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S02E66: Rapidly Rewatching Mando, S02E6 & 7
31 Plays18 days ago
It's Episode 66 (not Order 66) as we dive into two interesting, if not somewhat uneven episodes of The Mandalorian. It's all headed to a big finish, and it's headed there real quick!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Bandle Rewatch and Episode Coverage
00:00:01
Speaker
We're hitting the home stretch of the Bandle Rewatch and we're hitting it real quick. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper. We are going to dive right in and start covering the next two episodes on our Mandalorian Watch slash Rewatch with Phil slash Ben.
Guns for Hire: Writing, Direction, and Recruitment Challenges
00:00:24
Speaker
This is going to be Chapter 22, Guns for guns for hi which is episode six of season three, and then chapter 23, which is The Spies.
00:00:35
Speaker
The Spies. So that's what we have lined up. Let's start with episode 22. Guns for Hire was written by Jon Favreau, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard in her now annual Let's Direct an Episode of The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett routine.
00:00:54
Speaker
Mando and Bo-Katan visit Plazir 15 to recruit Axe Woves and her old fleet. The planet's rulers, Captain Bombardier and the Duchess block them with a contract.
00:01:06
Speaker
Solve a malfunctioning droid mystery first. They do.
Phil's Mixed Feelings and Episode Reception
00:01:10
Speaker
Bo claims her armada, then a quiet tag scene flips the season's central problem. Mando concedes the Darksaber to Bo on a logical technicality.
00:01:21
Speaker
All right. Phil, what did you think? You just gave me a thumbs down. um This might be the most up and down episode of Mandalorian for me that I've and that I can remember of this room for sure season three, but maybe the entire series, there are some things that I absolutely love about this episode. And there's some things that I absolutely despise about this episode. So I'll just, I'll just go through a couple things I really like, I love the world building with the pros. yeah I want to start with the pros. I love the world building that they're on for whatever reason, this sort of like, there is sort of an episode of the week structure to this in some ways, but I think for whatever reason, maybe it's the colorful characters. Let's shout out,
00:02:03
Speaker
You know, in particular, Jack Black. I just I love the performance. um And it and Christopher Lloyd and Lizzo, like it's a it's a real mix of ah really interesting performances. And it feels like you're there on a whole nother world. I love like the droid bar. Also, there's some really cool stuff for this episode, I think. ah And I i do i you know, I like sort of Bo-Katan and Mando, you know, working together.
00:02:30
Speaker
But then there's some other things that just feel like – and we let's talk about what you just mentioned, Bob. Probably the thing i I was most disappointed about in
Missed Confrontations and Mercenary Fleet Introduction
00:02:39
Speaker
this episode. That I felt like we were building up to this big confrontation, this fight between Bo-Katan and Mando. Or the Darksaber, a real fight.
00:02:47
Speaker
And we don't get it And Mando just concedes. And I was sitting there watching it on my TV and I was like, are you kidding me? You've built this up so much and we're not getting it. So I think ultimately really down note to end what I think is a really fun and interesting episode and in some ways really high point in this in the season thus far.
00:03:06
Speaker
And they just they don't land the plane. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to jump in and say that is my biggest negative with this whole season was that it wasn't just that Mando, I mean, Mando giving her the dark saber, like he doesn't really care about it that much. He, you remember from book of the Boba Fett, which I know you didn't see Phil, but he's having trouble wielding it.
00:03:30
Speaker
Like it's not really doing him that much good. So, you know, he's fine handing it over. He wanted to do that in the first place. but it's just so anti-Mandalorian for him to come up with this legal loophole and then the rest of the Mandalorians to be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Especially after this great fight between Axe Woves and Bo-Katan.
Darksaber Narrative and Sci-Fi Homages
00:03:57
Speaker
And I also want to say that the cold open, the cold open of this episode, the whole plot line of the Corrin and the Mon Calamari having the secret love affair, that's a bit goofy in comic book.
00:04:11
Speaker
Corrin and Mon Calamari have long hated each other, even though they come from the same planet. Not that that ever happens, that people who come from the same planet hate each other. But... the What the Mandalorians do when they show up, I think totally badass. Like, I really liked where this whole mercenary fleet of Mandalorians was going. And it just feels like they rolled over and died. And then, you know, between this interesting Mando culture intro and outro, it turns into an episode of Columbo.
