Last time on the Mandalorian, our
heroes found themselves stuck on one of the crummiest planets in the galaxy,
good ol’ Tattooine. Mando left the Kid with an eccentric mechanic as he agreed
to help a wannabe Guild Hunter, Toro Calican, track down and capture an ex-imperial
assassin named Fennec Shand. Things went reasonably well, until Shand told Toro
about the Mandalorian he’s working with and what he’d done to the Guild. Toro,
being an idiot, tried to take both the Mandalorian and the child hostage to
turn over to the guild, not realizing a bounty hunter with a minimum of two
decades experience would knock his punk ass down hard. The Mandalorian and the
Kid escape, paying off their repair bill with Toro’s money. Also, I stand corrected,
the Razor Crest is in fact the Mandalorian’s ship. I didn’t realize it had a
name. Let’s get to it.
Chapter 6: The Prisoner
Our duo lands on a large space
station. Mando meets up with an old acquaintance of his, Ranzar “Ran” Malk. Malk
is aware of Mando’s recent Guild trouble, and has offered to give Mando some
work. He wants the Mandalorian to help his crew of four to free a captured
associate of his, specifically he wants to use Mando’s ship, the Razor Crest.
He makes a joke about seeing Gratitude on Mando’s mask for the work before
introducing him to the crew. We have Mayfeld, an ex-imperial sharpshooter (he’s
super adamant he wasn’t a stormtrooper), the muscle Burg, a droid pilot Q9-0,
and a Twi’lek woman named Xi’an. Xi’an worked with Mando in the past as well,
and seems to have a crazy ex vibe to her.
Q9-0 integrates with the ship, he
gets a couple of seconds of Greef Karga’s last message to Mando, but it’s heavily
distorted so he doesn’t get anything from it. Mando meanwhile is given the
breakdown on their mission. He immediately sees a glaring problem with the plan,
they’re going to break into a New Republic prison ship to free their guy. He
was under the impression that they were freeing Malk’s man from a rival gang, not
the new government. Malk isn’t worried and insists Mando goes along with the
plan. Q9-0 isn’t impressed with the Razor Crest, but it apparently is on the
New Republic or Old Imperial databanks, so they can use it without raising
flags. It will also jam the prison ships signals. The crew boards and they take
off.
The crew in general seems
unimpressed with the Mandalorian, save Xi’an, but she’s pretty dismissive of
him as he is now, too. Mayfeld and Burg push him to show the group his face,
which as we’ve established is a No-no at this point in Mandalorian culture. In the
quick tussle between Mando and Burg, they accidentally open the hatch to where Mando
had stashed the Child. I was wondering where the little guy went. Things get
tense, but are interrupted by Moss… I mean Q9-0 executing his mission
directives in rapid succession. He takes them out of hyperspace, jams the
signal and lands in Now seconds.
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| I don't think this mission is going to help Mando get over his droid hatred. |
Mando opens the hatch and the crew
slip into the ship. The place is entirely run by droids, FYI. While they move
in, Q9-0 disables most of the surveillance systems as they go. They pass
several prisoners, including one Imperial officer, before approaching the
control room. Burg shoots one of the little mouse droids that drives around the
ship, which triggers the security droids to the intruders. While the main group
gets pinned down, Mando slips around and single handedly disables at least a
dozen of the guard droids himself, shooting, smashing, and flamethrowering them
into scrap metal. The group seems unimpressed, but they’re dicks so…
They make it to the control room to
find that there is in fact one human on the ship. The lone human guard is
nervous and tries to hold them off, but it’s four on one. He pulls a tracking
beacon, threatening to summon an attack squad to blow them to kingdom come.
Mayfeld theatens to shoot the guard. The Mandalorian threatens to shoot Mayfeld
if he shoots the guard. Burg threatens to shoot Mando if he shoots Mayfeld if
he shoots the guard. They end up in a Mexican standoff, which only ends when Xi’an
throws a knife and kills the guard. Unfortunately, the beacon was activated.
