Every week that a new episode of The Mandalorian comes out we are left wanting more at the end. Note, if you have not watched the latest chapter you should not read further. While trying to repair the ship in flight Mando (Pedro Pascal) realizes he needs the help of friends. After a shocking scene with the Baby Yoda handling live wires under Mando’s direction, he realizes they should make a pit stop at Nevarro.
The Razor Crest sets down where Cara Dune (Gina Carano) is now Marshall Dune. We learn this in a scene where she handles a group of Aqualish baddies around town. Aqualish are what the old folks used to call Walrus Man. Coo coo ca-choo. Ponda Baba was the better looking one of their species. Cara Dune and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) have cleaned up the neighborhood, and even Mythrol (Horatio Sanz) is back in his old accounting job. Remember the blue fish guy Mando caught in chapter one of season one? He’s practically an indentured servant to Karga now.
Mando needs repairs, and they’re going to take a little time, so there’s enough time for the heist. It doesn’t take a lot for Karga and Dune to talk Mando into leveling a not entirely abandoned imperial base. Hold outs are keeping the pipes from freezing. The trio plans to take out the skeleton crew and destroy the base so that Nevarro can be a trade anchor in their sector of the Outer Rim. Mythrol is their Lyft driver, but soon finds out there is no waiting in the parking lot. The Child is left in the old red school house in town to learn the local math and sciences on Hoth-era display screens.
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An ’80s style mission ensues. Think The A-Team, only Gina Carano has taken Mr. T.’s part. Cara Dune is B.A.– B.A. means bad attitude! But Cara Dune has a good attitude. She’s always smiling! There is a moment we get to see her grief in remembrance of Alderaan during the episode. She refuses an offer to join the New Republic. Like Benicio Del Toro’s DJ, she’s not a joiner. She likes a fight, and she got to show her skills in this episode: punch, kick, body slam, elbow to the face, sleeper hold. She did it all. She even pulled off the old Indiana Jones ‘just shoot ’em’ routine. She’s in her element in the action.
The team make their way inside the base, dispatch the little crew that’s there, and set a reactor off to blow the place to smithereens. The reactor control was a charming homage to the tractor beam generator Ben Kenobi shut down on the Death Star, chasm and all. Once inside, they discover it’s not a military base. but a lab. They find a saved transmission from Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) to Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), expressing the need for more Baby Yoda blood. It seems the “subjects” can’t handle to potency of the transfusion, and they keep dying. A crafty euphemism has been devised for a prequel trilogy cuss word. The word that shall not be uttered will here forth be known as an M-count. Baby Yoda is brimming with it. The subjects in question are mutated beings suspended in liquid. There’s nothing saying they’re clones of some kind, but they are designed to look like they don’t resemble, but they don’t not resemble Supreme Leader Snoke.
Once the importance of the lab base is established, it’s set to blow and the perimeter guards from a nearby outpost are on their way to apprehend Mando’s team, who’ve now split up. You haven’t seen speeder bikes look like this. The chase is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and a thrill to witness. The new folding TIEs show up to chase down the team in their stolen transport. We fly through a canyon trench with them, and we’re quickly reminded of the climactic scene from the original Star Wars. It’s the Death Star run, but the roles are swapped. The Razor Crest shows up as a surprise like the Millennium Falcon did last minute so the work can be finished.
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Things fold up neatly until we see Moff Gideon again. The epilogue scene reveals that there has been a tracking device planted on the Razor Crest. And Gideon’s got a slight army of either droid or clone soldiers waiting to be awoken. It’s a bit dark to tell, but their torsos look similar to Gideon’s armor. We waited a week since Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) pointed Mando in the direction of Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), and it looks like we’ll have to wait at least one more. She’ll probably show up in “Chapter 16,” but now we have something new to worry about. Is it a clone army or a Cylon cosplay club?
Note: Last week I made a mistake in my recap of “Chapter 11: The Heiress.” I referred to the port that Din Djarin visited as Trask, and the planet as Mon Cala. Trask is a moon that serves as a port. It was not Mon Cal. There are Mon Calamari were working on Trask.
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