Main cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), John Leguizamo (Gor Koresh), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), and Timothy Olyphant (Cobb Vanth)
Director: Jon Favreau
You know the first season was a success when the guest stars of the second season come from a higher pay grade, and that’s what The Mandalorian is. Mind you, I always maintain that the first season looked doubly more awesome than it otherwise would be, because pretty much every Star Wars-related material from Disney has been a bust. It will be interesting to see whether the second season will improve on the first, or it will outlast its welcome by doing what Disney does best these days: ruin whatever good it has going for itself.
Judging from the second season opener The Marshal, though, things are still pretty much the same for now.
After events in the previous season, Mandy is now on a sacred quest to reunite Baby with his people, and our hero figures that the best way he can do this is by locating other Mandalorians out there. It’s not like he can ask the ones that he know, since they’re all dead from saving his ass the last time. After visiting the one-eyed Abyssin Gor Koresh, surviving that tubby thing’s attempt at double cross, and leaving Gor to die with style, Mandy heads over to Tatooine again, as Gor’s intel tells him that there is a Mandalorian there that has learned the secrets of taking off one’s helmet and giving Pedro Pascal far fewer reasons to complain all season.
In Tatooine, Peli Motto directs Mandy to the mining settlement of Mos Pelgo… and if you’re still with me this far, yes, this is basically Mandy on another fetch quest. Go here, talk to this NPC, get 100 XP, go there, talk to the other NPC, get another 100 XP, and so forth. At Mos Pelgo, he meets a man in Mandalorian helmet and chest piece, but that’s just the Marshal in the title. Cobb Vanth bought the armor pieces off the neighborhood Jawas, and with those +2 armor pieces, he liberated Mos Pelgo from the evil mining overlords and helped restore law and order.
Naturally, he has a quest for Mandy. There is a krayt dragon terrorizing the settlement, so if Mandy will open his quest journal, ah, there it is, his new quest. Kill that thing. This is a raid boss, of course, so Mandy will have to open up the LFG panel and start recruiting STAT.
What can I say? This episode is exactly what I expect it to be. It’s a well put-together piece of escapist fun, Mandy is Mandy, Baby has its cute moments to sell more toys, and the raid boss goes down and everyone gets a proper share of the raid drops. It’s alright. I watch this, I have a pleasant time, and then I log off until the next episode. I really hope the next few episodes would make me feel more excited for things to come, because this one is, if I am being honest here, a pleasant kind of whatever.
