Viewer Log: Young Justice ep 3

Moving day is always such a hassle.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a DC Thing, and given that I don’t have enough The Mandalorian episodes to get five posts this month, this feels like as good a time as any to do a write up for another episode of Young Justice. The episodes are all available on DC Universe. I know, another streaming service, but it also has all the comics, so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Last time on Young Justice, three teen superheroes in training made a shocking discovery. In a bid to impress their mentors, they went to check out a shady genetics’ lab called Cadmus. In a classic example of things spiraling out of control, they quickly discover that Cadmus has an entire army of creatures called Genomorphs under their lab, the crown jewel of which being a clone of Superman. The kids are almost replaced by clones themselves, but are saved by the clone, dubbed Superboy, whom helps them escape. They’re forced to brawl with a roided out scientist before meeting with the Justice League. Believing that the young heroes could be used on more covert missions, the Justice League approves the creation of a Team to do just that. No, to my knowledge they never give their group a better name than The Team. Let’s get to it.

Think they realize that coming out of and flying up to a
secret base is THE fastest way to make it public knowledge?

We open on the three original sidekicks trying to convince their fourth friend, Roy Harper aka Speedy, to join their new team. All while fighting a Green Arrow villain named Brick and stopping his smuggling operations. Teen heroes are great at multitasking. Roy is uninterested in another “game of pretend” as he seems to see it and storms off.

The next day the team, the Team gathers at it’s new base… which is actually an old base, Mount Justice. It’s a hollowed-out mountain that the OG Justice League worked out of back in the day. The group currently consists of Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy and the new gal Miss Martian. The kids run out to meet Red Tornado, the hero that will be there overseer at the base. They ask if he’s got a mission for them, but the android has nothing for them. Without anything else to do, Miss Martian and Superboy offer to show the others around. They live at the base, as one has no family, and the other’s all live on Mars. After the short tour the team introduce themselves to each other using their real names… well, Aqualad (Kaldur). Kid Flash (Wally West), and Miss Martian (Megan Morse) do, Robin (Dick Grayson) has orders not to and Superboy doesn’t really have any other name. Megan, trying to be encouraging, tells Superboy telepathically to keep his chin up, which infuriates Superboy. He screams at her to stay out of his head. Kid has issues with telepathy.

Why yes, Wally, it' is a little weird to think the Fem-version
of yourself is hot. Just sayin'.

In order to try and salvage the day, Megan shows the boys her bio-ship. It’s a semi-organic spaceship that responds to Megan’s thoughts. She takes the boys on a joyride. During the flight, Kaldur advises Superboy to apologize for flipping out, but he ignores him. Still trying to brighten the mood, Megan shows off her Martian shapeshifting powers. She takes on feminized forms of both Robin and Kid Flash. When asked why she did gender-bender versions instead of a complete shapeshift, Megan admits shapeshifting gender is harder than you’d think. She also admits to not being able to phase through solid objects yet, either. Robin tells her not to sweat it and reveals that Wally can’t vibrate through object like his mentor, and the last time he tried he got a nose bleed, much to Wally’s embarrassment. Their revelry is interrupted by Red Tornado telling them he got an alter form a powerplant, just before the ship is hit by a massive tornado. That can’t be good.

 The team exit the ship and enter the powerplant. Inside they’re met by a red armored figure whom dubs himself Mr. Twister. He creates tornadoes and easily tosses the teen heroes around. He belittles them as they fight, claiming to be waiting for a “Real Hero” to show up. Megan tries to read his mind, but gets nothing. She jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Twister is actually Red Tornado in disguise, as the Android is also immune to telepathy. The kids try to call him out on this, but Twister smacks them around some more, even lightning blasting Superboy. Yeah, he’s probably not Tornado. Megan calls up her bio-ship and uses it’s cloaking ability to hide them from Twister’s line of sight. He tells the group to stay away or he’ll kill them.

After they all recover, the boys decide to bench Megan, as the Martian girl is rather inexperienced when it comes to fighting, and her blunder nearly got them killed. The boys rush off to fight Twister again. While they try to stop him from destroying Happy Harbor, Megan tries to get Tornado to help. He says he won’t, as he doesn’t want to set the example of him always flying in to save the group if things get hairy. He notes that it’s rather odd that Twister seems to have very similar powers to him, and an immunity to telepathy, which gives Megan a lightbulb moment.

He's no Iron-Man, but Mr. Twister is a solid baddy.
Shame he's just a one off.

