Last week, The Mandalorian kicked off with a soft bang to its season premiere. The episode gave us quite a surprise, including a baby Yoda appearing at the end.
What we learned was Mando is possibly a survivor of The Clone Wars and has a lot of hatred towards droids. His Client (Werner Herzog) is a leftover from the fallen Empire. And for some reason, he aims to either capture or kill what remains of Yoda’s species.
And with Chapter 2 – The Child, we begin to see why he has a motivation to do so. Between episodes 1 and 2, The Mandalorian is quickly becoming one of the most compelling streaming shows in the golden age of television.
A valuable bounty
As the episode kicks off, Mando and the baby Yoda are traveling through a canyon to get back to his ship. But what he discovers is a lot of people want the Yoda child. He and the little green 50-year-old kid are ambushed by other bounty hunters, but Mando executes a vicious takedown on every one of them.
But after making one of them disintegrate with his rifle, he notices a fob tracker on the ground, showing him that someone else wants the Yoda baby as well.
The show then cuts to an adorable moment of Mando and baby Yoda resting in the desert as he repairs his armor and doctors an injury on his arm.
While doing so, the little green child walks over and attempts to heal Mando using the force, but Mando has no idea what he is doing, so he picks him up and puts him back in the floating egg.
This happens twice, and it’s incredibly adorable to watch the little green dude try to be helpful.
The mischievious Jawas
Once he fixes himself up, Mando and baby Yoda make their way back to the ship only to discover Jawas are there stripping it for parts. Mando begins firing his rifle at the Jawas, disintegrating them one by one.
But the robed, beady-eyed creatures escape with his parts in the Sandcrawler.
This infuriates Mando, and he chases the vehicle down and begins climbing aboard the side of it. What ensues is a rather impressive set piece of Jawas throwing objects at him to make him fall off as the Sandcrawler moves.
The whole sequence has a George Miller vibe.
Despite the Jawas efforts, Mando makes it to the top of the Sandcrawler. However, he is met by a weapon fired by one of them that paralyzes him, and he falls off the vehicle. The Jawas escape, and baby Yoda looks at fallen Mando with concern.
After assessing the damage to his ship by the Jawas, Mando makes his path back to Kuill (Nick Nolte), who says he is surprised that he is still alive.
After a brief conversation about baby Yoda being the cause for all the chaos, Mando explains he can’t leave with the child because Jawas destroyed his ship. Kuill explains that the Jawas do not destroy, they steal.
But he agrees to take him to the Jawas and get his parts back.
Once they track down the Sandcrawler, Kuill acts as an intermediary to negotiate a return for Mando’s stolen ship parts. The Jawas say they will return the parts in a trade for Mando’s Beskar.
Angrily Mando says he will not trade because the goods were stolen. Mando also tries saying it in their language, and the Jawas make fun of him, exclaiming, “You speak terrible Jawa. You sound like a Wookie.”
Frustrated Mando shouts, “You understand this?” and fires a flamethrower from his armor, scaring the creatures.
Kuill calms Mando down and manages to make a trade agreement between them. They want Mando to get an egg. But it won’t be as simple as stealing a chicken egg.
The Mudhorn awakens
The Jawas give Mando a ride to the location of the said egg, and what he finds is a dark cave. Leaving the baby Yoda safe outside, he explores the cave only to see what turns out to be a Mudhorn.
The monster throws Mando out of its hideout and into the sunlight next to the baby Yoda. And what transpires is Mando getting smashed and viciously thrown around by the rhinoceros looking beast.
And at the climax of the episode, Mando seems broken and defeated by the Mudhorn, and the animal appears ready to finish the job. Mando pulls out his knife, and the Mudhorn charges at him.
And just before the creature can make its final blow, it stops unexpectedly and begins floating in the air. And when Mando looks behind, he sees baby Yoda using force powers to keep the Mudhorn in the air.
And as baby Yoda uses all his strength, the child passes out in his floating egg, drops the Mudhorn, and Mando stabs a final blow in the monster’s head, killing it.
Once he gathers himself, Mando shoves the blade deeper in the Mudhorn to make sure it’s dead and then glances over at his bounty curiously. He walks over to the floating egg, and baby Yoda is sound asleep from using his force powers to save Mando.
He walks into the cave to retrieve the egg, which is quite odd in appearance, having a furry exterior. Walking back to the Sandwalker, he hands the Jawas the Mudhorn egg, and the Jawas devour the inside of it like Cadbury creme.
After getting his parts back, Mando and Kuill make their way back to the ship, and Kuill seems baffled by the story of what baby Yoda did to the Mudhorn. Kuill says, “Explain it to me again. I still don’t understand what happened.” Mando responds, “Neither do I.”
Shortly after, they begin repairing his ship, and it conveys this through a brief montage scene. While all this is happening, cute baby Yoda remains asleep from using his force strength.
Kuill says farewell
After finishing their repairs on Mando’s ship, Mando thanks Kuill for all his help. He also offers a reward or even employment aboard his ship as a crewmate.
Kuill refuses the reward because he considers Mando his guest and refuses the job because he no longer wishes to live in service anymore.
As Kuill wishes Mando good luck with baby Yoda, he departs with his already iconic phrase, “I have spoken.”
As Mando leaves the planet and enters space, he glances back at the sleeping baby Yoda and attempts waking the child. When he doesn’t wake, Mando returns to navigating the ship.
In the episode’s final moments, baby Yoda wakes up cooing and watching Mando fondly as he flies the ship back home.
The Mandalorian Season 1, Episode 2 takeaways
Episodes 1 and 2 might be separate parts but feel like one giant introduction to the events to come. What we know is Yoda’s species seems to be valuable because of their sensitivity to the force.
Mando seems to have a soft spot for the child, and it appears to be setting up a major internal conflict for the character, and he will most likely not deliver the child to the Empirical client.
What will possibly continue to frustrate fans, though, is how short the episodes continue to be. Last week’s episode was 37 minutes, and this week’s was even shorter, around 27 (32 with credits).
That said, the show is fantastically handled thus far, with an amazing score, cinematography, and choice in directors. This week had Rick Famuyiwa at the helm who previously directed smaller films like Dope and The Wood.
Next week Deborah Chow will lead directing duties. She has brilliantly made episodes for Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, and many more. She will also be helming the Obi-Wan series, which should give us an idea of what to expect from her.
The Mandalorian has new episodes every Friday on Disney+.