So viel zu diesen epischen Quests, huh? Premiere letzte Woche die meiner Meinung nach die beiden Haupthandlungsstränge dieser Staffel aufstellen –eine neue Speichereinheit für IG-11 zu finden und dann Din Djarin nach Mandalore zu bringen, damit er in den Living Waters unter dem Civic Center baden konnte – und die Folge dieser Woche hat einfach … irgendwie diese beiden Kästchen abgehakt. Ich denke, das ist es, was den Mandalorianer ausmacht Der Mandalorianer außer, abgesondert, ausgenommen bestimmt buchorientierte Kollegen: Er macht Scheiße.
Zuerst besuchte Din seinen besten Freund Peli Motto (konnte Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie hätten noch vor ein paar Jahren gesagt, Amy Sedaris wäre eine feste Größe Krieg der Sterne TV-Show?), der gerade dabei war, einen armen Rodian inmitten der Boonta Eve-Feierlichkeiten zu betrügen. Boonta Eve ist natürlich der Tag, an dem die Tatooinianer feiern, dass ein Hutt namens Boonta Hestilic Shad’ruu ein Gott wurde, aber offensichtlich Jeder weiss das. (ICHEs ist auch ein traditionelles Podracing-Urlaubdas ist wahrscheinlich den meisten Menschen bewusst von Es.)
Din fragt Peli, ob sie eine Speichereinheit für eine IG-Einheit hat, die in Krieg der Sterne ist wie nach einem dieser alten iPod-Kabel mit dem breiten Stecker zu fragen, also bietet sie ihm stattdessen R5-D4 an. Er weigert sich zunächst und sagt, er wolle IG-11, damit er ihn in die Tiefen von Mandalore schicken und herausfinden könne, ob der Planet wirklich „verflucht“ sei oder nicht (und hier dachten wir, Din wolle IG-11 wieder aufbauen, damit sie es könnten Freunde, oder vielleicht so könnte er fragen, ob eine zweite Staffel von Unsere Flagge bedeutet Tod jemals passieren wird), aber Peli überredet ihn, den Astromech-Droiden wegen seiner Erfahrung in der Arbeit mit der Rebellion zu nehmen. (Darüber werde ich noch mehr zu sagen haben unter.)
Und das ist anscheinend das für IG-11, das jetzt einfach in den Händen dieser Babu Friks von letzter Woche verrotten wird, weil Din Djarin, Grogu und R5 keine Zeit verschwendet haben, um nach Mandalore zu hüpfen, um diese Quest zu beenden. TV-Staffeln sind normalerweise länger als zwei Folgen, aber wie gesagt, Din Djarin bringt es auf den Punkt. Oder er würde es tun, wenn er nicht gelegentlich ein kleiner Dummkopf wäre – und das meine ich als Kompliment. Eines der schönen Dinge an dieser Show ist, dass Din Djarin übermäßig naiv und optimistisch sein kann, weil sein Glaube an seinen mandalorianischen Randkult so stark ist, dass er ständig annimmt, dass er ihn beschützen wird.
But before Din gets in trouble, he lands on the surface of Mandalore—which is bombed to hell and looks like shit but does not seem to be ravaged by a magical curse, hmmm—and sends R5 out to do some recon. I loved this sequence, which kept the camera either in Din’s cockpit or pointing at him from outside, meaning we get these big wide shots of the planet’s surface as R5 rolls away further and further from the ship, which steadily increases the tension. Throw in Din and Grogu watching R5’s position on a little motion sensor screen, and it’s a nice bit of Jaws/Alien drama.
R5 gets scared by some troll monsters (we later learn they’re called Alamites), and Din hops out to go help…even though they really do a number on him at first, and he just barely survives by poking at them with the Darksaber. But it turns out that the air on the planet is breathable, so Din and Grogu drop down into the Civic Center (I maintain that it’s weird that they called it that) to look for the mines that contain the Living Waters. This is where Din’s naiveté gets him in trouble: He finds an old, discarded Mandalorian helmet, and rather than being suspicious, he picks it up and falls into a trap where a big crab robot snatches him up and carries him away.