While the boys are holding their own against Twister, it seems clear that they won’t last much longer. Megan contacts them telepathically and the group forms a plan. A moment later “Red Tornado” flies in and tells the boys he’s taking over. He and Twister face off, much to Twister’s delight. Tornado is good, but Twister’s additional powers over lightning give him the edge. He seems to disable Tornado and tries to reprogram the robot using wires that extended from his fingers. That’s when it’s revealed that “Red Tornado” is Megan in disguise. They’d used her shapeshifting plus Wally running around in circles at high speed to fake Tornado’s powers. The group pummels Twister now that he’d been knocked off balance. Twister’s chest then pops open and a skinny guy falls out. Much to everyone else’s horror, Megan drops a rock on the guy, killing him. Or so it looked until Megan revealed that the pilot was also a robot. Hence why she couldn’t read his thoughts. Wally nabs one of the pilot’s robot eyes for a “souvenir.”

We cut over to a hidden lab where the pilot of the pilot is held up. It’s revealed that he works for Dr. Timothy O. Morrow (T. O. Morrow, ugh.). Dr. Marrow is the evil scientist that build Red Tornado in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy the Justice League before the machine went rogue. Marrow isn’t put out by their robotic battle suit and even more sophisticated android pilot were destroyed. Why? Because he reasons that the tracking program did work and that Red Tornado is probably within the area of Happy Harbor. Oh no.

Back at the base, the kids and Tornado examine the parts they were able to collect of Mr. Twister and the pilot. Tornado reveals that the main reason he stayed out of the fight was to help train them, so they shouldn’t expect him to help them the next time things go south. The episode closes on a sheepish Superboy apologizing to Megan.

Overall, this was an excellent continuation for Young Justice. The scale was dialed down slightly, from discovering a potentially earth shatteringly big plot to replacing Superman with a clone to the kids dealing with an exceptionally powerful villain of the week. It was also a good introduction to Megan aka Miss Martian. The episode makes it clear that she’s a bit of a bubbly weirdo, but is good natured at heart. The whole “drop a rock and seemingly kill a guy” scene was kind of shocking given what we’re shown of her here, even for someone like me rewatching the episode. I also liked that they brought up that a number of the teen heroes aren’t quite up to their mentor’s abilities. We’d established last time that Superboy doesn’t have some of Superman’s more over-the-top powers like flight or heat vision, and Megan and Wally are in a similar boat. Making the kids weaker does help build tension when they face off against threats that their mentors we know could easily dispatch. Makes things more exciting. And I like how this episode sets up a longer story arc of the Team dealing with Dr. Morrow and his obsession with getting back his rogue android. Subplots make most stories better, at least in my experience. I really like this episode, and it makes me excited to keep going through the first season of Young Justice. Not sure when I’ll post another post on that show, but it’ll probably sooner rather than later. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 4

The Hunter finds a kindred spirit, and a place to rest his weary head.

Last time on The Mandalorian, said Mandalorian fulfilled his contract and dropped the Kid off with the Imperials. And while he takes the Beskar steel and gets a new outfit out of the deal, it’s pretty clear that he’s not feeling stoked about his choice. Just before leaving to continue his lone gunslinger bit, he decides to instead do the right thing and save the Kid. Yeah, Mando, embrace your inner John Wayne! While he kills a lot of Stormtrooper and later Guildsmen, the pair of Mandalorian and Kid are almost overrun by the latter group. That is until his Mandalorian clansmen join the fray, revealing their presence on the planet. The other Mandalorians will find a new hideout for their people while The Mandalorian takes the Kid to find somewhere to hide.

Chapter 4, Sanctuary

I think he misses that carriage thing already.
Much easier to handle baby Yoda when you can lock him in
his metaphorical room.

We open on some random villagers gathering blue krill creatures. It’s a very peaceful, tranquil moment, right up until blaster fire starts raining down and a group of alien raiders attack the village. Talk about killing a mood. A woman and her daughter watch the raid occur from under a shrimping basket. The alien creatures steal the majority of the villages harvest before running back into the forest. Shockingly, the show doesn’t do the thing where the mother and child come out of hiding just to be grabbed by the enemy that they thought had just left. Little victories.

We then rejoin the Mandalorian and the Kid flying in deep space. Much like last time, the Kid feels the need to continually touch different switches and dials, much to his guardian’s annoyance. The Mandalorian detects a planet, Sorgen. It’s a planet that lacks just about any modern convenience, but isn’t a desert planet, so it’s still got a leg up on Tatooine. And I’ve sure there’s absolutely NO chance of The Mandalorian getting roped into some greater good cause here. None at all. They land and The Mandalorian leaves the Kid, somehow thinking telling the alien baby to stay will make it stay put. It’s like he hasn’t been looking after the thing for the last few days. The Kid immediately follows, so The Mandalorian just sighs and has him come along.

