Main cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Mark Boone Jr (Ranzar Malk), Bill Burr (Mayfeld), Natalia Tena (Xi’an), Clancy Brown (Burg), Richard Ayoade (Zero), and Ismael Cruz Cordova (Qin)
Director: Rick Famuyiwa
Mandy now realizes that people will want his head because of the bounty on it as well as for the Baby Yoda he has sort of adopted as his own, so in The Prisoner, he meets his old buddy Ranzar Malk. Ranzar of course has a job for him – he will be the fifth man in a team that will break out someone from a New Republic prison ship. This is because Ranzar plans to use Mandy’s ship as the getaway vehicle. Fun!
Now, this is yet another episode which allows Mandy to show off his PhD in ruthless violence, which is nice, but like the last few episodes, it does nothing to advance stuff that were introduced in early episodes in this season. What’s with Baby Yoda’s powers? How about expanding even a bit on the flashbacks of Mandy’s past? Can we know a bit more about Mandy, at least? Speaking of that, Mandy is like a different person under that armor in each of the last few episodes. He was supposed to keep on his own all this while like the emotionally closeted lone wolf that he was said to be, but in this episode, he’s chums with all kinds of lowlifes? Which is which?
It is starting to feel like the people behind The Mandalorian are just handing out screenwriting and directing as well as cameo acting gigs to one another like some incestuous scheme to keep them all employed in the entertainment industry, with little regard to things like seasonal direction, overarching plot, character development, or anything like that. I don’t think I like this feeling.
Back to this episode, the rest of the five man gang are composed of one-note tics. We have the shady talkative leader, the Twi’lek version of Harley Quinn, the Ron Perlman stand-in, and the talking droid. They all go down like wimps because Mandy is so much better and smarter than they, and that’s basically the story. If you have seen any heist movie, Alien movies, et cetera, you can and will know what will happen for the rest of the episode ten minutes into watching it.
Sure, the episode is still watchable, but come on, why settle for being merely that? I know Mandy is awesome. Stop beating that drum. Please let him be in more interesting stories.
