Last time on The Mandalorian, the
Mercenary and the kid found a planet that they might have liked to settle down
on. Sorgen, home of a few farming villages, blue krill, and a group of
bloodthirsty raiders and their AT-ST walker. Oo… Mando gets roped in to helping
a small farming village protect themselves from the raiders and recruits
another merc on the run, Cara Dune, to help in the fight. In classic western
fashion, Mando and Cara get the villagers into… well, not fighting shape but
close enough, and they’re able to drive off the raiders and destroy their
AT-ST. Mando considers leaving the kid on Sorgen, and possibly taking off his
helmet and giving up being a Mandalorian to be with a kind widow, but has to
stow that plan when it’s clear that the Bounty Hunters Guild is still after the
Kid. I think he thought he was the target, hence why leaving the kid in
paradise seemed like a good idea. He and the kid parted ways with Cara and
their chance at peace. Let’s get to it.
Chapter 5: The Gunslinger
Apparently, the “Razercrest” that
was mentioned last time on Sorgen was just where Mando parked his ship, because
we open this episode in space during a dog fight. The other ship does well
against Mando’s ride, right up to the point where the other bounty hunter gives
the “I can bring you in hot, or I can bring you in cold,” line that Mando
delivered in the first episode. This pisses the Mandalorian off something
fierce, maybe, but definitely causes him to fly better, out maneuvering his
opponent and turning him into space dust. Their ship, unfortunately, is badly
damaged and Mando has to land on the nearest planet to get repairs.
Unfortunately, the nearest planet is the one that’s farthest from the bright,
shining center of the universe. Yeah, it’s Tattooine.
 |
| Never thought I'd think of the Three Stooges and Episode 1 at the same time... |
He lands in a repair shop on the
planet’s surface. He tucks the tuckered-out child in a storage closet and goes
out to meet the person in charge of the repair depot. It’s run by an eccentric
woman named Peli Motto. His ship is in need of a number of repairs, most likely
due to being on the run for several weeks, and while he has money, apparently
500 Imperial Credits don’t carry the same weight after two blown up Death Stars,
and two dead Sith Lords. It’s really only enough to get him use of the hanger.
He tells her he’ll get the money, so long as she remembers to not use the
droids on his ship. He goes out looking for work.
He goes outside and sees a LOT of
stormtrooper helmets on pikes. Dark. While he’s gone, a poker playing Peli and
her droids find the Child when he wakes up from his nap. She seems pretty
instantly smitten with the kid, like most of us, and decides to look after him
while the Mandalorian is out. She tells the Child she is going to look after
him and charge him extra for babysitting. Clever loon.
Mando arrives at a cantina and asks
the droid bartender if there is any local “hunter” work. The bartender says
that since the Guild no longer operates out of Tattooine, there’s not much
there. A young bounty hunter named Toro Calican overhears and offers The
Mandalorian a cut of his bounty if he helps Toro bring her in. His target is
Fennec Shand, an assassin that worked for the empire. Mando isn’t interested in
helping, as Fennec Shand is an omega level badass. He does agree to help Toro
when the kid offers to let him have the whole bounty, so long as he gets the
credit. Turns out, he’s actually not in the Bounty Hunters Guild, but wants to
and thinks Shand will be his ticket in. Mando agrees and tells Toro to meet him
at his hanger in half an hour. And for him to bring two speeders. Mando tries
to also take the tracking fob, but Toro smashes it. You know, to ensure Mando
doesn’t cut him out of the deal.
The Mandalorian returns to his ship
to find the Kid gone. He freaks out, until Peli comes out with him. She scolds
him for poor parenting, but Mando, I think, is too relieved upon see him to get
too pissed. She started to work on the repairs, believing that since he has an
infant to look after, the Mandalorian would absolutely find money to feed it.
She follows Mando out, clearly trying to extort more money out of him, as he
meets Toro. Mando loads up his speeder, and asks Peli to look after the kid for
him while he’s out.
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| I was 100% not prepared for this scene to end with a peaceful trade, no honking screams and gaffi stick waving. |
The two hunters travel across the
dune sea on their speederbikes. After
some travel, they come across some Banthas and Tusken Raiders. Sand People
still aren’t SUPER fond of non-natives. Toro tries to sound tough, insulting
the Raiders, while not realizing two snuck up on them while his back was
turned. Mando is able to speak with them using sign language… huh, I suppose
that’s easier on the throat than the honking they do, and negotiate a passage
price for the two of them. Turns out they just wanted his binoculars.
Considering how often the Raiders have been show to be “Shoot first, ask
questions never” type, I’m with Mando in thinking that the binoculars are a
cheap price for passage, just saying.
After the least violent interaction
that I’ve seen involving Tusken Raiders, EVER, they shortly there after find a
dewback and a dead rider. He’s another bounty hunter that got dropped in
pursuit of the bounty. Shand takes several sniper shots at Mando from a ridge
nearby, thankfully his Beskar armor protects him from the shots. He makes it
back to Toro and tells the kid they’ll go after Shand after dark. Toro isn’t
stoked on the plan, but goes along with Mando.