They arrive at some kind of old timey canteen, looking for food and lodging. He tries to pump a waitress for info on a mysterious woman he spotted staring at him, but the place is so… old timey, that the waitress doesn’t get it. He pays her extra to look after the kid while he follows after the disappearing woman. He finds her out back and the two warriors start fist fighting. They end up knocking each other to the ground with their blasters to each other’s head, with the Kid watching while eating a little bowl of soup. I burst out laughing at that reveal. They go back in for soup. We find out she’s an ex-soldier, having worked for the as mercenary muscle for the rebellion before the Empire fell. After the Empire’s fall, she kept up the mercenary work, she’s vague about it, but it’s clear her work would be enough for the Bounty Hunter’s Guild to be interested in her bounty. She assumed he’d come to get a bounty on her, hence why she tried to cave in his skull. The Mandalorian has no hard feelings, though. She tells him to move on, as the Sogren is really only big enough for one drifter to hide out on.

So. Damn. Cute. Even in incredibly tense situations.

That night a pair of fellows approach the Mandalorian while he’s performing maintenance on his ship. They’re looking to pay him to take of the raiders. Not going to lie, approaching a member of a super soldier warrior clan to take care of your enemies is a good idea, in theory. The Mandalorian really isn’t into doing charity work, as he sees it, as the village couldn’t possibly have enough to pay him to do that kind of job. He tries to brush them off, but their whining about farming in the middle of nowhere piques his interest. He takes their credits and pays the soldier, Cara Dune, to help him out. The Mandalorian is pretty confident that the two of them can handle anything that the raiders might throw. Side note, given what happened last time, I’m shocked ol’ Mando is willing to leave his ship unattended. What if there are forest Jawas?

The now trio arrive in the village and begin setting up shop. The woman from the opening, Omera, sets up The Mandalorian in her barn. She introduces her daughter, Winta, to the Mandalorian. The little girl clearly takes an immediate shine to the Kid… as her mother does to a certain stoic warrior. The Mandalorian starts performing maintenance on his rifle when the two return to bring him lunch. Winta wants to play the Kid, which The Mandalorian allows. Way to not be a helicopter dad, Mando. With the kids gone, Omera asks a very personal question of the Mandalorian… how long since he’s taken off his helmet. The Mandalorian reveals that he’s worn his helmet in public since he was around the children’s age, when the Mandalorian adopted him. He does take it off when alone, but only when alone. Omera leaves him, and once he’s alone, Mando removes his helmet and starts eating.

Later on, The Mandalorian and Cara start investigating the raiders line of attack. Things seem normal… right up until they see the footprints of an Imperial Walker, an AT-ST. Oh no. They go back to the villagers and he tells them “They can’t live here anymore.” Cara takes over explaining (good call there) that the AT-ST pretty much makes it impossible for them to stay in the area, as that sort of heavy weapon pretty much guarantees that the Raiders will win any battle. The Villagers don’t seem to take the hint, wanting to stay and fight. For some reason, this gets the Mandalorian to agree to keep helping. I guess he responds well to gumption, and Cara technically works for him, so she’s in too. They have the villagers start setting up traps and give them basic training in weapons and marksmanship. Only Omera is any kind of a shot, what a shock. The plan is to get the villagers just good enough to distract the raiders while the actual mercenaries focus on the AT-ST. At night fall, they move out.

Huh, this seems way scarier than it did back on Endor...

The Mandalorian and Cara start their raided, planting explosives in the Raider’s armory. They lure in and kill a few more of them, and repeat the process while their explosive cycles down. They escape just as the bomb goes off. The Raiders pull out their AT-ST, which is much scarier than I remember them looking on Endor. They do their best to serpentine around the AT-ST’s shots as they run through the forest. They make it back to camp, and prepare their troops for battle. Unfortunately, the AT-ST pilot seems to be too smart to step into the pond they booby trapped. It switches on it’s search light and sets a building ablaze before the raiders charge. The villagers start firing on the Raiders, while The Mandalorian and Cara try to figure out how to make the AT-ST step forward. Cara takes The Mandalorian’s pulse rifle, runs in and takes careful shots at the AT-ST with it just at the edge of the water. She actually is able to shoot it in the eye, which proved to be all they needed to get it to step forward and pitch sideways. The Mandalorian then runs up and thermo-grenades it into oblivion. I don’t think the raiders will be a problem any more.

