The Mandalorian - Season 2 - 2020 [US]

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The Mandalorian

Season 2

Coming on October 30, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Created by: Jon Favreau

Based on: Star Wars by George Lucas

Genre: Space Western

Writer/Director: Various TBA

Broadcast: Disney+

 

Starring:

Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, the Mandalorian

The Child as a Member of the same species as Master Jedi Yoda

Others TBA

 

For anyone who hasn't watched Season 1, it told the story of a Mandalorian bounty hunter who takes on a contract job only to find out that it meant delivering a 50 year old child to some people who wanted to experiment on him. However, in their time together before Din Djarin could deliver the Child and finish the contract, as he protected the Child from others who wanted to take him, they were able to have adventures together with some quality bonding time. Thus, Din Djarin couldn't leave the Child to be experimented on when he did finally deliver to finish the contract. 

 

Season 1 was a fun ride plus the introduction of the most adorable 50 year old toddler in any galaxy, not to mention, one who is able to utilize the Force fairly effectively when moved to do so. The bonding scenes between Din Djarin and the inquisitive Child were hilarious and ultimately tender.

 

So, now they are launching Season 2, where Din Djarin will have to figure out the Child's home world and return him to his people. However, it won't be an easy task! 

 

The trailer for Season 2

 

 

 

 

 

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In Season 1, The Child was kept under wraps until the episodes aired, so they didn't have any merch ready for the clamoring fans. So, they're going to town with the merch during Season 2 with releases every Monday starting on October 26, so a few days before the season starts. And, every Monday, they're going to announce new merchandise and digital content, though I'm not sure what digital content means?

 

For anyone interested, the merch website is mandomondays.com.

 

As for me, I think I'll go read some theories about Palpatine possibly making a cameo and then go watch the trailer again. It's a good trailer.

 

Hope season 2 is as good as season 1 even if may not be as good as the hype.

 

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Okay. I've been bitten fatally by the anticipation. Bought a doll of The Child. So cute! Plus, I even subscribed to Disney+.

 

Plus, I'm hoping that my anticipation for this drama will lessen my anxiety about the elections coming up on November 4, plus what is sure to be the messy aftermath of those elections.

 

Also, Boba Fett might be making an appearance in Season 2! It may have been a closely guarded secret that was inadvertently leaked. Here is a link to that story.

 

https://www.slashgear.com/mandalorian-season-2-leak-confirms-classic-character-23639530/

 

Anyone else anticipating this web drama?

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The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 1: The Marshall

Director: Jon Favreau

 

Season 2 starts off with the Mandalorian accepting the quest to reunite the Child with his race. He has no other information other than that The Great Mandalorian once went up against the Jedis. He decides that he needs other Mandalorians in order to fulfill his quest. He gets a lead on a Mandalorian who is living covertly on Tatooine, and though Mando has frequented Tatooine, there are still parts that he's not familiar.

 

Mando with the Child goes to a place on Tatooine which is remote and desolate even by Tatooine standards. There, he meets the Marshall who wears Mandalorian armor that he said he got from some Jawas. Mando challenges him to take away his armor since Mandalorian armor is sacred and not to be left to non-Mandalorians. However, as they get ready to rumble, they're interrupted by a Greater Krayt Dragon who strongly resembles the sandworms of Arrakis or from Tremors.

 

Mando agrees to help the the Marshall and the town get rid of the dragon, and ends up brokering an alliance with some Tusken Raiders to defeat the dragon. They prevail, and Mando leaves with the Marshall's armor as his payment. As they butcher the carcass, the Tusken's recover a huge pearl from within the bowels of the dragon.

 

 

This episode didn't have much per se to do with returning the Child to his race. However, given that it is a series, it's nice to have some of these diversions which are fun. The Child in this episode, is mostly just adorable as it squeaks, hides, and looks curiously on as Mando gets into various scrapes. Mando and the Child have established a paternal relationship with Mando insisting that the Child stays with him, even when going to venues that are clearly not suitable for children. It's those interactions between the Child and his guardian Din Djarin as much as the episodic Clint-Eastwood-walks-into-a-Western-town story that makes this episode fun to watch.

 

 

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Season 2, Episode 2 The Passenger

Director: Peyton Reed

 

Back at Mos Eisly, Mando gets some intel on some Mandalorians living covertly on a nearby world. In order to get that information, though, he has to escort a Frog Lady who needs her eggs fertilized by her husband so that their race does not die out. Due to the fragility of the eggs, they have to go sub-light speed which means that the trip will take awhile and be dangerous.

 

They do go through various trials and tribulations, including being chased by some Rebel Alliance X-Wing Fighters and crashing on a planet with extremely cold temperatures. However, it's really the attack of spider-like beings that will have arachnophobes jumping out of their seats.

