It's probably my favorite single sound effect in all of Star Wars.
Oh, my apologies, I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll see what I mean later, after the spoilers break.
I am not ready for this season to be over, and I feel like the last episode - airing next week - is going to both blow my mind and leave a gaping hole of "I need more Mandalorian and I don't know when I'll get it." Today's chapter was fun and exciting, and there's a lot to digest, but I'll admit one of my first impressions was that it didn't move things along nearly far or fast enough. It felt like another side adventure to move us one space further on the game board, whereas last week felt like rolling double 6's in Monopoly. That said, the space we explored today was not only crucial, it was poignant and rather deep upon reflection.
Assuming you've seen Chapter 14, i.e. "BOBA KRIFFING FETT'S EPIC RETURN," we ended with the Child/Baby Yoda/Grogu in Imperial custody after his abduction by Moff Gideon's Dark Trooper deathbots. With new sidekicks Fett and Fennec Shand, our hero goes to Nevarro to enlist my personal favorite Republic trooper Cara Dune. His main task? Springing Migs Mayfeld from jail to help them find Gideon's Imperial cruiser.
Flashback: Mayfeld was the smart-cracking human who led the job to spring a dangerous Twi'lek from a New Republic prison transport in season 1, chapter 6. When we last saw him, he and the other jailbreakers were locked in one of the transport cells by Din Djarin after they backstabbed him.
The lesson, kids: don't betray someone who looks infinitely more bad-a** than you.
Today's episode is all about how Mayfeld helps Din and crew and what he gets in return. I really can't say more without spoiling, so I'll save that for after the buffer. But as always, there are some great moments and set pieces, and this puts us in a great position for next week's finale.
One more thing before spoilers: I am VERY impressed with Bill Burr's performance. A comedian whose material is generally way too extreme/off-color for me, he was perfect for the Mayfeld role, a smart-aleck sarcastic jerk. I was looking forward to more of the same in this chapter, and Burr didn't disappoint, but I did NOT expect the level of emotion that the role brought to this episode, and it was really great to see.
Okay, BUFFER TIME!!!
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OKAY, SPOILER TIME!!!
- I have to start with the sound effect, I just have to. The BWWWOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!! As SOON as the hatch opened on the back of Slave I while it was fleeing two TIE fighters, I had a smile ten parsecs wide on my face. This GIF flashed through my brain:
You see, that's a seismic charge that dropped from the Slave I, and it's responsible for the single coolest visual/sound effect in the entire Star Wars universe. That silence, the shock wave, then the BWWWWOOOOOMMMMMMM sound is like cold water to a person dying of thirst. It's just so SATISFYING, so unique, so awesome. Allow me to introduce you to when it was introduced to the world:
It makes me so so happy.
- The title of the episode, "The Believer," IMMEDIATELY got my brain churning - what does that mean? Who's it talking about? Something that often gets second billing to the Big Story Arc and Mando's general awesomeness is his creed, his sort-of religion that dictates his behaviors, his actions, and his motivations. So Din Djarin is the believer, right? That certainly gets support when, while trying to get info on Gideon's ship, Din has no choice but to remove his helmet (a trooper helmet swapped in for a disguise) and show his face to the computer, as well as incidentally to Mayfeld and a few Imperial officers.
Wait, what?? The literal only other time we saw Din's face was when IG-11 removed the helmet to tend to a potentially fatal wound, but Din got around his creed, which says he's not to remove his helmet in the presence of another living being, because IG-11 was a droid, not a living being. So what gives here? How in the world could he remove his helmet and show his face to Imps? And a criminal?
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| Trust me, Pedro looks way better in Chapter 15 than he did in Chapter 8. |
Well, the way I see it is he chose the more important of his beliefs. Yeah, there's the helmet/face thing, but he's also bound by creed to protect Baby Yoda. He realizes the only way to do that is to violate the face/helmet oath. There's no other way to preserve and keep the Way.