The next day, everyone enjoys the peace that their mission created. Cara and The Mandalorian watch the Kid and kids play for a bit. Cara asks about what happens if he takes the Helmet off in front of people, to which he says that the only thing that happens is that he can’t put it on again. Which is a much bigger deal when you think about it for a second and realize that, for a Mandalorian, that kind of means you’re giving up your heritage. The Mandalorian plans to move on in a few days, given how their antics will draw people’s attention, but he’s going to leave the Kid. The Mandalorian seems to think he’ll be safe.

A mysterious figure, meanwhile, is tracking through the forest using one of their locator fobs.

Omera tries to convince the Mandalorian to stay, but he can’t bring himself to do it. While they’re talking the mysterious figure has a rifle out and pointed at the crowd. He fires at the Kid. Or almost does. Cara got him first. I think I love this woman. They find the Fob, and realize what that means. No peaceful life for The Mandalorian or the Kid. Cara offers to come with him, but he tells her to go her own way, as they’re heading for the “Razercrest.” They have a sort of “We’ll see you again” moment, before she starts hiking off on her own. The villagers all wave goodbye as The Mandalorian and the Kid ride off.

Anybody shocked that I got a serious Magnificent Seven vibe from this episode? Though I guess Dynamic Duo or Terrific Trio would be a more accurate title in this case. Mercenaries are hired by a small town being squeezed out by people of ill repute to take care of their enemies, seems an on-point comparison. Spoiler for the Magnificent Seven if you haven’t seen it. Hell, the main difference is that everyone makes it out alive. I liked the addition of Cara Dune, and hope she doesn’t end up being a one off. She’s a brawler but also a crack shot, what’s not to love? We got just enough of her so that Cara is about as mysterious as her stoic friend, the Mandalorian, with the obvious exception that we’ve seen her face. I think she and the Mandalorian would work well together in most situations, and am willing to bet that he’ll probably need back up again in the near future. My only real complaint for the episode is that the hint of romantic feelings forming between Omera and the Mandalorian feels a bit rushed. They throw in a few lines about the group being in town for several weeks, but if you missed those lines, you could be forgiven for thinking that Omera seemed to have developed a pretty strong attachment to what amounts to a talking suit of armor in just over two days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with quick romances, but maybe show a bit more than she being curious about his helmet and being a crack shot before you try to make me believe that The Mandalorian seriously considered taking off his helmet, forgoing his people, to stay with her. It’s a bit much to swallow. But then again, that’s a minor nitpick at best. I’m looking forward to next weeks episode already. Have a goodnight everybody. 

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 3

The Mandalorian isn't big on letting things go, it seems.

Last time on The Mandalorian, the job just got a little more complicated. After finding the target, which turned out to be a baby of the same species as the late great Master Yoda, The Mandalorian swiftly executed his short lived partner IG11 and took custody of it. He had to fend off a few lesser hunters trying to steal the bounty from him, only to find out that his ship had been chop shopped by a bunch of local Jawas. With the help of the Ugnaught Kuiil, he brokered a deal with the Jawas, he gets them a special egg, he gets his parts back. The only part they neglected to mention that it was the egg of a giant mud rhino. The Mandalorian was pretty beaten up by the beast and is only saved by the child revealing it has force powers. They’re able to get the parts back and with Kuiil’s help get the ship space worthy again. They fly off into the blackness of space.

Chapter 3, The Sin

Like most parents on a road trip, the Mandalorian learns that
sometimes it's just easier to give the kid what he wants.

So, the Mandalorian and the Kid make it back to orbit around his home planet. After reenacting every “parent says don’t touch that, the kid touches it anyway” scene involving a little silver ball at the end of one of his control switches, they land. He immediately takes the Kid to the Imperials… huh, not conflicted even a little, eh, Mandalorian? The Client and Dr. Preshing are both extremely excited to get the little guy. And I of course am not totally sensing nefarious intent from these two. None at all. He’s given the Beskar Steel, and told to be on his way. The Mandalorian does ask what they’re going to do with the Kid, but just gets reminded of the Guild’s stance on such questions. Don’t ask them. Okay, so maybe he’s a little conflicted about leaving the Kid with him.

When you bring mom home a prize, and your big brothers
show up to ensure you don't get a swelled head. Pretty much
anyway.

