The Mandalorian: Season Two - A Few Rants

I enjoyed jotting down my thoughts while watching Season One of The Mandalorian, so I'll keep doing that for this second season. I'm sure no one appreciates what I have to say, but at least I'm entertained by it. There are spoilers, but I don't care; this is best understood if you have already watched the season.

The second in a series of posts on 'My Thoughts on The Mandalorian' and other Star Wars series. A new thread after each season!

Chapter 9: I Can't Marshal Any New Cute Names

• Whistling birds! Have you not heard of his birdies?
• I guess there are like five planets worth putting plot elements on?
• The puppy-ears look got a chuckle out of me.
• A gunslinger rides into a small backwater down in the dessert, parks outside the local cantina, and walks up to the barkeep.
• This whole show is made infinitely better with the presence of Timothy Olyphant. (say "it was justified" say it say it say it!)
• Quickdraw, quickdraw, please do a quickdraw... YES! That's the Timothy Olyphant gunslinger we all know and love.
• We just saw in the flashback that he used the sights on his helmet to fire the missile; but now he doesn't have his helmet. What if he needs to fire the missile?
• The Replacements - I want to do a whole spoof take on using these townspeople as a replacement set of townspeople because the regular townspeople are on strike and the governor wants to carry out the season without dealing with regulars.
• I bet it eats a bantha steed with all the explosives.
• Acid spittle! I'll bet that's miserable.
• Never believe it's dead on the first attempt.
• I was definitely expecting an epic bass recorder hit when Mando came flying out of the krayt dragon.

Chapter 10: Oh, the passenger / She rides and she rides

• I have a unique idea for an opening shot - wide open dessert, the hero riding towards the camera on his steed, dust flowing behind him.
• And hijinx ensue... that's how the plot was pitched.
• If this cargo is so damn precious, why isn't it strapped down?
• So you're saying that through all the steering and banking, nothing fell, but a little hole in the wall and all of the cargo suddenly falls to the ground?
• I find it hard to believe that this mother isn't FUCKING LIVID that there are missing eggs. There aren't enough in the tank to not notice that multiple are gone.
• How many times does The Kid point out something that turns out to be irrelevant? Because so far, the plot has shown that anytime The Kid points, the Mandalorian should take heed. So why does he keep telling The Kid to piss-off?
• Face huggers? Is this an Alien/Star Wars cross-over event?
• The nice part about sublight, I guess, is that you can just point your ship and fire... and it'll coast to where you need to go.
• That's the end of the episode? That felt extraordinarily short. New content started at 00:01:43 and the show was over at 00:36:55; 00:35:12 for a show of this magnitude seems sorely lacking.

Chapter 11: The Heiress

• "It might get a little choppy", famous last words. The problem with forboding messages about possibility of death to the titular character is that there is no suspense to the audience that it might actually be fatal.
• The "Marco Polo" of this reptilian alien race?
• Katee Sackhoff is always a win.
• Mandalorian sects add a lot of potential depth to this whole series.
• "Do you see that ship that we are all looking at and is framed in the shot? That's what we're going to talk about."
• "Can I leave him with you a bit?" You know, the child that ate several of your eggs, can you hang out with him for a bit. I still don't see how these parents aren't really upset about that.
• Why don't you start with all of the doors being closed? hahahaha... ok, that was fantastic
• Am I really just watching a live stream of Mandalorian the RPG? The quest text from Bo-Katan was as exactly the gibberish you'd get from an exclamation point. And all that matters is where the directional arrow points to.
• Another disappointingly short episode. Less than 30 minutes.

Chapter 12: The Seige

• In which I really just hope there's more Katee Sackhoff, or maybe even some more Giancarlo Esposito.
• The statue of the attack robot is a fantastic touch!
• This guy shows no aptitude for this mission, yet they bring him in on a whim, and just to do the most important part? This seems like a terrible way to do a set-up on the plot.
• The acting and action in this scene at the top of the base is ridiculously awful. It's a terrible, cartoonish spectacle without any redeeming humor or novel sequences. It's just bad television.
• What's the point in red-target lock if it doesn't actually mean an instant hit?
• How does his ship get repaired that quickly? It's been hours at best, definitely not even a full day.

Chapter 13: The jedi

• In which I really, really hope there's more Katee Sackhoff.
• Episode starts 00:01:48 in. This isn't a hopeful sign.
• White beam lightsabers?! A unique set of action sequences! This is what I came here for.
• What's the point in heavily fortified walls when there are jetpacks and spaceships that can easily circumvent the walls?
• Well... the kid has a name. I'm curious what committee of writers it took to come up with that name.
• What idiot of an evil villain leaves her guards behind and leaves herself unprotected?
• Grand Admiral Thron? Why do I care about this person?
• Cool... cool... another "go here, find this, do that" quest, referencing places that mean absolutely nothing to me, the casual viewer.

