Chapter 5 picks up where we left off, Mando lookin for love in all the wrong places.
Wait, no it doesn’t…coming in hot, a dog fight is how this chapter starts off! After the slower storytelling and character building episode of last week, I am hoping to see a bit more action and see more Mandalorian goodness.
With a bandit on their 6, Mando and Baby Yoda desperately try to evade capture, or perhaps even death. The bogey giving chase comes across the air and tells Mando to hand over the child, and if he does, then maybe he will let Mando live.
A series of blasts charge towards them during this one sided conversation and from the looks of things, Mando’s Ship is taking a lot of battle damage as this bogey is focusing on Mando’s port thruster like a wrestler attacking an opponent’s weak knee.
The thruster is clearly failing after taking a fairly direct hit, Bogey sets up for what appears to be a kill shot. Bogey’s weapons are hot and locked on. Mando’s ship sighted dead center.
Bogey says “I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold”. Mando pulls a classic move pulled from the playbooks of Iron Eagle and Top Gun.
Not sure exactly what he did with the jump cuts but, basically came full stop, thought Bogey would just fly over, but, there is a brief collision, Bogey flies past and quickly becomes one with the stars when Mando says “That’s my line” and pops off one hell of a kill shot.
The ship is in bad shape. Mando and Baby Yoda are a little frazzled. Mando takes a moment to evaluate things and reset, they begin to approach Mos Eisley and are vectored in.
Upon landing Mando puts a passed out Baby Yoda down for a nap, and then a few repair droids rush over to the ship, Mando quickly pops off a shot and tells the on site mechanic to not let the droids near his ship.
After evaluating the ship, the mechanic basically tells him all his shit is busted and it’s a miracle he landed. He offers a few hundred credits for repairs and promises more funds.
As Mando heads off to go wherever he is going, we now see the Mechanic (Played by Amy Sedaris, of Strangers with Candy fame!) and the droids again, this time she is playing cards with the droids…doors on the ship open, she grabs her gun and warns who or whatever is in the ship to stay where they are.
Baby Yoda comes out looking like me in 1987 on the sleepy eyed hunt for Saturday morning cartoons and a bowl of cereal.
The Mechanic realizes sweet angel Baby Yoda isn’t a threat and begins baby talking him while offering up food (she demands a droid goes to get food). She also devises a scheme to charge Mando more for making her watch Baby Yoda. Baby Yoda seems indifferent, she said food. Where is it?
As Mando approaches his destination, we learn storm troopers are definitely not welcome at this Cantina.
Mando walks into yet another Cantina and well…it happens to be the same Cantina where Han shot first.
Mando tells a droid he is looking for work, and after no luck, a young bounty hunter chimes in. Well, turns out he’s Cosplay Han Solo and I don’t think he’s had much luck with his bounty.
He basically offers the bounty to Mando if he helps him catch Fennec Shand, Cosplay Han Solo needs the capture to get into the Guild. The kid is very ego driven. Long story short, Mando sends him on a mission for speeder bikes and supplies and says meet him at the ship in thirty.
Mando makes his way back to the hangar and realizes Baby Yoda is not there, in a momentary “I turned around for one second” parental panic attack, Mando frantically looks for Baby Yoda.
Baby Yoda and the mechanic are both passed out cold. Quickly startled to, she reads Mando the riot act on parenting.
Cosplay Han Solo shows up with bikes, they head out to ride like the wind across the dunes, and the mechanic and Baby Yoda sit back and wait. Not gonna lie, kind of want a Speeder.
As they ride across the desert, they stop for a moment as Tusken Raiders are visible in the distance. Cosplay Han Solo talks mad shit and is all tough through his binoculars.
Basically saying the Raiders better stay out of their way. Mando asks Cosplay Han Solo to tell them himself, as Cosplay Han Solo realizes two raiders are adjacent to him.
Mando steps in and negotiates passage, at the cost of Cosplay Han Solo’s binoculars. Fair trade I’d say.
Mando and Cosplay Han Solo speed further ahead, once again stopping as they see something in the distance. Mando begins mentoring Cosplay Han Solo at this point.
Cosplay Han Solo is still…well, excited. As Mando goes to investigate, he discovers what looks like a dead bounty hunter.
Mere seconds later and in a split second reaction, Mando’s Beskar takes a glancing shot of a sniper round. Mando flees. We see a sniper sighting in the rifle again, and as Mando gets to the peak of a ridge, another sniper round hits his Beskar.
Mando and Cosplay Han Solo decided to wait until dark to progress towards the target. Sniper has the high ground so they are at a major disadvantage. Night falls, they prepare to advance.