He takes the Beskar steel back to the Armorer. She’s quite excited to get the rather sizeable amount of Beskar back, but his brother Mandalorians are less than pleased to hear one of their own has been dealing with Imperials. We get more vague references to a Purge that happened some years back, which greatly reduced the Mandalorian numbers. This is what drove the warriors into hiding and why they try to only send up their kind one at a time to hide their true numbers. Must really suck when one is off planet for weeks at a time and no one else can go out. Just sayin’. Our Mandalorian and the other’s almost kill each other, before the Armorer makes them back down. Given what she says, I guess the Mandalorians adopted a new tradition of never removing their helmets. I say new because I can name several Mandalorians Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Sabine Wren, Duchess Satine Kryze, and Pre Vizsla, all of whom are still canonical that showed their faces quite often. Anyway, the Mandalorian asks that his portion of the Beskar be used to make him a new set of armor, as his was badly damaged by the Mudhorn beast last episode. The Armorer is very impressed by this and offers to make the beast his personal signet, but he refuses as “an enemy” helped him kill the beast. How could anything as cute as the Kid be someone’s enemy? It’s impossible. Instead of a signet, she uses the left-over metal to make him Whistling Birds, a special ammo used against multiple enemies. Huh, I wonder if that will factor back in. Just like when she forged his shoulder pad, the forging process caused the Mandalorian to flash back to some kind of massacre that killed his family. It ends just as a droid appears to kill the young Mandalorian.

Gotta use context clues to figure out if this is him conflicted.
happy, sad, annoyed, tired, or hungry.

The Mandalorian goes out in his new duds to meet Karga, who is in a fairly happy mood himself. He got a piece of Beskar as part of his reward for contracting the Mandalorian. He offers to take ol “Mando” as he refers to him out to celebrate, but The Mandalorian just wants more work. He gets fobs for more contracts, gets on his ship, and almost takes off, before noticing the little silver ball is off of one of his control switches. That apparently was the straw that broke the camels back and causes the Mandalorian to shut down the engines and run off to save his little green friend. Apparently, he was way more conflicted than he let on.

The Mandalorian uses his rifle and some surveillance gear to listen into the Imperials plans. Preshing seems to be trying to protect the little guy, but the Client wants him to just him to extract the needed DNA and run. The Mandalorian begins his attack by ripping off their front camera and drawing a few guards out. He then walks around to the back door, blows an enormous hole in it and starts assaulting the base. He easily dispatches several Stormtroopers as he descends into the bowls of the beast. He takes the Kid, but spares Preshing, as the doctor seemed to have done his best to try and protect the Kid. The Mandalorian kills several more Stormtroopers as he escapes, even using the Whistling Birds from earlier to dispatch a large group.

How many years of Mandalorianing do you think you have to
put in to get the jetpack? Because I want to do exactly that amount
of Mandalorianing.

Once outside, I guess that the Client called a hit out on The Mandalorian. Every bounty hunter on the planet, including Karga. They force the Mandalorian into a corner, so to speak, and things start to look very grim for out faceless hero. Right until all of the other Mandalorians that were in hiding fly in on Jetpacks and start wasting EVERYBODY. The big guy that the Mandalorian was fighting with earlier tells him to run. The Mandalorian points out that by coming to save him, they’ve revealed that there are a LOT more Mandalorians in the area besides him. Big Guy kind of shrugs and tells him to get moving. Karga follows the Mandalorian and tries to get him before he can take off. The Mandalorian shoots him and drops him from the ship. He flies off, and then it’s revealed Karga is still alive, as the Mandalorian either intentionally or accidentally shot him in the piece of Beskar steel Karga was keeping in his shirt. The Mandalorian sees Big Guy fly by his ship for a sec to give him a sendoff, laments that he needs to get one of those jetpacks, and then gives the Kid the silver ball to play with.

This episode did a good job show casing what a bad ass the Mandalorian is. He mows down Stormtroopers, beats the heck out of his fellow bounty hunters and is a general bad ass throughout. Well, excluding the parts like almost selling out the Kid forever. The best moment that showcase his confliction was right at the end when he almost took off, but the thing that stopped him was that missing ball bit. Despite the mask, I could all but feel Pedro Pascal’s writhing emotions as he judged what to do. Side note, that was a very Mandalorian thing to do, take the prize offered to him but then immediately turn around and steal back what he’d just handed over. Mandalor would be proud. And while that final bit where the other Mandalorians showed up to save him was a little hokey, it did show off how dangerous they can be as a group. Mandalorians are like any warrior culture but in space. They’re the Spartans, the Immortals, the Spetsnaz, the Marines, warriors trained to kill and to kill super well. A group of them could overwhelm a force twice or three times the size of theirs. It was really cool to get a hint of that fighting power when we saw what could only have been about a half dozen of them shooting down dozens of Guild bounty hunters. I wonder if Karga surviving will have any significant to the plot? He’s Carl Weathers, so I guess the answer is maybe? Who knows? And that’s all I have to say about that.

