The Mandalorian – Chapter 14: The Tragedy Review

For my twelfth birthday, all I wanted were Star Wars toys. And boy did I get them. The coolest of the bunch was Boba Fett’s ship, Slave I that came complete with a miniature version of Fett and Han Solo encased in carbonite. Even as a kid I knew that The Empire Strikes Back was the coolest of the original trilogy (which, at the time, was the only trilogy that existed in the Star Wars universe), and I was fascinated by this bounty hunter who looked super cool (and had the coolest ship), yet didn’t really do all that much in the story. A few years later, we got his backstory in the prequel trilogy, which still didn’t explain all that much about Fett and why he was so darn cool looking but didn’t do all that much in the grand scheme of things. Turns out, all we needed was a single episode of The Mandalorian to bring years of wonder to fruition by showing us just how badass Boba Fett really is.

One of my major complaints in season one was that the show would bring in cool, compelling guest stars and then cycle through them rather quickly. In the case of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), I was pretty disappointed to see her seemingly killed off at the end of her episode, despite the mysteriously robbed person heading toward her. Well, it turns out my disappointment was for nought, as Boba Fett saved her life (which is a ridiculous piece of plot armor for the character, but I’ll allow it this time because she’s such a cool, kick ass character in the series). Meaning we got to see Shand and Fett team up to utterly destroy those Stormtoopers. It was a glorious sight to see, and the realization of many a fanboy and girl dreams come to life, watching Boba Fett cut through the troopers like a hot knife through butter.

Now that The Mandalorian has got its formula down pat (Mando arrives, meets a cool character/previously introduced cool character, they team up, Grogu is adorable), its become a hell of a fun series to watch. Do I think something awful will happen to Grogu while in Moff Gideon’s clutches? Nah. Do I appreciate that the series is now trying to introduce actual stakes to the proceedings after largely avoiding them in any real way in season one? Absolutely. At its heart, Star Wars is a world where its rare for truly bad things to happen to our heroes. The stakes tend to remain shockingly low (which is one of the reasons the end of Rogue One was such a shocking departure from the norm: Bad things happened to all of the good people), which does tend to tamper the suspense a great deal when it comes to dealing with villains. But with a supporting cast of interesting, generally fun characters flanking Mando as he goes on this adventure to free Grogu from the clutches of Moff Gideon, well, I’ll be content to look the other way on my firm belief that the little guy will make it out in one piece (after all, why would Disney allow their cash cow character to get killed off in the midst of the holiday shopping season).

A few interesting stray threads to keep in mind while we wait until next week. First, Grogu certainly managed to get that Force bulletin sent out in the galaxy, so if there’s a Jedi out there looking for other Jedi, well, they are going to find that beacon. Second, remember that Bo-Katan is on the hunt for Moff Gideon as well. Plus we got another look at Chekhov’s Darksaber this week. I wouldn’t be shocked to see her pop up in the near future to lend a hand. Similarly, Ahsoka is still out there and I suspect she wouldn’t be averse to taking out remnants of the Imperial Army and rescuing Grogu if asked. Finally, if we’re heading for another round of getting the gang back together for one last score, there’s every chance we get additional appearances by Cara Dune, Greef Karga, and even Cobb Vance (in addition to Mayfield, the man Mando is talking about breaking out of prison). It would be a heck of a grand finale to a genuinely great season to have everyone teaming up to take out Gideon and get back Grogu. We only have two more episodes left in season two, after all. Why not pull out all the stops?