What to Watch Verdict
Another low-stakes episode for 'The Mandalorian,' though there is some spook factor involved this week.
Pros
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🥚Baby Yoda remains very cute.
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🥚You care about the nice frog lady.
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🥚Very creepy krykna.
Cons
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🥚There is still no prevailing narrative for the coming season.
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🥚Mando's ship got knocked out of the sky and they got chased by monsters and there are still somehow no stakes to the series.
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🥚Removing the option for communication can work, but it doesn't here. Particularly after the charisma of "The Marshal."
This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here.
The low stakes of The Mandalorian are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s neat to be a part of the universe on missions that seem to have no urgency or ultimately matter at all to the overall canon. On the other, it does make for some kind of slow viewing when you’re trapped on an ice planet watching Mando (Pedro Pascal) fix a busted ship.
This week’s theme is a hungry baby! It’s all fun and games until Baby Yoda munches on a spider egg in the middle of a giant space spider nest (they're called krykna, but "space spider" is more fun). Their dramatic encounter with the horrifying creatures somehow smacks of both Alien and Arachnaphobia, but in the best of ways. “The Passenger” also begs the question of just what happens when a Mandalorian has to rely on the Rebellion for a little help. The scene is fleeting, but it takes its time to illustrate the tenuous allegiance between the bounty hunter and rebel pilots despite their relationship getting off to a rocky start.
Mando and his passenger – a very nice frog lady whose species doesn’t seem to be named – find themselves stranded on the ice planet after they run afoul of the Rebels who are really just doing their jobs. The two can’t communicate with each other, adding to the sort of meh nature of “The Passenger,” but you do feel for her. Her eggs are the last of her species, and her husband immigrated to Trask so the two could ensure they stave off their species’ extinction. However, if Mando doesn’t get her there soon, her eggs may not be viable anymore. There’s also a very real chance that they all get eaten. Spider eggs aren’t the only thing Baby Yoda’s munching on this week.
While “The Passenger” is fun, we’re now two chapters into the season with no real course set for where the story’s trying to go. Last week gave us a fleeting glance at Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), but some fans missed the reference without the trademark armor. Even if the cameo had hit the way the series intended, it wouldn’t be enough to carry two directionless episodes. “On a quest to find more Mandalorians” simply doesn’t have enough intrigue to be the sole mission at the beginning of your season.
One thing that is curious is that, while there are plenty of people named Trask in Star Wars canon, we’ve never been to a planet of that name before. There could be the potential for a nice Knights of the Old Republic nod. Or, given how things have set up so far, the planet name could be that nod in and of itself.
The good news is that though the first two episodes don’t tell us much about where we’re going, that means there will come a point where the season has to kick it into hyperdrive. We already know Boba Fett will play some kind of role, with both Ahsoka Tano and Maul both heavily rumored for appearances in the season. Meanwhile, Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) both received character posters for the season, so we know they’ll need to play a decent role at one point or another. And there’s still the question of that whole Darksaber situation.
So, though “The Marshal” and “The Passenger” didn’t do much to set up future excitement, we know there’s a lot on the horizon. Keep the faith, fans!