I’ll for sure have episode four out by the end of the month. We’ll see if I can squeeze one more post in after that. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 2

After today, I think the Mandalorian will have a serious grudge against Jawas forever.

Last time on The Mandalorian, a stoic Mandalorian bounty hunter was given a seemingly impossible mission. To travel to some backwater planet and capture, or kill if he’s forced to, a target that has eluded capture for fifty years. Hm… let’s see, The Galactic Empire lasted for about twenty-five years, it’s five or six years after that, and Emperor Palpatine was Chancellor Palpatine for about twelve years before the conversion… I guess someone had been hunting this target since before Palpatine even began puppeteering things… If someone has a more definitive timeline, please let me know. Anyway, he goes hunting on a backwater world, temporarily teams up with an IG bounty hunter unit, before killing it. Either to protect the child from the IG unit, as it was ordered to kill the target, or to keep the prize to himself. And what was the target? An infant of the same species as Yoda. Hm… I realize that if he gets to live to be 900 like Yoda, that fifty years will be like five percent of his life span, but still, damn, that’s a long time to be a baby. Just sayin’. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Chapter 2, The Child

The Mandalorian and the kid start walking back to his ship. Well, he’s walking, the kid has something like a floating carriage thing.  Apparently, the trail to the temple required a Blurgg, the path from, not so much. They’re ambushed by some other bounty hunters, Trandoshans (Lizard looking guys). It’s a challenging fight for the Mandalorian but he’s able to over power and kill the reptilians, finishing the last one off by vaporizing it with his rifle. I’m not a huge fan of guns, but even I would love a combination vaporizing plasma rifle and stun staff.

In the evening by the fire, the Mandelorian does some field medicine on the wound he took in the arm during the fight and some basic repairs to his armor. The Child gets out of the carriage and reaches out to him. As someone versed in a little of the Jedi arts, I think it’s clear that the little guy was reaching out and trying to heal the Mandelorian through the force. He either doesn’t get it, or maybe the Child was just pointing at the wound. He picks the kid up and sticks him back in the carriage. He has to do this a second time before the Mandelorian seals him in for the night.

He's movin' on up, to the East Side!

They make it back to his ship to discover it’s already being stripped for parts by Jawas. Those little buggers are everywhere and they work fast. The Mandalorian shoots a few of them before they get in the Sand Crawler and try to scram. He leaps onto the Sand Crawler and tries to make his way to the top. Keep in mind, Sand Crawlers are the Jawas mobile fortress. The fact he’s even able to get on it is something of a miracle. He fights his way to the top, only to see about a dozen of the buggers pointing guns at him. He’s hit, knocked off the side and passes out from the electrocution. He wakes up some time later, the Child watching him and the Sand Crawler out of sight. He goes back to his ship to find it’s been stripped of pretty much everything. He and the child go to Nick Nolte… I mean Kuiil’s place seeking aid. Kuiil helps him make a few minor repairs to his armor, and convinces The Mandalorian to try and trade for his ship’s parts back. He’s… annoyed at the thought of bartering for parts they literally just stole from him, but agrees.

Or not...

The next day they reach the Jawa’s Crawler. They agree to barter, but only if the Mandalorian disarms himself. This goes against Mandalorian custom, as weapons are part of their religion, but he does so… angrily. After some heated words in Jawan, tee hee, you’ll get the pun when you see the scene, they agree to give him the parts in exchange for The Egg. He agrees, and the little blighters give him a lift to the cave of the egg.

He makes it to this little valley with a cave in the back wall. He goes inside, and get’s ROCKED by a… wooly… rhino? Okay, it’s not really a wooly rhino but this alien horned beast looks bizarrely similar. It’s like if a wooly rhino took some kind of steroid injection that made it’s horn enormous. The creature charges out after him. The Mandalorian tries to shoot at it, but his rifle is jammed with mud. He gets slammed to the ground by the beast, which seems only mildly annoyed by his flamethrower when the Mandalorian tries to burn it. It charges and slams him to the ground again, really ringing his metaphorical bell. I’m not sure if his chest plate is Beskar steel, but if so that Rhino hits hard enough to crack it and then some. His armor can’t take another hit, his weapons are either damaged or ineffective, and the beast is charging again. The Mandalorian pulls out a knife, expecting to die, but the charge is halted as the Child lifts his hand, and the beast starts floating upward. As a little green man once said, size matters not.  But the little guy only has so much strength. He drops the creature, but the Mandelorian is able to stick it in the jugular, or whatever the giant mud rhino equivalent is, killing it. He goes to check on the Child, to see him passed out.

