Main cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Brendan Wayne (Mandalorian Warrior), and Lateef Crowder (Mandalorian Warrior)
Director: Rachel Morrison
The Mines of Mandalore is a dead giveaway of a title that tells anyone reading it that Mandy and Baby are going to give everyone a tour of the planet of the tin cans. Wait, does this mean I’d be getting a sultry scene of a naked Mandy taking a long cleansing bath in some beautiful underground lake?
Okay, here’s a painful spoiler, people, but no, there is no naked Mandy in this episode. It’s okay, go ahead and scream, do whatever to let out your pain; I’d be waiting here.
To get there, however, and to fill up the episode run time, first the show shoves onto my face the usual cutesy drama moments with Peli Motto, a Jawa, and Grogu—seriously, at this point, Amy Sedaris is just chewing scenery on this show—before I get lots of exposition as Mandy, Bo-Katy, and Baby traipse around an admittedly gorgeous landscape that is wrecked and poisoned Mandalore, on the history of the planet, the warring inhabitants, and other stuff that one can find on Wookiepedia.
Then there is that lake, ooh, and then Mandy jumps in still in his tin can suit.
Oh come on! Keep the helmet on, sure, but take off the pants at least and show me the full moon!
So yes, there ends Mandy’s quest for redemption of his honor, and I have to say, it’s shockingly simple and anticlimactic for a supposedly serious transgression.
Does this mean that, back in those days, tin cans can just break the rules and then take a dip and all will be forgiven? That sounds like a fun cult I could join, if I could ever overlook the severe dandruff and lice problems that would come with never taking off one’s helmet ever.
“I swear on my name and the names of the Ancestors that I shall walk the way of the Mand’alor, and the words of the Creed shall be forever forged in my heart.”
Well, that’s nice and sweet, but I hope that now with his mojo back and all, Mandy remembers that he’s supposed to be a kick-ass space Western cowboy and not a tour guide of the Outer Rims.