00:04:48
Speaker
I was just waiting for Bo-Katan to go back to one of the one of the witnesses and saying, and imagine well one more thing. um Ben, what did you think?
00:04:59
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. You guys have, Phil, you picked out, i think the thing I think mostly, which is, this is this is ah an episode with like ones and tens. There's not a lot of middle ground on this one. um Stuff you guys have already picked out a lot. I was so fascinated by the thing with the dark saber because I thought that in the episode where she saves him and I kind of expected him to just be like, hey, look, by the way, you you just earned this thing. You know what i mean? But no, he sits on it for a while. And so half the time I'm sitting here kind of thinking to myself, wait a minute, they were both in the room then when it happened. So if he turns and hands it to her now, why isn't she going like, wait, you sat on this?
00:05:39
Speaker
Like, why didn't we have this talk like before this moment here where it mattered? You know, um i feel like the low points for me are a little bit of the goofiness of Plaza 15. There's a little bit of weird meta commentary about a democracy. ah direct democracy in this. I mean, you don't forget anything to do with any kind of current political anything, right? It's not even about that. It's like, it's it's almost like kind of like a silly democracy that voted to not let the guy push the button.
00:06:09
Speaker
And I'm kind of like, we're off the rails, man. And by the way, you've just underused one of the great comedic actors of all time, You know, if I was going to pick something for Christopher Lloyd to do, I'd probably make him a Sith in the vein of Uncle Fester somewhere. You know what i'm saying? That's where I want to see Christopher Lloyd. So it was a little bit goofy. But then, of course, things I really loved. I really loved the droid bar.
00:06:36
Speaker
I thought that was such a fun ah inversion of the episode four bar scene, you know. Yeah. Certainly plays to all of Mando's ah prejudices and discomfort with droids. um I thought that the the the whole idea that we're we're gathering and building a new Mandalorian fleet is great, but that we've got to get past a lot of these weird tribal loyalties. That's great too.
00:07:04
Speaker
Just again, how it got done was clumsy.
The Spies: Action, Tie-ins, and Pivotal Scenes
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just add two more things before we go on to the next episode. One is the stunt casting of Jack Black and Lizzo. And I like both of them. I really do adore Jack Black and I really, really like Lizzo, but it was distracting.
00:07:28
Speaker
you know the The whole time I was watching them, I was like, oh, it's Jack Black and it's Lizzo. I was not getting immersed into the characters that they were. Even though Jack Black played it pretty straight, you know, and he never scat sang or anything during it. he wasn't your typical Jack Black. I did expect that, yeah.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some pretty funny stuff with Grogu at the end with loving Lizzo, too. it was kind of cute. but i yeah i just just I felt this was miss from Bryce Dallas Howard.
00:08:01
Speaker
Definitely the weakest episode that she's directed from somebody who I right now think is one of the best Star Wars directors that we have. The last comment I will make is the references to Logan's run in Plaisir.
00:08:15
Speaker
it It was like, because I just watched Logan's run again recently and the miniature at the beginning where like they show the whole under the dome is so bad. It's so terrible.
00:08:26
Speaker
And this is like, oh, this is what you do if you actually have a budget to do Logan's run. And even the droid with the lasers that wound up attacking them at the end, you know, the one that looked like the tortured droid that literally was right out of Logan's run. So wow definite that's ah that's a good callback. And actually, there's something kind of fun about that is that Logan's run, I think, comes out in 76 or so.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which if you go back and look at the trailers and you look actually even watch s Logan's run, you can't. This is like the watershed, this is like the very last moment where sci-fi is B grade sci-fi and it's the world that George Lucas' 1977 movie puts to bed.
00:09:09
Speaker
That's correct. You know what mean?
Episode Stakes and Character Developments
00:09:11
Speaker
Yeah. So it's an interesting kind of time capsule. People, I think these days, I talk to people sometimes about science fiction. They don't understand that like once upon a time, this is a very different experience. People had very low expectations of it, but in our lifetime, we've seen this real transformation because people started trying to take it seriously. and you got things like Star Wars, of course, but you also got Christopher Nolan and you got other great Danny Boyle. You got other great like directors taking on really interesting ideas.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Logan's run nightmare fuel for me as a little kid. yeah But that's topic for a whole new podcast. Let's talk about chapter 23, The Spies, written by Favreau and Filoni, directed by Rick Famuyiwa.
