With this season of The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau is doing significant damage to his reputation as a writer. To be fair, I didn't think his writing on the previous seasons was great but this season everyone seems to be taking notice. Last night's episode was especially dumb. It was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard who does seem to have good instincts for action sequences but terrible instincts for dialogue scenes, especially when it comes to closeups.
Two cringeworthy shots that stand out in my memory are when the droid coroner turns to Bo-Katan and Din and says, "It's illegal," and the shot of Katee Sackoff looking smug right after she's taken down a battle droid.
Both felt amateurish. But Dallas Howard is a new director so maybe his is good testing ground for her before she works on anything a major studio spends a lot of money on or a prominent IP . . . Well, Star Wars is still kind of a prominent IP. I mean, The Mandalorian is no worse than the Ewok movies . . . right?
There were things I liked about the episode. I liked references to the Separatists and the Clone Wars. I liked appearances from battledroids and Christopher Lloyd. I even liked the royal couple played by Jack Black and Lizzo, though people seem to be complaining about those two a lot.
Black always feels tonally out of place to me whenever he's supposed to be serious but as a potentially duplicitous politician that kind of works. It makes sense that he seems a little phony. I'd never heard of Lizzo so I had no baggage there. I didn't think she gave a particularly good performance but her role wasn't terribly crucial. I did kind of like the Alice in Wonderland vibe to the alien croquet game Grogu was helping her cheat at.
But the plot was one stupid thing after another, an especially bad thing because this episode is set up as basically a police procedural. Right of the bat, it doesn't make sense. Din and Bo-Katan come to this luxury planet run by King Jack Black and Queen Lizzo in order to meet up with Bo-Katan's Mandalorian fleet who now operate as privateers for the royal couple. Black and Lizzo won't let our heroes meet with the fleet until they've rectified a problem with droids going murderously haywire. When asked why their own Mandalorians can't take care of the problem, Black and Lizzo explain that no weapons are allowed on the planet because Black's a former Imperial. However, since Din and Bo-Katan are Mandalorians, and carrying weapons is part of their culture, they're allowed to go armed against the dangerous droids.
So the privateer Mandalorians can't carry weapons but Din and Bo-Katan can because . . . they're Mandalorians.
Din and Bo-Katan go to interrogate a community of Ugnaughts. They won't listen to Bo-Katan but then Din has a go. He mentions being friends with the Ugnaught voiced by Nick Nolte in season one and concludes with, "I have spoken," so all the Ugnaughts immediately open up to him. For a real world correlation, I imagine a white cop going to a black neighbourhood, approaching some guys playing basketball, and saying, "What up, hommies? By the way, I have a black friend."
I did enjoy a scene in a droid bar that slyly echoed the cantina scene in A New Hope where R2D2 and C3PO were prohibited from entering.
After the investigation plot, Din and Bo-Katan finally confront the fleet, who still won't follow Bo-Katan for the sole reason that she doesn't have the Dark Sabre. Din finally realises that Bo-Katan won the sabre after rescuing him on Mandalore. I pointed this out in my review for that episode and wondered why it didn't occur to Din or Bo-Katan. I guess Favreau was saving it for a dramatic moment, banking on the idea that it wouldn't occur to anyone. Even if it didn't occur to me, it really should have occurred to Din and Bo-Katan. Like, right away. Especially Bo-Katan whose whole political career evidently hinges on possessing that weapon. It's hard to get invested in characters whose commitment to their own motives is so nebulous.
There were a lot of nice effects and aliens in the episode.
The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.
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