out the Empire. Personally, I am waiting for the follow up to the whole “food riots” issue. It is a journey, and we learned a lot about the Child – essentially that at an early age, Yoda’s species is pretty animalistic. Yoda was 500+ years old, and basically a Zen Buddhist. This toddler is 50. You expect him NOT to eat. Ugh.ETA – Come on, Katie, take me out of the greys. What does it take? I think your reviews are great! If Larry is out, I sure as hell deserve to be.
this episode was awesome! it scared me!
Good Lord, can there be a second discussion strictly for overthinking this show?
Does anyone else think Cowboy Bebop was just playing in the background when Favreau did this show. I keep seeing ppl pointing to Star Trek, but all I see are the real folk blues all over this. (So, Mando is derivative of Bebop which was derivative of Star Wars, which was derivative of…oh nevermind i give up.)
Bad Baby Yoda!! Eating the spawn of sentient beings is just wrong. Its not just an amusing gag. Also it was the Child who alerted all the sleeping spiders by eating one. Those repairs are coming out of his allowance until he’s at least 100. That being said, I bet those eggs were like golf ball sized caviar to the little guy.
From the first episode, the show played as it was a video game along with sidequests where only the Hero can accomplish the task (going as far as the other characters telling him so). I watch the show, but I’m not invested in it. If this wasn’t a Star Wars product, this would have been cancelled during the first season.
This is pretty much how I feel about it. If my kid wasn’t interested in it I would’ve given up a long time ago. I actually did, but started watching it again because of his interest. It’s pedestrian.
Like “Log Lady”
Ever been to a bar that has a giant jar of pickled eggs behind the counter?No. Have you? Has anyone?Is that a thing in the real world? I know it’s a thing on television. Like grocery bags that always have a baguette and cooking scenes that always include chopping carrots but I’ve been to plenty of bars and have never seen that. And even if that’s a real thing, what’s the point? Is it supposed to be like some sort of epipen for drunks?
Love the series, love everything Favreau has done with it and, well…I just kinda love the fun, interesting, amazing ride that The Mandalorian has taken us on thus far.But.I was genuinely low-key disturbed about the whole egg-eating sub-plot.To be clear: I am about as far from “Pro-Life” (*gag*) as one can possibly imagine, and I’m not looking for PETA or anybody to drop in here, but……these eggs (we’re told, in *no* uncertain terms) are *literally* the last of her race. Like, end-of-the-world, cataclysmic, existential-type shit.So the whole gag of, “OH, ISN’T HE A CUTIE-PATOOTIE? LOOKIT HIM EATING UP ALL THOSE SCRUMPTIOUS WIDDLE EGGY-WEGGIES!” fell REALLY flat for me.Anyway.On to the next episode. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Those ice spiders were bomb! How can you not be enjoying this season!!! 8.2/10
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