That's a FASCINATING topic for discussion, especially when you bring in real-world beliefs and oaths and creeds and covenants. I won't do that here, but trust me, the field is ripe. Maybe Din was and is really troubled by having to violate his oath. But then again, considering what's at stake, maybe not.
- Segue: the first of Mayfeld's exceptionally well-done moments in the episode is when he tells Din, "You did what you had to. I never saw your face."
As Mayfeld and Din Djarin drive toward the Imperial facility, we get to see what we first assume is more Mayfeld cynicism: yeah, he's done bad stuff who hasn't? What's the difference between a Mandalorian and an Alderaanian, each brought up to believe their own thing? What's the point of it all?That kind of thing.
What I did NOT expect was how he would later use that cynicism and turn it against his former master (literally). When Migs sees an old commander of his at the facility (played brilliantly by Richard Brake) he thinks the jig is up. Moments later, he has to step in when the commander challenges Din and improvise, which he does brilliantly. Then, while having a drink, he and the commander rehash "old times," like the destruction of Burnin Konn during "Operation: Cinder" (more on that in a sec), and you can just see Mayfeld's emotions (in Burr's finest performance so far) grinding inside him, until the officer toasts the Empire and he can't handle it. Next move? Blaster to the officer's chest.
The final piece of this Mayfeld masterpiece is when they safely get to the Slave I, and Mayfeld - despite what Cara Dune thought of him earlier, suggesting he could betray them to be a "hero" for his old employer, uses his marksmanship to blow up the fuel the Empire had been stockpiling. When Mando looks at him, he repeats a notion he said earlier: "We all have to sleep at night."
I LOVE that. When he said it the first time, it felt like justification for burying whatever doubts or concerns one has about the things he or she has done or does in order to make it through life. Here, it's his reason for fully giving the Empire the middle finger - he's essentially saying "you forced me to do awful things, so I'm gonna pay you back by making it harder to do more awful things." It's a really cool moment, and it's rewarded by Dune not taking Mayfeld back into custody, but saying "maybe he died in the explosion," allowing Mayfeld his freedom.
So was Din Djarin the titular believer? Was it Mayfeld? Clearly it can be argued it was either or both of them. But that interplay is an example of the solid writing the show has provided week in and week out.
- Alright, Operation: Cinder. I'm going to try to keep this brief. Much of what we know about this comes from the "Star Wars: Battlefront 2" video game. A little more gets filled in by other media, but here are the basics. Operation: Cinder was Emperor Palpatine's contingency plan should the Empire fail and he be killed. It's the scorched earth policy to rule all scorched earth policies. The idea was to make sure the Empire and its enemies did not outlive the Emperor. It involved using satellites to disrupt planetary climates and cause widespread destruction, and other measures of violence. Cinder was part of the Emperor's larger Contingency plan, the way he'd ensure the Empire's future by culling its weaker parts and having the stronger remnants regroup in a far part of the galaxy.
The result of Operation: Cinder, though it was ultimately thwarted by the New Republic, was the deaths of untold scores of people, including the troopers Mayfeld served with, thus his grudge against his commander, as well as Rebels and civilians.
Interesting note: since he's still alive and apparently thriving, Moff Gideon was likely part of Operation: Cinder. I wonder what we may learn about that.
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| Operation: Cinder as seen in "Battlefront 2" |
- The Juggernauts the Imperials used to haul the fuel are a fun throwback to the Juggernaut battle tanks introduced in Legends material, made canon in "Revenge of the Sith" and seen again briefly in "Rogue One."
- Also fun to see Din kick pirate butt even if he doesn't have a blaster (sure, the pirates didn't seem armed to the teeth, but still).
Sadly this is the first episode without Baby Yoda in it (besides the recap at the beginning), but I fully expect a return to cuteness and little Force awesomeness in the finale next week.
Let me know what you thought of this episode if you want - I'll see you all next week!
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