He grabs the egg from the mud rhino’s nest and takes it back to the Jawas. The Mandalorian arrives just as the little shysters were about to roll out. They take the egg, crack it open and start eating it… well, that was a lot of work get them a hearty snack.

Size is insignificant compared to the power of the Force.

The Mandalorian and Kuiil return to his ship. The Child is still out for the entire trip back. With Kuiil’s help, they are able to get his ship up and running again. Not sure how much time passes, as they do kind of a weird edit to it, but it’s clear the kid is out the whole time. Once the ship is up and running, The Mandalorian offers Kuiil part of the reward, and then a job as thanks, but the little Urgnaught turns him down for both. He wishes the hunter luck, though. The Mandelorian takes off. Once out in space, the Child begins to stir again. Which is good, it means the Mandelorian will get full pay for it. Woo.

This was a solid follow up to the first episode. It had a good balance of action scenes, like the Mandalorian fighting the Trandoshans, Jawas, and Mud beast, and more character moments, like his quickly established but nonetheless real bond with Kuiil, and to a lesser extent to the Child. Speaking of, that little Green Gremlin is freaking adorable. It’s like if Gizmo from Gremlins had a child that wasn’t a homicidal monster. Just saying. Now, as the Child is of the same species as Yoda, the fact that he manifests Force powers doesn’t feel too shocking, but it was still chilling to see him Force lift the Rhino into the air. From what I’ve seen, lifting more than rocks takes a fair amount of training, so for a literal baby to lift a minimum thousand-pound beast, that speaks to an insane affinity to the Force. I can see why the Empire remnants might want him, and will be deeply concerned if they do. This was also a good episode to show case how human the Mandalorian is. Last episode, we mostly saw him kick ass, be stoic and stern, and shoot stuff. That’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t make for a very interesting character. This time, we got to see him lose his cool on Jawas, get shot, dropped and outmaneuvered by said Jawas, and nearly impaled by a monster. That’s some more exciting television, I tell you what. So, The Mandalorian has now gotten his quarry onto his ship and is making his way home. I’m looking forward to sharing how the prisoner trade off is handled. See you next time. 

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 1

The hunter is shown his next prey.

For those of you that have just returned to civilization after spending the last few years living on a desert island and befriending a beach volley ball, Disney just launched its own streaming service, Disney+. We can talk about how this new model of every major film studio and/or cable network having their own streaming service is inherently unsustainable another day. As part of the release, Disney premiered its latest entry in the Star Wars mythos, The Mandelorian. The story follows a Mandelorian bounty hunter whom gets wrapped up in a situation far, far larger than he probably could have ever imagined. Let’s get to it.

Boba Fett, eat your heart out.

This story takes place about five years after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Things are a bit… unstable, which is pretty common after major political upheavals. I assume Luke and Leia and all their friends are busy rebuilding the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate, so odds are we won’t be seeing them. Which is convenient, given how the last few years have been. The story proper opens to a bar scene, where several aliens are prepping to torture a blue alien for not paying off his gambling debt. In walks The Mandelorian. I do hope they reveal what his bloody name is soon, as typing Mandelorian over and over again gets kind of tedious. Anyway, the Mandelorian draws the attention of everyone in the room. You don’t see many folks dressing in the Mandelorian style anymore. The goons try to pick a fight with him, the Mandelorian ignores them until they try to touch him. Never. Touch. A. Mandelorian. What follows is one of the most one-sided barfights I’ve seen in a while. He kills them all, one dude even gets sliced in half by a door, and then approaches the blue guy. Yeah, turns out Blue Face had a sizable bounty on his head, and the Mandelorian is here to collect. Blue Guy tries to talk his way out of it, but the Mandelorian just tells him “I can bring you in warm. Or I can bring you in cold.” Bad ass!

