What I thought
Confession time. I’m not the biggest Mandalorian fan. Sure, I love Boba Fett, and even Jango, plus those suits and gadgets are super cool, but they’ve never really done anything for me in the Clone Wars cartoon or Rebels whenever there’s been a Mandalorian episode. I don’t know a lot about their history, not being a book reader, but it seems to come down to clans battling each other, which is an interesting concept but it’s never risen above “oh look, they look cool”, which means I rarely really raise my interest level above “meh” when they are on Rebels. Also, as pleasant as Sabine is, there doesn’t appear to be much interesting to her backstory. She seems to be someone who can kick ass, look pretty in armour, mention bits about Mandalorian history and then ... well, this sums up the whole Mandalorian culture. It’s just not super interesting. I’m not sure if that’s due to a lack of decent stories in the star wars cartoons or because they really aren’t all that exciting. They blooming well should do because they look cool.
From the moment we have Sabine in that guy’s cell playing a game, saying how he hates being their pawn, and Sabine wanting him to join the rebels, you sort of know where this might go. Then, almost nanoseconds later, you have him, Sabine, and a rather random tagalong in Ezra, all being sent on this scouting mission to find out what’s happened to their Mandalorian contacts who were giving them safe passage through that area of space whilst they had their boss prisoner. I was never happy about this whole prisoner thing in the first place. Doesn't sound like the way of rebels and this story did little to convince me that they weren't behaving badly and simply convincing themselves that they were doing some good. Fenn Rau did a great job of his reasoning for being very disgruntled over the situation. I was very much behind him all the way, until one moment of overhearing what the imperial commandos did to his former clan, and he’s suddenly thankful that he was a rebel prisoner??? Sure, he’s alive because of the rebels but that’s hardly the point huh? He doesn’t even think much of Sabine’s clan or her rationality but he is not only semi compliant with her plans but then goes full circle and hooks up with the rebels?!?!!?! I feel like I’ve missed something along the way here.
There wasn’t a lot to enjoy for me in this episode with it bring Heavily Mandalorian focussed. There were no funky Mandalorian gadgets either sadly, just them donning their helmets, looking cool and, yes, those jet packs. After the Inquisitor lightsabre helicopters, it’s hard to enjoy anything non-metal flying about in this show. And what about Ezra? Still don’t know why he was picked for this episode. After appearing like he’d really grown self-assured and more powerful in previous episodes, he was like a young child with no clue this week until he actually did something useful when hanging off Sabine through the ravine.
Sure enough, this episode got Fenn Rau on board with the rebels; this time though as a willing participant, notwithstanding the fact that he was previously an unwilling prisoner, and that his clan got killed whilst he was incarcerated. He’s supposed to be a top dog and well known, so hopefully he’s a lot better than those imperial commando Mandalorians who were nothing more than storm troopers with a jet pack, so rubbish was their efforts. The leader of them was competent enough but you wonder how those numpties managed to get rid of a whole clan, unless they had the weight of the Empire with them?
A watchable episode with some elements to enjoy, but on the whole, rather forgettable in many ways.
What I liked = Mandalorians look super cool. Glad Fenn Rau hasn’t been forgotten about. Chopper’s very brief moments, including “It was an accident” when catching Ezra, were amusing.
What I didn’t like = Mandalorian past doesn’t sound interesting enough, and they come across as rather boring outside of their suits. The jet pack pursuit was a little silly from the perspective of Ezra hanging on to Sabine for most of it. Wasn’t keen on Fenn Rau’s change of heart, given the forcefulness of his imprisonment.
Rating 5/10 (ok).
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