Mandalorian Season 2: Chapter 9 - The Good, the Bad, and the U.G.L.Y.

2020, Disney+

with the recent slate of announcements about Star Wars movies and TV shows, I worry about oversaturation.  I've been a fan of a "galaxy far, far away" for as long as I can remember, but I've hit saturation points before: when they cranked out too many novels in the mid-90's and I eventually stopped reading; when Dark Horse started cranking out too many comics and I stopped collecting;  when Phantom Menace merchandise mania got entirely too crazy and I stopped buying; and when the prequels were just too much and I left Star Wars alone for a good long while.  So it's not like there's not precedence for tapping out on Star Wars.

With Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, Star Wars has been a very, very, very mix bag, with some really big highs, a couple of serious lows, and some middling product in between.  The films started to come too fast, to frequent, too underworked.  The freshest breath of air was its most divisive, which instead of leading to a new path forward caused Disney and co. to take many steps back

But the Manadalorian, from the outset, has sidestepped most of the critiques that faced the Disney-era films.  It found a chronological happy place following Return of the Jedi, but predating by a wide margin The Force Awakens, so it tweaks the nostalgia buttons of the old fandom, provides a bridging ground for the new, and lovingly embraces the children of the Prequel era by drawing in more than a few nuggets from The Clone Wars cartoon.  

 

Disney sunk a lot of money into The Mandalorian to make it as Star Wars-y as possible, and with Jon Favreau writing and show-running they've got both a fan and bankable commodity.  The director of Elf, Iron Man, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King has the technical background for leading Star Wars into the Golden Age of television and the writing chop (not to mention nerd cred) to do it real justice.  Favreau has tapped into what everyone has wanted, exploring the familiar while giving something new.

But, I have felt it...that nagging sensation of burnout.  Season 1 hit just before The Rise of Skywalker, and after Episode 9's debut it was clear what fans wanted more of, and what they didn't.  But the comics have become too much for me again.  The toys are too much (too expensive and too plentiful).  The books...well, I tapped out very early on in the Disney era.  And with a pipeline of 10 productions coming to film and Disney+, I worry it's too much Star Wars.  As much as I love it and want to embrace it all, I don't know if I can.

Season 1 of The Mandalorian did well by establishing its own boundaries in the galaxy.  There were familiar faces only in the context of "hey, we know that actor" or "we know that alien species" or "we've seen that kind of helmet before".  It lived in a familiar realm while giving us a new cast to meet and new places to see. Even venturing to the planet-furthest-from-the-bright-center-of-the-universe revealed tidbits of insight into what has happened since we last saw it and a bit more exploration of its cultures... approaching it from a certain point of view.  The last seconds of Season 1 teased a greater connection to another Star Wars story, and while it excited me it also left me a little wary.  Midseason rumours of connecting threads to Return of the Jedi and/or Rebels left me a little worried Season 2 would get lost in the weeds of Star Wars continuity.

 

And Season 2 does start weaving itself into the larger Star Wars mythos, and continued to do so throughout the season, but without losing sight of itself, and what's more, making those threads enticing to tug upon.  You don't *have* to know that there's more that came before it, but it's there if you want to explore.

Almost every episode of Season 2 left me very, very excited, but, perhaps it's just cooped up covid brain, and not enough engagement with my fellow nerds, I worried that my excitement was just a bubble, one which I would end up popping myself.  I DEVOURED every episode of Season 1 multiple times over, while season 2 I've only been through each episode one extra time (except the finale which I need to watch again).  It's not for lack of interest or quality, but, maybe, just burnout. 

Do I need another break from Star Wars?  Or will whatever break I get be enough to get me excited again when Andor or The Bad Batch or the Obi-Wan series come around?

[Note: I *was* going to do every episode in this one post, but it's getting pretty long and unruly already so I'll do one post per episode and in the final post ranking all Mandalorian episodes thus far]

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EPISODE BY EPISODE: The Good, The Bad, and the U.G.L.Y.

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Chapter 9: The Marshal

directed by Jon Favreau

Mando goes to an underground fighting den where two Gammoreans are having a vibro-axe battle. He meets with a cyclops (John Leguizamo) to learn the whereabouts of other Mandalorians, since they may have some info on The Child's kind of people, aka, Jedi.  He's double crossed by his informant and a brawl ensues.  Eventually he's given a destination: Tattooine (again!) 
There he finds the Marshal (of course it's Timothy Olyphant) of a small town wearing Mandalorian armor, but he's not Madalorian.  A fight is about to ensue when a Krayt dragon ploughs through town, and they strike a deal.  He'll give up the armor, if Mando helps kill the dragon.

The Good:

I was wary about going back to Tattooine, yet again, but I love this episode.  What could have been a naval gazing foray at deep Star Wars minutiae instead creates a rousing old-west style adventure where the goodly townsfolk and savage native Tatooiners form a truce for a common purpose.

I like this using standard western storytelling tropes but in a space opera setting.  It works very well, taking something that is incredibly cliche and breathing new life into it.  It looks great (mostly), Favreau doing really stunning work in his first directorial effort for Star Wars.  And the sound design is magnificent.

Timothy Olyphant is an utterly obvious choice for a small town Marshal...but nonetheless he is very welcome to the Star Wars pantheon as Cobb Vanth.  And yes, he's wearing BOBA FREAKING FETT'S ARMOR! 

 

Temuera Morrison puts in a cameo at the very, very end of the episode.  Is he Boba, or is he a clone.  He's decked out with sand person kit, and he's obviously clocking Din Djarin as he skates out of Mos Pelgo with his armor.

I also like that the Child took very much a back seat in this episode.  He get's a couple uber cute money shots but otherwise doesn't have much presence.

The Bad: 
We don't get many flashbacks in Star Wars, but it's something The Mandalorian has become fairly comfortable with.  I actually like the flashback here (telling how Vanth came to acquire Fett's armor) but I don't like that Vanth is relaying the tale while the two are on very noisy speeder bikes.  There's no way they should be able to hear each other.

The Gammoreans in the opening ring fight looked awfully scrawny, and I don't like that any of their vibro axe attacks ever seem to be going for injury... it's like they're not even trying to hurt each other.

Unreal problems:

There aren't really any real-world problems, except maybe the slaughter of what is likely a very rare creature.  Star Wars is very big on killing its monsters, and there's no sense of conservation in this galaxy at all.  Should there be?  I dunno, it's probably not a layer we need to add.

Galaxy Building:
We return to the docking bay in Mos Eisley where Mando made a friend in Space Amy Sedaris last season.  It seems S.A.S. now owns R5-D4 (or a very similar droid) and a treadwell droid (though presumably not the treadwell droid).

Cobb Vanth's speeder bike is made from a podracer engine.  I always thought Ray's desert speeder in the Force Awakens looked like a podracer engine, but this one for sure is an engine scavenged from a destroyed pod.

Boba Fett is back.  Boba Fett is back.  Crazy to see someone else in his armor, but still...

A little more hinting at Tusken culture, how they communicate (both grunting and sign language) and what multi-purposes those gaffi sticks serve...plus hunting strategies.  Clearly Din has spent a lot of time with them (as he infers at the beginning of the episode).

Another camtono appears!

 

Looking forward:
I don't think we'll be seeing Cobb Vanth again, unless something really bad happens to Mos Pelgo.  He seems pretty dedicated to protecting that place.

As for that figure at the end, that intones more to come for sure.

 

Yes, toys of that, please:
I'm pretty sure we'll be getting Cobb Vanth at some point.  I can't really see any more unique figures or vehicles coming out of this episode, but people will want a Timothy Olyphant action figure for sure.