Basically the plan is to get on speeders, haul all the ass towards the ridge where the sniper is camped at, and the traditional shock and awe type campaign.
As they speed forward, Mando fires off a flash charge and disables the Sniper’s view. In this moment we know 100% that the sniper is Fennec Shand, their bounty (even if it was pretty obvious).
Fennec pics up her rifle and begins firing off seemingly random shots as they bob and weave through the sand on their speeders.
Gathering herself after a few seconds, Fennec places a round in the engine of Mando’s speeder. Gorgeous shot.
Imagine a .50 Cal disabling a diesel truck’s engine block, kinda like that.
Mando’s speeder is now disabled, Cosplay Han Solo advances. Another flare, and then Fennec fires another round that appears to hit Mando center mass, dropping him with ease!
Fennec sets up a kill shot on Mando, and as she sets her sights, from behind we hear Cosplay Han Solo’s voice break the night air. “Not so fast Fennec”.
He’s very proud of himself, but that pride and accomplishment is short lived as Fennec retrieves a blade, knocks the blaster from, Cosplay Han Solo’s hand, and just starts using her SHIELD Training to just decimate Cosplay Han Solo. I’ll give the kid this, he can take a solid beating.
As Fennec seems to get the final upper hand and prepares to remove Cosplay Han Solo from Guild and life contention, Mando appears and says “good distraction”.
Now, we don’t know for sure, but I am fairly certain that Mando’s entire plan came to fruition. He made a little speech about the modified rifle and how the Beskar was fine.
He wanted to draw her fire because he knew she would try for center mass or a head shot, those areas are protected. Almost any other open area would be survivable if they took a single shot.
Cosplay Han Solo tries to find his balls in the sand, Mando has Fennec cuff herself, and he sends Cosplay Han Solo to go find the blaster that Fennec knocked out of his hand.
Fennec and Cosplay Han Solo are left to catch up as Mando heads off to go find a way to transport all three of them back, since they are down a speeder and now have an extra person, also, it is a very long walk back.
Fennec tries to get into Cosplay Han Solo’s head, basically wants him to flip on Mando.
Fennec offers her help to take out Mando. She stands up after she gets him to understand that handing over Mando would make him a legend.
As Cosplay Han Solo moves closer, she extends her cuffs. In what I can only describe as Cosplay Han Solo shot first, he just pops one off in Fennec. She gone!
Cosplay Han Solo tells her as she perishes that if he took her binders off, he’d be dead. He’s moving forward with her idea of capturing and turning over Mando (cold or warm I am guessing) to the guild.
Mando returns to the Hangar, he knows something is up. Droids duck, and Cosplay Han Solo is heard.
“Took you long enough” he says, he emerges from the shadows holding the mechanic and Baby Yoda.
I’m writing as I watch this episode for the first time. I just called Cosplay Han Solo a song of a bitch, and he just ordered Mando to drop his gear and raise his arms. Mando has too many cool gadgets to just get swerved by this lame. I mean, this dude is essentially the coolest dude at a high school in the middle of nowhere with a student body of 30.
Typical cosplayer I guess, really thinking he’s something but no one really knows who he is, but damn he kind of looks the part!
I digress, Cosplay Han Solo sends the mechanic over to put the shackles on Mando. He’s giving the whole “you’re a guild traitor” speech and all that jazz.
As the mechanic approaches, she sees a flash charge in Mando’s hand, she tells him he is smarter than he looks, he pulls the whole Batman smoke bomb/Ninja Vanish trick with the flair, shows up on Cosplay Han Solo’s side, oh shit…he’s still holding Baby Yoda. Mando fires off a shot, and down goes Cosplay Han Solo. Finally. That dude was useless.
Baby Yoda appears moments later and has made adorable noises throughout. We may get speech soon with how the noises seem to be progressing and more vocally responsive.
Regardless, Baby Yoda is still undefeated in cuteness.
Mando and Mechanic settle up, say their goodbyes, and off Mando and Baby Yoda go into the night.
Just before credits, we see a caped figure approaching Fennec’s body…and credits. Damn it all. I’m guessing to be continued!
I’m kind of indifferent to this episode, really was more of a filler type episode. Fan service everywhere and I’m sure I missed a ton of stuff. This just felt more like his car broke down after he should have taken that left at Albequerque, and he had time and people to kill until the parts came in. I could have used a lot more Fennec and a lot less Cosplay Han Solo.
Here’s to next week, and until then, I’m The Pandalorian and I’m hoping next week we get back to more of that Chapter 3 type action!