 

Everything gets resolved and Mando's ship gets moving again. However, there is a curious side story of the Child getting a taste for the (unfertilized) eggs and stealing them to eat, despite being told no by Mando any number of times. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this. I eat eggs all the time, but I'm not cognizant of potentially destroying an entire race of beings by eating them. And, I get that the Child is a child and thus not very self-disciplined plus used to popping anything and everything in his mouth for a taste and a chew, but it still felt weird to see the Child stealing and eating from the last few eggs of an entire species.

 

Perhaps this is a commentary on the way we blithely cause mass extinctions as human beings on our own planet. Perhaps, we are also just children worried mostly about filling our bellies in self-indulgence, as much as we like to think we're becoming more civilized.

 

Episode 3 drops tomorrow.

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Haven't watched ep 3 The Heiress yet, but I was perusing Mando Mondays, the site where you can buy various merch from this show, and noticing how much merch there was reflecting the Child eating the frog eggs. I'm a bit disturbed by this. So, the element in episode 2 which I took to mean the Child potentially inadvertently helping to cause the extinction of an entire race and that is something that I had been pondering about is something that is actually supposed to be cute and funny???

 

Just saying. Maybe that's an even stronger, albeit unintentional, commentary on our collective selves and merchandising in general. Not sure.

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Episode 3: The Heiress

Director: Bryce Dallas Howard

 

Mando and the Child get the Frog Lady and her eggs safely to trask where she is reunited with her husband and can get the eggs fertilized. As Mando seeks to get his ship fixed and find the whereabouts of other Mandalorians, the Child gets fed to a Squid Monster. Mando jumps in to try to save him, but is unable to do so. Fortunately, a trio of Mandalorians come to Mando's aid and save the Child.

 

These new Mandalorians, however, take off their masks and reveal their faces to the Mando which causes him to react in shock, saying that they are not Mandalorians and asking where they had gotten their armor. The leader of the trio says that she has had her armor since birth and that she is the last of her clan. She mentions that Mando must be from the Watch, a fringe extremist element of Mandalorian society. She proposes that she can help Mando get the info he needs if he will help her steal some weapons from an Imperial ship.

 

Mando leaves the Child with the Frog Couple while he helps the trio take over the ship with the weapons. The captain of the ship is told by his leader that his ship is too compromised to send aid and that he knows what he must do. Accordingly, the captain shoots his own men with him in the bridge, then takes the controls, intending to suicidally crash the shop. Mando and the trio are able to take the bridge before he can do that, however, saving themselves and the ship, though the Imperial Captain commits suicide anyway. 

 

Mando gains the information from The Heiress, leaves the ship via jetpack, goes and picks up the Child who has been bonding with a tadpole, and starts for another planet to try to find the Jedis. Btw, the Child fusses about being separated from his new friend (pet?) but is carried off. Cute how Mando says that the Child can't stay because they have enough pets. Mando is presumably talking about the Frog Couple having enough to do without taking care of the Child as well. It was a very paternal moment, even with a dry joke thrown in at the Child's expense.

 

 

This was a brief episode, but fascinating as much for various details that is slipped out regarding Mandalorian culture and lore as anything else. So, rather than being a homogenous society with the Way, the Mandalorian society had variations in how its members practiced their culture and religion.

 

Also, an interesting aspect of the Child bonding with the tadpole. The Child is prone to eat anything and everything he can fit into his mouth, but watching the tadpole hatch, and acknowledging that the Frog People are people, the Child seems to have bonded with it on another level. So, I wondered if the Child is realizing that he had been eating potentially sentient beings? I know I sound a bit obsessive on this, but I keep looking for signs that the Child is also maturing in his time with Din Djarin, and I thought that perhaps in this episode, the Child was getting a tiny bit more insight and maturity.

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Honestly, not sure if anyone else will ever read this thread, but I am adding the director of each episode to the episode commentary because it's been interesting to see the different directorial styles.

 

Jon Favreau has a comic, light-hearted touch in the first episode of The Mandalorian that he's ever directed. I also think there is a certain gleefulness to works that he's directed.

 

Peyton Reed also has a Marvel Universe background after having directed Ant-Man and the sequel. To me, his style is reminiscent of young adult comedies of the 90's and turn of the millennium. 

 

Bryce Howard Dallas is a relatively newbie director, but I do think that she brings a strong feminist sensibility to the 2 episodes of The Mandalorian that she's directed thus far (The Sanctuary in season 1 and The Heiress in season 2.)

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I've been wondering if I really like the story, or if I'm just enraptured by the character of the Child and his relationship with his father-figure protector Mandalorian, Din Djarin. And to be honest, I'm not sure. This drama has such great production values. It's clear that it's a part of the Star Wars franchise, with full uses of that ILM magic, and yet it's carved a niche of its own.

 

It's odd to say that the story lines may be the weakest part of this drama, but I honestly don't think the story lines are bad. It's just that the characterizations and the interactions, specifically between the Child and Mando, are more engrossing, and so I probably forgive the stories more.

 

The stories fall into the episodic tv trap of having to "rescue" someone/something in each episode, and while that can be fun to watch, there doesn't seem to be enough interesting development of the overall arcing storyline of trying to reunite the Child with his people.