After Suns set, Mando reveals his
plan. Basically, they’re going to rush Shand’s position on their speederbikes, occasionally
setting off flares to disrupt her heat vision scope. Mando’s bike takes a disabling
hit when one of the flairs fails to go off, and he crashes, but he’s able to walk
away from the crash. He sets off another flare to let Toro get the rest of the
way there, and takes another shot to his chest plate. Toro makes it to Shand’s
position, and the two get in a fist fight. Shand outclasses the kid in just
about every way, but Mando walks up and pulls a blaster on her before she can
do more than almost dislocate Toro’s arm. Woo.
Realizing that they’re down to just
one speederbike, the partners decide to collect that dewback from earlier as an
extra bit of transport. Mando goes to do it, leaving the rookie with an expert
assassin. What. Could. Possibly. Go. Wrong? A few hours Shand tries to convince
Toro to let her go, offering him double the bounty if he gets her to her rendezvous
point. When he makes it clear he’s more interested in the glory than the money,
she drops a bigger bombshell on the rookie, that his Mando is a traitor to the
Bounty Hunter’s guild he’s so into, and capturing him and his little green
friend would be worth so much more glory than even her. Toro, being an idiot,
decides that he’ll bring the Mandalorian and his alien in. But, not being a complete
imbecile, he shoots and kills Shand rather than try to work with someone who could
easily murder him and he has no leverage on. The Mandalorian returns shortly
there after on the dewback and sees the corpse.
 |
| Want to know the secret to a long life? Don't threaten things important to someone that can kill you with negligible effort. Toro can take that with him to the next life. |
He rides back into town and arrives
at the hanger. Inside, he finds Toro has the Child in his grasp and Peli at gunpoint.
He demands that Mando hand over his blaster and surrender. Mando does so and
puts his hands over his head. Peli is ordered to cuff him. When she does, he
draws her attention to another flare he’s got in his hand. She whispers “You’re
smarter than you look,” and pretends to cuff him. While Toro is pontificating,
Mando sets the flare off, blinding him. Mando gets his gun and drops him with a
shot. I, personally would haven’t been able to shot with the Kid in his arms,
but Mando is a much better marksman than me. They find the Child after he ran
off and hid. Mando bids farewell to Peli, after paying her in for the repairs. He
stole Toro’s money pouch from off his corpse. Well, waste not, want not.
Meanwhile, a mysterious figure
finds Fennec Shand’s corpse and leans over it menacingly. Yeah, that’s probably
not good.
For me, this is probably the weakest
episode thus far. I liked Peli and her… eccentricities, as well as her bits with
the Child, and Fennec Shand is an omega level bad ass that leaves an impression
despite only getting like five minutes of on-screen time. It probably helps
that she’s played by Ming-Na Wen, an actress that has spent a good chunk of the
last five years playing the bad ass on Agents Of SHIELD. She’s one of the gals
I think of when one of the more outspoken sexist politicians makes cracks about
the strength of women. Be willing to bet that Ming-Na Wen and Gina Carano (Cara
Dune from the last episode) could put 90% of guys on their asses. Just saying. No,
the weak point in this one is Jake Cannavale’s Toro Calican. He’s such an unlikable
whiny prick, and was just aggravating to be around the entire episode. Like, I’m
shocked he made it this far out into the Outer Rim without getting shot already.
He’s way more interested in acting the bad ass and trying to perfect the gun
twirl than actually being a badass. And this guy thinks, “Hey, I got my ass
kicked by Fennec Shand. But I can totally beat the guy that helped me capture
her, no problem.” Granted, I’m a 29-year-old whom, at least not to my knowledge,
never indulged in the youthful fantasy of immortality. I just might not get the
headspace of an early 20 something high on my own self-importance. It was very
satisfying to see him get shot. All that being said, while I didn’t like the
character, Cannavale portrayed the too cocky for his own good wannabe bounty
hunter extremely well. I really did believe he was an insecure kid hiding behind
bravado a good chunk of the time. I did like the moment with the Sand People.
It was nice to get a couple of minutes with them for once where they weren’t shooting
at people or screaming in rage. Fun fact, the actor playing the Sand Person
that signed to the Mandalorian is actually deaf and was communicating with
actual American Sign Language. A neat bit of behind the scenes info there. I
assume they did this to humanize the Raiders a little bit, and to make communication
easier for we the viewers. The video game “Star Wars: Knights of the Old
Republic” had a long bit of dialogue with the Raiders where you find out about
their history and those honks get aggravating. The mysterious figure going out
to and, more than likely, picking up Shand’s body is interesting, and more than
likely suggests to me that she’s not quite done yet. But we’ll have to wait and
see. Good night, everybody.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/32643867
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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