Q9-0 tells them they have twenty minutes to get the prisoner.
They make it to the cell, freeing
the prisoner. The prisoner is another Twi’lek, Qin, whom is also Xi’an’s
brother. The group almost instantly betray Mando, shoving him into the cell and
making a break for it. While the crew make for the Razor Crest, Q9-0 continues
to and finally clears up Karga’s message, getting the dirt on Mando’s little
green friend. He tells the group they have ten minutes to escape.
Mando, not one to be trapped for
long, lassos a guard bot to get it’s key am. He unlocks his cell and makes a
break for it. Q9-0 tells them that Mando has escaped, just before he puts the ship
on lock down, sealing most of the exits, and separating the crew. As comms cut
out, Q9-0 spots the Child and begins pondering. The Child disappears again
before the droid can do anything. Qin and Mayfeld go one way, while Burg and Xi’an
go another. Mando, watching from the control room, seems to pick Burg and Xi’an
for his target before grabbing the tracking beacon from the floor.
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| Think attempting to use the force but being interrupted by your guardian shooting the droid in the back counts as doing or not doing? |
Qin offers Mayfeld triple what Malk offered, if he can kill the Mandalorian. The crew on the ship hunt Mando, while Q9-0 hunts the Child. Ultimately, it’s Burg that ends up being Mando’s first target. Mando tries to noose him from the rafters but is pulled into the room. Burg and he had a pretty intense fight, with the large Devaronian beating the Mandalorian hard, right up Mando gets him in a entry way and drops a door on him, before closing another set. Mando is all about overkill.
Mando tracks down Xi’an next. She
tosses several throwing knives at Mando, but his Beskar protects him extremely
well, their fight ends ambiguously with his knife on her throat. He sneaks up
on Mayfeld a few minutes later, getting him in the dark. When he tracks down
Qin, he tells the Twi’lek that “they got what they deserved.” How mysterious.
Qin turns himself over to the Mandalorian, figuring that the Mandalorian will
at least get him off the ship.
Q9-0 tracks the Child to his little
hatch. The little guy holds up a hand and seems to try Stun Droid on him. It
works… if Mando shooting it from behind counts. They fly back to Malk’s ship.
Mando turns Qin over to Malk. There’s an awkward moment where Mando makes it
clear the rest of the crew isn’t coming and gets his money. Mando flies off.
Malk orders his fighters up to the deck and tell them to kill Mando. It’s at
that moment that Qin realizes that the signal beacon from the ship was planted
in his pants. As Mando flies off, three X-Wings fly in on the space station.
They bombard the station, presumably killing or capturing Malk and Qin. Mando
unscrews the Child’s favorite ball thing from one of his toggles, tell him that
“that was a bad idea,” as they keep flying.
 |
| "Can we please go somewhere where you don't end up blowing something up?" The Child thought, knowing the answer is a resounding NOOO. |
Back on the prison ship, it’s revealed
that Mando didn’t kill the crew, and instead stashed them all in the cell that Qin
vacated.
I started out not particularly caring
for this episode. I mean, in the first minute you can tell that Mando is
getting double crossed at either the midway or conclusion of this mission. You
know it, I know it, and even Mando seems to know it. That sort of formula gets
kind of boring. As does the crowd of bad people being dicks to the hero cliché.
But the episode does pick up after the betrayal and Mando starts setting about
taking care of his teammates. The brawl with Burg was particularly funny, with
the red devil alien shrugging off most of the hits Mando lands, right up until
the doors slam onto him. I also liked Mayfeld’s third robotic arm and his three-pistol
style. While the telegraphed the hell out of the whole stash the tracker on Qin
to backstab Malk plot point, it was satisfying as hell to see them pull the
tracker out and see the X-Wings fly in. Forty-two years later and they are
still some of the best space ships ever created. With this, we’re coming up on
the penultimate episode of season one, I hope it lives up to the hype. Have a
good night, everybody.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/32666379
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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