00:09:55
Speaker
The cold open is Moff Gideon meeting with the Imperial Shadow Council, Palaean, Brendal Hux, others, name-dropping Thrawn and Project Necromancer. Bo-Katan unifies the two Mandalorian factions.
00:10:07
Speaker
They drop to Mandalore. They walk into Gideon's trap. Gideon reveals Beskar-clad Imperial commandos and Praetorian guards. Paz Vizsla dies, holding the line.
00:10:19
Speaker
Mando is captured. Cliffhanger. Much better episode in my opinion. I'm gonna start with my opinion and that was it. It was a much better episode. Lot of action.
00:10:32
Speaker
I loved with the cold open. it went a little bit long for me, but I did love how it was tying up the mysteries of the season. It was setting up the final battle and it was also making connections to the sequel series.
00:10:49
Speaker
and to to where this is ultimately going with, hopefully, with Dave Filoni's Heir to the Empire movie that should wrap up the entire Mandoverse, if that gets made in a couple of years, with Grand Admiral Thrawn and pulling that story together. So it's setting up Ahsoka, because Grand Admiral Thrawn is the big bad of Ahsoka, and starting to we're starting to see...
00:11:15
Speaker
the sequels we're seeing, uh, Lieutenant Hux's father is the guy on the shadow console also being played by, which Gleason, what's his name?
00:11:28
Speaker
Uh, Brian Gleason. So Donald, Donald, Donald Gleason's brother real in real life plays his father in this. i thought it was I thought it was good. And let me just say the Paz Vizsla fight death scene at the end, that was pretty epic and definitely raised the stakes.
00:11:51
Speaker
He was one of my favorite. I have an action figure of him too. He was one of the probably four action figures I bought in the last 10 years because I like that character so much.
00:12:02
Speaker
So, ah Phil, let's start with you. What did you think? In general, I agree with you, Bob. This, for me, is a big improvement over the last few that we've talked about.
00:12:12
Speaker
um There's a lot of great action. There's a lot of great reveals that I think Moth Gideon brings in that I think really raised the stakes. And I agree that that ending death scene is incredibly brutal. And that ending battle, Mando captured and the Mandalorians having to retreat and Bo-Katendis and the Darksaber get them out of there.
00:12:33
Speaker
Really good stuff. And I think in some ways it feels a little out of nowhere. And it's sort of a shame that the previous episodes feel a little bit like, you know, side tangents, nothing filler episodes. And we have this great battle It almost, you know, it sort of feels like we have kind of in the middle, just not a lot of good stuff. And then they really ratchet up the stakes and the tension and the action, which is really cool. And I'm really looking forward to watching the last episode. At the time of this recording, I have not watched the last episode yet. So I'm very, very excited to watch it. And we talk about it the next time. But yeah, um' I think I'm really excited to see where they where they end this. And I wish more of season three was like this, because i feel like we've got a lot of these really great episodes in season one and two.
Grogu's Role and Leadership Debates
00:13:20
Speaker
Excellent. Ben, what did you think? I see you a lot of nodding while Phil was talking. Yeah, no, it's right. I mean, there's a lot of great action here. There's a lot of great stuff finally coming together. You know, I like that we finally see the United Mandalorian tribes. We get even this kind of third faction of like post-apocalyptic Mandalorians that still live on the surface and kind of can facilitate our plot a little bit, which was nice. But also, you know, they've still got loyalty. They still remember the way things were, right? They're kind of a a nostalgic touchpoint or kind of a traditional touchpoint for the others that were there and seeing, let's give some props now, because we haven't talked about her lately. Katie Sackhoff gets a lot of points for being this, you know carrying this central role with this this faction of people. um
00:14:08
Speaker
Loved seeing that. i I like that because they did that, they could get to the Great Forge quickly. i liked that. Yeah, like pacing wise, we could go right into the attack. This is literally where Moff Gideon sets up his base because he's evil in the heart of the people he destroyed and their yeah in their traditional sort of like nerve center, right? Is this Great Forge. So loved all that. I love that at the end of this episode, of course, yeah, we're... we're we're really threatening all the people that are our audience loves. We're taking out their strong, you know, heroes. We're we're killing the heavy guy. We're taking Mando away.
