The Mandalorian
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Nothing here deepens the intrigue of the first episode beyond revealing some new details about the Mandalorians bounty.
About that: What do we call the Mandalorians bounty?
Its tempting to call itBaby Yoda, but its not Yoda.
Even calling it a baby seems inaccurate.
We could call it by the name of Yodas race, but we dontknowthe name of Yodas race.
So lets just borrow from the episode title and call it the Child.
Soon enough hell get a sense of what the Child can do.
After disintegrating a few of the tiny bandits, the Mandalorian attempts to board their rolling fortress.
Will this morph into a show in which the Mandalorian and the Child have a string of violent adventures?
Thats TBD at this point, but this episode suggests that might be perfectly satisfying.
All that work and it turns out the Jawas just really wanted to eat the egg.
Who would have guessed?
Bounty Pucks
Its fun to spend so much time with the Jawas, theStar Warsuniverses cutest felons.
Are they advanced enough to travel from planet to planet?
Did they stow away?
The Child is cute!
And it eats frogs whole.
We also learn that its aware of its powers but those powers have some pretty sharp limits.
After stopping the furry rhino, the Child descends into an almost comalike state.
No sign of IG-11 this episode.
Is he really out of the picture?
Thats fine, really.
It gets the job done and tells the story it needs to tell.
Will future episodes be this length?
Is this a conscious reaction to the widespread complaint about episode bloat in the streaming era?
A nice touch carried over from the previous episode: the Ralph McQuarrielike illustrations that play over the credits.
Another fun detail:The Mandaloriankeeps bringing in elements from some ofStar Warsmore embarrassing non-canonical stories.
Anyone inspired to investigate the sources ofThe Mandalorianis in for a treat.
The first episode made reference to bothThe Wild BunchandButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The Criterion Collection has released them as a box set and all can currently bestreamed via the Criterion Channel.