After an uneventful speeder ride back to Mandelorian’s ship, which ends with the ship being attack by a massive walrus looking beast that he has to tase to make it let go, they fly off into the wild black yonder. The Mandelorian isn’t much of a conversationalist, nor does he seem too concerned with keeping Blue Guy imprisoned, so Blue Guy asks to use the rest room. What a shock, he’s actually looking for the escape pod. He sees that the Mandelorian is a collector of weaponry and… carbonite… slabs… The Mandelorian sneaks up on him, grabs him and tosses him into a portable carbonite freezing chamber. Dude could have probably just forced him into the pod as soon as the super-walrus was taken care of, but there you go.

He arrives home and meets with his bounty hunter guild contact, Apollo Creed. Sorry, sorry, he’s just played by Carl Weathers. He’s actually named Greef Karga. The Mandelorian asks if they have any other high paying contracts, but Karga only has jobs that won’t even pay for the fuel to get to the star systems in question. Karga tells him that he does know of one… under the table contract to take. Somebody is willing to pay big bucks but isn’t willing to go through the direct channels. The Mandelorian takes the pass Karga offers him and goes to meet with his potential client.

These two have a weird but fun chemistry. Shame what happens
to IG-11

While we can’t see his face through the helmet, but I have to imagine that he was quite shocked to see that his client’s guards are some incredibly dirty looking Stormtroopers. The client, played by Werner Herzog, wants the Mandelorian to take care of a fifty-year-old target. Not sure how that could be, considering the Empire was less than thirty when it fell, unless Palpatine had an eye on this target when he was still just Supreme Chancellor. Who knows? Anyway, the Client seems to not care what happens to the target, but his science advisor Dr. Pershing is quite insistent that the Mandelorian brings the target back alive. The payment is going to be in Beskar Steel. The metal has some kind of significance to the Mandalorian, or so the Client seems to hint at. The Mandelorian takes the job.

He takes the Beskar steel bar that he received as a down payment to a secret forge. There, a mysterious Mandelorian called the Armorer takes the bar and forges it into a new pauldron for him. While they don’t say it, the way the scene is shot makes me think forging Beskar steel is something akin to sacred amongst the Mandelorians. He takes the new pauldron on his right shoulder and takes off. 

The Mandelorian flies out to Arvala-7, a desert planet to take out the target. He’s almost immediately attacked by some local fauna, Blurggs. He’s almost torn to pieces by two of them, but is saved by Kuiil, an Ugnaught moisture farmer. Oddly, this Ugnaught goes against tradition and instead of talking in oinks and grunts, speaks with Nick Nolte’s voice. Neat. Kuiil takes the Mandelorian home and explains a bit about his target. Namely that the target had been on Arvala for fifty years and no one has ever gotten close enough to nab it. He offers to take the Mandelorian to the temple where it is held up, provided that he can ride a Blurgg. Apparently, the way is too treacherous to go on foot. And somehow the Mandelorian’s ship won’t do… because reasons.

After a failed first attempt to mount, he’s able to get on the beast and they get on their way. The Mandelorian goes on ahead by himself, only to find out that another bounty hunter beat him to the punch by like five minutes. It’s an IG model, IG-11. It’s the same model as the robot bounty hunter from Empire Strikes Back. The two team up, and are able to kill all of the guards. They make their way inside and find… a… baby… Yoda? Holy Crap! I was originally not going to spoil that, but the internet circulated this little guy’s image faster than rumors of the latest Marvel movies. I’m not sure if he realizes how big a deal this little guy is, but he knows it’s a big enough deal that the Mandelorian shoots and kills… er deactivates IG-11, to keep the reward for himself.

I really liked this show. It has a real western vibe to it that I really dig. I blame my father and his love of John Wayne films for that. A lone gunslinger trying to find his way in an unforgiving world, I just eat it up. Pedro Pascal, the titular Mandelorian does an amazing job in his role as the stoic Mandelorian bounty hunter.  All we really learn about him is that he seems to have an issue with droids, and he was a “foundling” amongst the Mandelorian. I believe this means that he’s not a Mandelorian by birth but by upbringing. But I’m not sure what the rules are in the post Episode 7 Star Wars expanded universe. They threw out a LOT of the old rules when they decided that only the movies and a couple of the TV shows are canon.  I imagine that it’s incredibly hard to really act when your face is covered 100% of the time, but Pedro does his damnedest. He’s a solid fighter in most situations, but I get the sense that he hasn’t spent much time roughing it on less civilized planets. Or maybe he was just having an off day when the Blurgg’s snuck up on him. Some of the effects are kind of so-so, but the show overall makes up for it. The story, I think, will be one of the highlights of this new Star Wars era. Or at least I’m really, really, really hoping it will be. Don’t drop the ball, guys!

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