00:14:50
Speaker
Bo-Katan's in retreat. So horrible, you guys. Surely there must be an episode after this where we see the good guys make a comeback. I'm looking forward to it. Something's going to happen.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've got two thoughts. It seems like I've had two thoughts on these episodes a lot lately. One is, although i want to hear your guys thought, I thought that Rogu driving around IG-11 like a little tank with the yes, no buttons. I mean, obviously ae comedic value, obviously comic relief with the yes and no. But when he comes in and breaks up the fight with no, no, no, no I just, yeah.
00:15:33
Speaker
Good stuff. Really good. Really good. And it's really interesting to kind of take that, yeah, that comedic, there's a really, it's sort of an extended, like, comedic sequence of him getting the robot and him and Mando walking through the market.
00:15:45
Speaker
ah And then we sort of see that Grogu, I mean, there have been times in the past where we know that Grogu understands what Mando and others are saying. We really see it there, that they are really communicating, at least in the way that us as the audience who speaks English, like, can understand, you know?
00:16:02
Speaker
i thought that was really good. And he had that payoff with him and the breaking of the fight is great too. can i Can I just add, there's this little exchange between Bo-Katan and Mando where he said she goes, you know oh, you you know you should be proud of your apprentice or something like that. and he goes, I didn't teach him that.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I thought, oh that's a really nice little character note then. Yeah. Here we see something about Grogu. That was lovely, which was great. The other thing I wanted to talk about, which is taking lore way too seriously is, and I'm going to make a connection to Game of Thrones and the last season of game Game of Thrones, which most people did not like, and there was a lot I did not like about it, but there was a lot of stuff that I did like about it. So If you haven't watched the last season of Game of Thrones and intend to, you might want to just hit pause now because this isn't going to be that interesting to listener. I've never watched Game of Thrones before, but you know what? It's okay because I know everybody doesn't like it. It's okay? Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
right So, you know, the the kind of the central question through the whole series is who's going win the Game of Thrones? Who's going to wind up with the Iron Throne? And at the end, it winds up being this character Bran, who is sitting on the Iron Throne at the end of the story.
00:17:13
Speaker
But... It's Tyrion Lannister who really wins the Game of Thrones because he is behind the scenes, pulling the strings, doing all of the machinations to get Bran on the throne. And you know that going forward, he's the one who's really going to be ruling and Bran is just going to be the figurehead. This is where I wanted to take this. This is what the Armorer is doing.
00:17:37
Speaker
So Bo-Katan is winding up as the head of them as the Mandalore. She's, well, the Darksaber is going to be obsolete here in another episode. Sorry, Phil, I just spoiled something for you.
00:17:52
Speaker
ah She's the lead of the Mandalore, but it's the it was the armorer's machinations. It was the armorer who was willing to bend the tradition a little bit, let her go around without her helmet, and really get this idea of let's bring everybody together to retake Mandalore.
00:18:12
Speaker
And I think if anybody chose to carry this storyline moving forward, I could see a real partnership between Bo-Katan and the the Armorer moving forward.
00:18:25
Speaker
think that's, I think the last part you said is right, but I feel like you're underrating Bo-Katan's leadership in that case, right? Like she's not going to be a titular head ruler. That's true. Yeah. She's not going to just be a pawn by any means.
00:18:40
Speaker
But to me, it's kind of like the difference between the king and the high priest. You know what i mean? Like both of those. i love them Yeah. No, that's a really good way of putting yeah. But again, that's deep lore.
00:18:52
Speaker
It's thinking about Star Wars way too hard. At the end of the day, it's going to be about good guys winning and bad guys losing. And at you know we will leave it at that for now.
Conclusion and Tease for Future Episodes
00:19:02
Speaker
So next week, folks, we are going to cover the last episode of season three, which, as established, Phil hasn't seen yet. So I'm going to be very excited to see his take.
00:19:14
Speaker
And we'll just kind of do a wrap up of the Mandalorian series once and for all and be ready to go see the new movie. So that's the plan. Guys, thanks again for being here as always. We will talk to you very shortly.
00:19:28
Speaker
Listeners, thank you for being here. And make sure you come back next week as we wrap this all up. Until then, may the Force be with you. We'll see you soon.
00:19:40
Speaker
Bye-bye. Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper? Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper?