The Mandalorian, Episode 6

Well, while many people are viciously arguing about the Rise of Skywalker, I have returned from a visit with family in the mood to review another episode of the Mandalorian.

Mandalorian 6:  “The Prisoner”

Opening with a shot of the ship, which looks a bit like a waffle iron.  Or maybe a retro iron?  Oh, that reminds me of Hardware Wars!  Does anyone else remember Hardware Wars?  That was funny stuff.

Okay, this guy has lots of hair…he is Santa?  Hagrid?  No, his name is Ran.  He speaks with false casualness, like a drug dealer or a mob boss.

Ah, the “ship is part of the deal.”  Or not.  Whatever. “Mando” is going to do a “job” for this guy; jobs for him are “target practice.”  They did “crazy stuff” back in the day.  Wow.   This is not a subtle performance.  Apparently, the Mandalorian was a bad guy in his youth and hung out with bad company, like Henry IV or Han Solo.  Except both of those characters had a sense of humor.

The Mandalorian does not have a sense of humor.

 Okay, so this Red Guy, a Devaronian (his species was first seen in the Cantina bar, in the original Star Wars) seems to have just insulted the Mandalorian’s manhood.  Xi’an, a Twi’lek, has sharp teeth and a sharp knife, and I think this is supposed to be sexual tension.  And…Red Guy calls the Mandalorian “tiny”—that was definitely a penis joke.  Or a penis reference, anyway.  

There are no jokes here.

There is a bug guy droid named Zero, and they are all going to break someone out of a New Republic prison ship; so now they’re going to be bad guys for real.  But it’s okay because…the prison ship is manned by droids?  Oh, right, the Mandalorian hates droids.  Even though he looks and sounds like an automaton. 

I’m starting to wish R2 would show up and zap the Mandalorian a few times.

They find Baby Yoda and think it is a pet.  The Mandaorian does not correct them.  He does not want to draw attention to Baby Yoda, obviously.  Can these mercenaries resist the cuteness of Baby Yoda?  No one can, not really.

Several minutes of boring posturing gives me time to look up how to spell Xi’an’s name.  Then we get to the ship, and the bug droid disables various security measures, letting our…um…our villiains break into the ship.  It is sleek and white inside, completely the opposite of every single ship on The Expanse, which, frankly, I’d rather be watching.

Here is one of those tiny rolling droids like the one Chewbacca growls at on the Death Star.  The red guy shoots this one, activating security defenses and proving, once again, that intellect is not highly valued among these characters.

The Mandalorian gets to shoot some droids, indulging his major character trait.  Woo-hoo!

 

So there is a person, a human person, on this ship.  And our villains immediately begin to make fun of his clothing.   I did not see that coming.  To be honest, it’s pretty ugly; that is not a fashionable shade of blue.  

After the vicious sartorial taunting, they start arguing among themselves while the guy in blue tries not to wet himself.  The Mandalorian tells the others they can’t kill the badly dressed, as he is not a droid, and he himself only enjoys the killing of droids; they argue until Xi’an knocks out the unfashionable human, but he sets off a beeper that will signal the New Republic.  This means they are running out of time, so they start some fires and blow stuff up, and finally get to the right cell.

Inside is Quinn, Xi’an’s brother.  He does not seem worth all this trouble.

Okay, now everyone has spit up and is hunting each other through the ships.  Quinn is obviously an asshole like the rest of them.  The dumb devaronian tries to take off the Mandalorian’s helmet, which we know won’t happen.  It appears that we are now watching an elaborate game of hide-and-seek; even the nice white corridors of the New Republic ship start to flash red, which is kind of annoying.

Bug droid meets baby Yoda and aims a blaster at him, while Baby Yoda lifts his little hand to lay some force action on his ass. He looks at his hand curiously when the Bug Droid is shot, but it's the Mandalorian fulfilling his primary function again…bummer.  Some force blasts would be fun.

The Mandalorian takes Quinn to the hairy guy; everyone else is probably dead.  As will be these guys since the Mandalorian left the beeper / homing device with them.  Yes, here comes a squad of x-wings to blow them up.  Mandalorian gets paid. He flies away and lets Baby Yoda play with a little knob or something. 

The last scene shows all of the bad guys on a New Republic prison ship, so the Mandalorian did not kill them after all.  And…that’s the end.

Another reviewer has said that this seems to be a show about nothing, with no arc and not enough character development to be interesting episodically.  I confess that so far I agree.

Except for Baby Yoda. Baby Yoda is cool.  The next episode features Pig Nolte again, though, so maybe it will be better.