This really has been a lackluster start to Season 3. The Mandalorian S3 Episode 2 was another dull entry into the series third season as the episode followed nearly all of the boring tropes of the premiere.
I’ll keep this review as short as possible as there really wasn’t too much that happened in the episode. Well, other than the fact that Mando’s whole season arc is now over.
Okay, I’m sure Jon Favreau and his writers will come up with some other new goal The Mandalorian will have to accomplish, but wasn’t his whole season arc (or at least a good chunk of it) supposed to be him going to Mandalore, discovering if the planet was habitable or not, bathe in the holy waters in the Mines of Mandalore, and then return to his cult and tell them of his deeds?
That is what they set up in the last episode, along with a bunch of other things that were supposed to be a part of his “redemption” arc.
Alright, I’m getting a little too far ahead of myself.
First off, let me start this out with the journey of the episode: Mando, Grogu, and…R5-D4.
Yes, the whole “I need IG-11 to get me to Mandalore” resolution was dropped in the literal opening scene of the episode as Mando made a quick stop at everyone’s annoying mechanic, Peli. I’m not trying to sound mean or harsh, but Peli has to be another extremely annoying, unnecessary recuring character that Disney keeps trotting out for Mando to meet up with.
Just like Cid was dragging down The Bad Batch, Peli has the potential to ruin The Mandalorian if she’s an integral part of the third season. As for her role in the episode, she merely told Mando that the IG-11 droid was broken beyond repair (just like the Anzellans told him in the last episode) and gave him R5-D4, who ended up being more useful than an assassin droid ever could be, to take on the mission.
And, in the blink of an eye, the show zipped over to Mando, Grogu, and the astromech travelling to Mandalore. Enough of Peli, the better.
(Disney/Lucasfilm-The Mandalorian-Review Trailer)
Regardless, I’ve got to say that the best moments of this episode were Mando and Grogu having a “heart-to-heart” (Grogu can’t talk, but you get the idea) moments over Mando’s love and reverence for Mandalore and the history of his people.
You can really get Mando’s love and respectful fear (kind of like how God is viewed in the Christian and Jewish bible) for his people’s home world, even though he’s never set foot on the planet before this season.
Along with the fantastic CGI visuals (I’ll get to the practical effects later) of the ruins of Mandalore, these conversations and moments almost forced this episode into the 7’s. Almost.
But, like the first episode, the show is being bogged down by plot contrivances, unnecessary action sequences, poor practical effects, and a downright pitiful plot that insults the in-world characters and audiences’ intelligence.
Why R5-D4 or Mando needed to explore the darkest, deepest, and most dangerous caverns of the planet to just get a rock sample to test the toxicity of the planet is beyond me.
The entire fight sequence between Mando and those ogre-like creatures could have been completely avoided if R5-D4 just rolled over to the nearest rock (for which there were plenty) to the ship. He didn’t have to roll all the way around a rock bend, out of Mando’s line of sight, and into a pit of ogres to do so. Anyway, was it just me or was some of the practical effects really off in this episode?
R5-D4’s movement looked far worse than how R2-D2 appeared during A New Hope And The Empire Strikes Back (movies that came out over 50 years ago), the ogre creatures were stiff and obviously costumes, the action sequences were extremely dark and heavily spliced up, and the stage setting of Mandalore looked really cheap.
Like I said, the space travel, starships, and landscape shots all looked really well done, while even the other set designs (Mos Eisley, Kalevala castle) were decent. Perhaps it was the rocks or maybe the gloomy atmosphere, but the Mandalore set really wasn’t doing it for me.
Moving on, The Mandalorian really should have been killed twice in this episode.
Not only was he kidnapped by some blood-draining, underground eye monstrosity that had him captured for at least 6 in-world hours, but he also was dragged underwater by “the great mythosaur” (a Mandalorian ancient water dinosaur). I know this is Disney’s Star Wars and “no one’s ever truly gone” (what an awful line), but people can now survive getting roasted alive and being drowned by giant water dinosaurs? Seriously?
Personally, I can excuse his “should-be” death at the hands of the dinosaur as Bo-Katan (who ends up joining the crew) leaped into the water and jet-packed him out of the creature’s grasps pretty quickly but surviving the first “should-be” death is inexcusable.
First off, Grogu (a literal baby) was able to successfully navigate his way out of a massive, underground ruin, outrun flying monsters on his hover pad, and then communicate to R4-D5 they needed to get to Bo-Katan’s castle on the Mandalore moon of Kalevala is just too much plot armor for my liking. He’s still a baby, Jon Favreau, not a Jedi master.
(Disney/Lucasfilm-The Mandalorian-Review Trailer)
Then, while Grogu was flying off world with R4-D5 to Kalevala, it’s baffling how Mando was not eaten or killed by the eye-monstrosity in all of the dead time.
We literally saw dozens of empty, dusty helmets from dead mandalorians littered around the creature’s den prior to Grogu escaping. This thing waiting for 6+ hours (at the very least) to drain all of Mando’s blood and then spitfire roast him to only have the heroes to arrive just in time to save him is the textbook definition of plot armor.
I mean, how long can someone really survive being on top of a spitfire roast? 20 minutes? 10 minutes? Even in beskar armor, that fire has to be extremely hot. And that guy had to be really hungry seeing as how there’s only a giant dinosaur, unappealing ogres, and weird flying creatures around.
Anywho, the episode ended with Bo-Katan wielding the dark saber to rescue Mando, the pair survived the mythosaur, Mando “redeemed” himself by bathing in the waters, and Bo-Katan found a new way to become the ruler of Mandalore as it was prophesied earlier that one who could tame a mythosaur would rule Mandalore.
Now, I find it kind of silly how Bo-Katan, who was extremely skillful and adept with the Dark Saber and has no qualms of killing, didn’t just let Mando drown or kill him herself and claim the saber. She’s not only far more talented with the blade than Mando (who looks like he’s wielding a stack of bricks when he brings it out), but also has the ambition and claim of being Mandalore’s ruler.
The Dark Saber was supposed to be the only weapon that could give a Mandalorian a claim to the throne (aside from heritage), and now it’s being usured by some giant dinosaur? Again, another instance of plot contrivances. Furthermore, I know Disney’s making Bo-Katan into an anti-hero, but she does have a history of turning to the dark side when it suits her the most (aka: almost all of the Clone Wars).
(Disney/Lucasfilm-The Mandalorian-Review Trailer)
If this was the Clone Wars, she’d be halfway back to her castle with the Dark Saber in hand as Mando’s lifeless corpse rotted on the bank of the holy waters.
As for the episode, I’ll give it a 6.2/10 rating as it wasn’t much worse (or better) than the season’s premiere.
I don’t know what Mando’s arc is going to be now that he’s “redeemed” himself, but focusing in on Bo-Katan could be pretty interesting if she takes the dark saber. Mando is “not the only mandalorian” as Bo-Katan said.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 2: The Mines of Mandalore)
In Text Image 1: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Review | The Mandalorian | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Review | The Mandalorian | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 3: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Review | The Mandalorian | Disney+ – YouTube)
