Ryan Shoots First: The Mandalorian (S2 Ep2) “Chapter 10: The Passenger”
We’re back for week two of Season 2 of The Mandalorian and I’m happy to see the run times for Season 2 be a little longer than Season 1. After the big reveals of last week let’s dive in and see what this bigger and better season all has in store… really just if Boba comes back again.
We open still on Tatooine as Mando rides his speeder directly into an ambush of bandits who try to take Baby Yoda. As you can imagine this does not go well but the Chef’s kiss comes at the end when Mando trades his jetpack to the last raider for the child’s life. As the bandit retreats, Mando activates the jetpack, pulls some remote evasive maneuvers and sends the bandit hurdling to his death, Yodes and Mando share a look and the opening credits pop. Mando follows up some leads to try and find more Mandolarians and ends up taking a transport mission to take a would-be mother to a system with her unfertilized eggs. The problem is they can’t jump to hyperdrive which puts them in a dangerous position. Baby Yoda meanwhile seems very interested in the eggs even going so far as to push his adorable little nose up against the walls of the tank. He manages to eat one before Mando can stop him. Mando is awakened by X-Wings from the New Republic who are looking to make sure his ship is not Imperial…the problem is last season the Crest did that little business of raiding a New Republic prison ship. This causes a daring chase between the atmosphere of an ice planet in which the Crest crash lands. Mando awakens to discover Baby Yoda decided to have some more eggs.
The Frog Lady does some work over the night to turn the droid Mando blasted in Season 1 into an interpreter. She challenges Mando and he heads out to try and find a way off the ice planet. After the Frog Lady wanders off the crew discovers a nest of eggs for what are essentially Ice Spiders (I’m a big Star Wars nerd but I don’t claim to know what those are technically called). After momma spider shows up they all flee back to the ship. They manage to barricade themselves in the cockpit and Frog Lady helps save Baby Yoda. Mando manages to fire up the ship but before he can flee the Momma comes crashing down and while she is brutalizing the ship all hope seems lost. Just then the X-Wings from earlier show up to clear out the spiders and save Mando. They inform him while there is a warrant out for his arrest they know he attempted to save that New Republic pilot and apprehended three other fugitives in the process. So they essentially call it even and Mando limps the Crest to their destination.
Another fantastic episode with suspense and tension. Sprinkle in some sweet family moments and some Mando Bad-ass’ness and you got a solid episode. The jetpack kill in the beginning was just awesome. They are really showing off the new budget with all the monster fights in these first two episodes but I look forward to Mando running into some more dynamic foils in the coming weeks as the overall arch moves forward.
Observations:
- I can’t with Baby Yoda pressing his nose against that glass.
- Dave Filoni cameo as an X-Wing pilot… again I assume the same one from last season.
- The X-Wing foils switching into attack position was a cool detail as they discovered something was up.
- Between the mother sacrificing her blanket and Baby Yoda snuggling up with Mando this show goes from outright cuteness to complete badass moments so quickly.
- NO BABAY YODA, NEVER LOOK IN THE EGGS!
- So Season 2 is Mando: Monster Hunter
