We’re back with our 3rd look at season 1 of the Mandalorian, it’s been a pretty strong show thusfar, can it continue?
Chapter Five: The Gunslinger
The Razorcrest is in a dogfight with another bounty hunter
and sustains a fair bit of damage, luckily it’s not a tie-fighter and made of
tin-foil, but the other bounty hunter isn’t as lucky, taking the full brunt of
a blast from the Razorcrest and exploding.
Still, the ship took a lot of damage, so he has to head to a
nearby planet for repairs and where better than Mos Eisley, on our old
favourite planet of Tatooine. He lands the ship in a bay and immediately shoots
at one of the repair droids. He has only 500 imperial credits, not enough to
cover his repairs so he goes out looking for a score, weirdly leaving the child
in the ship.
And I like this repair lady, she sees the child and
immediately agrees to look after it, and charge Mando extra for doing so. He
enters the much less busy Cantina, and although the guild no longer operates on
Tatooine, he gets an offer from a guy named Toro Calican. He reveals a bounty
puck with an assassin named Fennec Shand.
Mando tells him that Fennec is an elite killer and he
wouldn’t make it past the day if he found her, he offers all the money in
exchange for helping him out, as it’s just a job to get him into the guild. He
meets Mando with speeder bikes as requested and the two head out into the dune
sea with less than impressive special effects.
They’re stopped by Tuscan raiders but Mando, experienced
with this kinda work, negotiates with them using Toro’s binoculars. They spot a
fallen bounty hunter and his steed which Mando investigate, but it’s a ploy,
and Fennec starts shooting, Mando’s armour barely holding against the shot.
They wait until nightfall so they can use flashbombs to
blind her scope, this works for a bit but she manages to get a shot right in
the chest of Mando, knocking him off his speeder and destroying it. Still, her
focus on Mando allows Toro to get the drop her, but she’s no slouch in a fight
and quickly overpowers him, but by that point Mando has recovered enough to end
the fight and force Fennec’s surrender.
But they lost a speeder and not wanting to drag Fennec
particularly, Mando heads in search of an alternative ride. Whilst he’s gone,
however, Fennec lets him know about Mando’s actions on Nevarro and how he’s
more valuable than she is to the Guild, especially as a boost to his
reputation. He buys into her spiel, but rather than releasing her to get help,
he shoots her and takes the speeder back to Mos Eisley.
Mando sees Fennec’s near-dead corpse and heads back himself,
finding the child at the mercy of Toro, but he is still a rookie and Mando’s
not an idiot, using a flashbang to blind him long enough to get behind him and
shoot him. Though he didn’t get the money, he grabs what Toro had and uses it
to pay our repair droid. Fennec meanwhile finds aid in a mysterious stranger,
more on that in season 2.
It’s another solid episode, and Fennec is a memorable bounty
hunter to add to the guest cast.
Rating 7.5/10
The Prisoner
Mando lands in the docking bay of another ship, he’s looking
for a guy named Ran. Mando has had run ins with the guy before and seemingly
worked with Ran. Anyway, he’s been hired to spring one of his associates from a
New Republic prison. Ran needs a ship for the getaway, and the Razorcrest has
been chosen.
We’re introduced to Mayfeld, a former imperial sharpshooter
who’s running the mission from the field. Next on the team is Berg, the team’s
muscle, who doesn’t think much of Mando, a droid named Zero and finally we have
a Twi’lek name Xi’an who Mando also has history with. The droid gets itself
acquainted with the Razorcrest, finding a message from Greef in the com
history.
The Razorcrest isn’t exactly in good shape, but it’s off the
grid, which is necessary as they’re up against a New Republic prison ship, it’s
largely manned by droids. Their droid will be piloting the ship as they need
his pinpoint timing to make the manoeuvre necessary to scramble new republic
signals.
There’s a bit of character interaction, they discover the
child and there’s a bit of back and forth, not much worth mentioning but it’s
decent stuff. They arrive and couples with the prison ship. Mando uses a tech
thing to open the hatch, allowing them inside. The droid stays on the ship,
having accessed and hacked the prison systems.
The place is really under-guarded, but that soon changes when
Berg shoots a cleaning droid, alerting a squad of guard droids. But the one
place they need to go, the main security room, has an organic guard and when
confronted he threatens to activate a tracking beacon which would bring New
Republic gunships straight to them. None of them thought to bring a gun with a
stun setting, just poor planning right there.
So it leads to a standoff, Mando doesn’t particularly want
to kill the guard but the ensuing rumble, Xi’an does. The beacon is
activated and they have 20 minutes to get the guy and go before the New
Republic arrive. They do and it turns out to be Qin, Xi’an’s brother. They lock
Mando inside Qin’s cell and head back to the ship.
Zero discovers the child, as Mando uses a droid guard and
the fact that he’s still armed to escape. He heads back to the security room
and triggers the alarms, blocking their coms, and separating them.
Berg is the first to fight him and he lives up to his
reputation, but Mando uses his wits to beat him, crushing him. Xi’an is next
and despite her being a dab hand with a knife, he’s wearing armour so she’s not
much of a threat. He uses stealth to get the better of Mayfeld, and now it’s
just him and Qin.
Mando arrives on the ship just in time to save the Child
from Zero and the Razorcrest heads off before the New Republic can arrive. He
hands Qin over, takes his money and leaves, but fighters are about to be sent
to kill him. Still, Mando left the New Republic tracking fob with Qin so the
New Republic arrive and begin blowing the place up.
Turns out all of the members of the team survived and are
locked in the prison, so you know, no killing this episode, aside from that one
guard, and everyone aboard the ship the New Republic blew up.
More roles for Clancy Brown so I can’t complain too much,
it’s a fun little buddy-cop team up.
Rating 7/10
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