 

However, I suppose I think that the series is taking its time to show us the increasing bond between the Child and Mando in order to set up the drama of what happens when the Child is finally taken to Yoda's people. Will the Child and Mando really be able to part ways after all that time together? However, the bounty hunter life really is no life for any child, including the Child.

 

I'm also curious about the Yoda race and their overall history and relationship to the universe, so hope to see more about them at some point.  I assume that Mando will make contacts with the Jedi's by the end of this season. However, I'm not sure that he will make contact with a member of the Child's race by the end of this season.

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Episode 4 The Siege

Director: Carl Weathers

 

A throwback episode in a number of ways. In order to fix their ship Razor Crest, they go back to Nevarro where they meet up again with Greef Karga and Cara Dune. Greef Karga is now the town magistrate while Cara Dune is now the town marshall. In return for repairs, Mando agrees to help clear out an old stormtrooper base on the other side of the planet, while the Child is placed in a school and learns to use the force to steal some macarons.

 

The old stormtrooper base is not a defunct base, of course. Rather it's an active cloning lab where the previously harvested Child's blood has been infusing bodies trying to turn them into super warriors. The three are able to destroy the facilities and escape, chased by a horde of stormtroopers.

 

There are some aerial dogfighting scenes reminiscent of the original series as well as canyon run. All of which makes for some good fun as well as nostalgia.

 

Nevarro is secured and Mando and the Child take off to find Ahsoka Tanto on Corvus.

 

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YEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHH! If you haven't watched the second season ending episode of The Mandalorian, then you might be wondering why I've gone crazy. If you have watched it, then you probably know why I'm bouncing around and screaming.

 

The series finale was so fantastic! I know that I stopped writing recaps at ep 4, but that's because there were already so many recaps out there any way. So, I won't bother to recap ep 8 either.

 

I will just say that I looooooovvveeed season 2. It may have started a bit slow, but the last few episodes were all beautiful, emotional, action-filled sequences. And, the season ender was both cathartic and sad at the same time.

 

Plus, there had been plenty of speculation about the Jedi who shows up to claim Grogu, and basically, a  lot of people guessed it right, including me once I worked through where the timeline was for this series.

 

Since I don't know if anyone is even reading this thread, I'm not going to bother to put things in spoilers. Mando saves Grogu, defeating Moff Gideon but not killing him. Then as the crowd in the room are trying to figure out the whole throne of Mandylor and all that, the Dark Troopers attack the room. But, as they watch on screen, a Jedi comes striding in with his lightsaber, easily putting the Dark Troopers down.

 

It's a young LUKE SKYWALKER and R2D2 show up to claim Grogu! Grogu is clearly uncertain about going with Luke, but Luke tells Mando that Grogu is looking for permission from Mando to go. Luke rightly surmised the paternal relationship that had been established between Grogu and Mando. Mando tells Grogu he has to go, promising him that they will meet again, and then takes off his helmet in front of everyone so that Grogu can see his face. Mando says goodbye to Grogu with tear-filled eyes, even as Grogu finally allows Luke to pick him up. It's also clear that R2D2 and Grogu has a communication of some kind.

 

Ugh. I was elated and teary eyed watching the episode end. I hear that there will be a season 3 with 9 episodes in it. I can't wait to see it. Grogu needs to train in the Force, then reunite with Mando, so that they can set everything right in the universe.

 

So many questions for the 3rd season. Luke clearly knows that Grogu is of Yoda's race, but does Luke actually know much about Yoda's race? Are there other members of Grogu's and Yoda's race still alive in the universe? When will Mando and Grogu be together again, and I don't mean a moment in passing either!

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So it's speculation time now!

 

Btw, I saw the epilogue to episode 16 (Mando Season 2, episode 8), and saw them announce The Book of Boba Fett, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be a separate project for Disney+ than The Mandalorean Season 3 which was announced for December 2021.

 

Anyway, at some point, they still need to show us how Grogu got to where he was, as someone to be experimented on and bartered around.

 

I wonder about R2D2's conversation with Grogu, and wonder if R2D2 had known Grogu before, though it was clearly Luke's first time meeting Grogu. But, R2D2 had been Anakin's droid before he became Luke's, so now I can't help but speculate if there had been a connection between Anakin and Grogu. Especially since Anakin and Grogu would have been the same age. Does that mean that they were both at the Coruscant Temple together?

 

I don't think Grogu is Yoda's son or anything like that, but Jon Favreau has come out and said that we'll see a lot more of Grogu. So, I"m going to hold onto that, and hope that the level of storytelling remains high and entertaining.

 

Plus I want to see Grogu reunited with Din Djarin again!

 

Finally, I love Luke Skywalker and will take him any way they want to give him to us, but if a younger Luke is going to be a more consistent presence in the Grogu Universe, I hope they get Sebastian Stan to depict the younger Luke.