Chapter 14: The Tragedy

• Maybe now we'll get more Katee Sackhoff? Or even some more Timothy Olyphant?
• I appreciate that they gave Din Djarin a little sense of humor. Gives the character a little more depth than Season 1's "this is the way".
• "The magic rock"... yep, sounds about right.
• It's good to hear that the strong bass recorder is back.
• In fact, this whole scene of "I have no idea what is happening or what to do" is refreshing, as opposed to the trope of people knowing exactly what to do with something completely foreign.
• Why would he run away from his jetpack, when it's a simple "clip to back" attachment? And how did he get over the valley so quickly without it? These are all continuity problems that weren't hard to notice.
• She's taking cover behind him and never once does she take a shot, even after pointing her rifle at several of them. I don't know if this is the fight choreographer, the editing team, or DP or what... but these are egregious mistakes!!!
• Hahahahaha - laser blast it from orbit! It's the only way to be sure.
• Incoming Dark Troopers: someone just watched Iron Man 2 before sketching out this scene.
• MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT YOUR JETPACK BEHIND, ASSHOLE!!!
• How do Boba Fett's sensors not detect that giant ship long before he clears the cloud cover?
• Baby Yoda shackles are adorable - how long until Lover's Lane is selling them?

Chapter 15: I Believe this is the Penultimate Episode!

• Opening on a dystopian, penal colony run by robots - bold move, writers!
• Inmate 34667 seems like a really low number as an identifier.
• The score for this show is definitely the best part of the series; kudos to the composer.
• 'There's nothing on that planet.' 'Yes there is.' 'I scanned the planet and there's a base on it.'
• haha - fakeout with the helmet removal!
• This might be the first time in Star Wars history where someone had to take a second to figure out how a new vehicle operates; not that he had any trouble with it.
• No way, a peasant village that lives in the shadow of a mining operation! What new troupe will they explore next?
• "Let's get one thing straight, you and I are nothing alike." Sadly, that's an actual quote at 00:12:53.
• Be super delicate with the ore, they said. It's highly volatile, they claimed. But a couple of blaster shots from a tie fighter landing at close range? It's cool!
• Literally, none of the other storm troopers have their helmets off, so why does no one say a thing about this driver getting out of the truck without a helmet?
• "TPS reports" - well played.
• 'Such a shame the guy died' - where do they come up with these plot twists?!

Chapter 16: Sweat Christmas, It's Almost Done

• This is supposed to be an epic season finale, so it'll either be an exciting lead into Season 3, or a total disappointment. My expectations are low.
• "Comms are down" and space is a vacuum, so how can they hear him?
• Ok, ok... so two Mandalorians walk into a bar.
• Creative use of a jetpack indoors; I appreciate that.
• "It cannot cut through pure beskar", I'll put $5 on that becoming a key plot point in the final epic battle between Gideon and Djarin.
• Sound/score win #312 for this show! Flipping to a heavy techno beat for the dark troopers, then cutting to the bass recorder for Mando. I would nominate this show for an Emmy for sound engineering (or whatever the proper award is).
• The complete ineptitude of storm troopers has gone so far beyond comedy to the point of just being a tired trope. What's even the point in having any on board the ship when they are that worthless.
• I won my $5, hurray!
• haha - "I yield, it's yours." Possibly the best line this season.
• oh, did you think that little hallway battle was the last of the dark troopers? I didn't think so, either.
• What's the over-under on "the kid saves the day with magic"? I might take up that bet.
• The x-wing not responding to hails tells me this is the response to Grogu's call on the force phone. I should have seen that coming from the "previously on" recap. Moments later, Jedi is confirmed.
• I am super disappointed in the dark troopers not having a better battle plan. Wouldn't a wall of them, all shooting at the exact same time, pointing at different body parts be the best way to score a hit? A lightsaber, after all, can only block a linear series of shots. A "shotgun" blast of pewpew would thus be a strong strategy, right? And then the number of times the damn robots just straight-up missed. How does a state-of-the-art robot miss an easy shot at a stationary target?
• At first, I'm all "wow, they found an actor with a striking resemblance to Mark Hamill. Interesting move to go with another white boy." So I was curious who this actor is and then I read that the character actually is Luke Skywalker, and now I am back to completely hating this show.
• A post-credits Easter egg; I guess that's kinda cute. Oh, it's just a trailer for another Star Wars series. Uuugh.

End of Season Thoughts

• I have never hate-watched a show as hard as I am with this one. If I wasn't live-ish blogging this, I would have stopped watching half-way through this season.
• Give the show an Emmy nomination for original score and maybe sound editing. There might be some other valid technical awards to toss its way. It should be ignored in the acting, writing, and directing categories.

• What could have made this a better show, in my uneducated, uninformed, unsolicited, humble opinion:

  • Dispense with throwing away dozens of white suits with every battle. It's just filler that adds nothing to action sequences and detracts from the suspense of the scene.
  • Find an episodic format that has more variety than "go here, find this, shoot baddies, tease next episode".
  • Decide if this show is just for Star Wars fanatics or if it is for casual viewers. If it's for fanatics, go deeper into the lore behind the characters instead of just subtle winks and nods to references these fans would understand (I'm sure I missed a whole lot of Easter eggs). If the show is for casual viewers than give a little better explanation of why the audience should care about various characters that come and go.
• I appreciate that the show dispensed with a cliffhanger at the end of this season. The show could wrap-up here and the only open thread seems to be Bo-Katan's continued quest to claim the throne of Mandalore.