Grogu tries to go help, but it turns out that the crab robot actually houses a smaller cyborg-like creature with spindly limbs and tubes who has a big collection of old Mandalorian junk, and he spots Grogu and chases him off. We never do find out what this guy’s deal is, but he’s definitely a creep. He tries to steal Din’s blood for some reason! That’s gross!
Din sends Grogu off to ask Bo-Katan for help, which requires Grogu to use the Mandalorian navigation skills that Din keep telling him to learn. Actually, he just points at a map and R5 does all of the work, but Grogu’s a 50-year-old baby. We can give this to him. They show up at Bo-Katan’s castle, and she’s doing the exact same thing she was doing last week: sitting on a big chair and having a bad attitude. But when she realizes it’s just Grogu who came to see her, she agrees to go help.
Once back on Mandalore, Bo-Katan effortlessly wrecks the troll guys that gave Din a hard time earlier, even spotting them waiting for her to pass by at one point, and then she quickly executes the spiny mecha creep with the Darksaber before he can drink all of Din’s blood—proving, again, that she’s probably better suited to rule Mandalore and wield the Darksaber than Din is.
Bo-Katan helps Din back to the surface and heals him with some kind of special soup, and even though she doesn’t believe in the stuff about magic water that the Armorer instilled in Din, she agrees to take him to the Living Waters and smirk condescendingly while he goes through the ritual to atone for removing his helmet in front of Bill Burr. There’s a potentially interesting moment where Din insists that they, as a people, are nothing without the Mandalorian creed, so perhaps Bo-Katan’s arc here will involve becoming a religious fanatic like he is? Katee Sackhoff could leave the helmet on permanently instead of wearing that big headband.
Together, they reach the Living Waters, and she seems to get a perverse little thrill out of how anticlimactic the whole thing is, going so far as to sarcastically read an old plaque commemorating the important cultural site and how it was once the fabled lair of the Mythosaur, which legendary hero Mandalore The Great supposedly slayed—which is why an image of the great horned beast can be seen on a lot of Mandalorian stuff (like Boba Fett’s armor).
Obviously that’s just a bunch of hooey, though. There’s no Mythosaur. But…then again, what pulled Din under the water when he tried to do his ritual, knocking him unconscious for the second time this episode? And what’s that big monster that Bo-Katan spots when she goes down to rescue him? Some kinda freakin’ Mythosaur?!
Stray observations
- I think this stuff about the Mythosaur and the Living Waters Beneath The Civic Center are pretty dumb, and they stink of the kind high-fantasy nonsense that Dave Filoni’s Star Wars stories are riddled with (something tells me Jon Favreau didn’t write “the Mythosaur” on a whiteboard at any point), but I am…intrigued by this. If they’re immediately dropping the quests laid out in the premiere in favor of something weirder, I’m hesitantly onboard. Just as long as we don’t see any ancient Jedi temples with magic powers that extend far beyond anything ever seen in regular Star Wars stories (Filoni’s most frustrating trope), I’ll be okay.
- Peli insisting that Grogu said actual words to her was adorable. His babbles were more word-like this episode than usual.
- When the alligator creatures in the tunnels below the Civic Center sprout wings and start chasing Grogu, I wrote “they fly now” in my notes. Funny, right? They fly now! Ha ha ha.
- Bo-Katan talking about her father was interesting. Her family was important in the Clone Wars cartoon, but I think this is the first time a Star Wars has mentioned him specifically. Also, when she tries to make small talk with Grogu and mentions meeting a few Jedi in the past, we the viewer know that one of them was Ahsoka Tano. Grogu knows her!
- Alright, let’s talk R5-D4. He’s the droid that Uncle Owen tried to buy before settling on R2-D2, thus setting the events of Star Wars in motion (and dooming Owen), but both the old Star Wars canon and the current Disney Star Wars canon established that he purposefully blew himself up to help R2-D2 get the Death Star plans to Obi-Wan. Then, as explained in the weird, canonical fan-fiction-y book From A Certain Point Of View (in which famous Star Wars fans contributed short stories about side characters), R5 was so touched by R2’s commitment to his mission that he escaped the Jawas and went off in search of a way to help the Rebel Alliance. That’s what Peli is referring to when she hands the droid off to Din. And Disney thought it was making things easier when it gutted the old EU canon.