1:52 - This training sequence is clearly being governed by what looks cool, instead of what makes any sort of sense. Why are they shooting flame throwers at each other? Why do they have punching dummies, if beskar armor effectively renders them immune to injury? If you can punch or toss each other without getting hurt, that would be far better practice than a dummy. How do they know whether or not their shots are accurate when they just shoot into the water?

Also a majority of the training seems to be on hand to hand combat. You know what Boba Fett never does in the OT or Jango Fett in AotC? Hand to hand combat. Pre-Disney, Star Wars combat was primarily gunfights, except for Jedi. Han grappled with the scouts on Endor, because he was trying (unsuccessfully) to subdue them without making noise, and Chewie occasionally threw someone around when he was disarmed, but it was all about the guns, because that’s the best way to fight if you have it. The emphasis on hand to hand really guts the plausibility of the Disney shows.

3:34 - I have no words. Grogu is going to wrestle kids who are four times his size. Why not start out with target practice?

3:41 - Usually it’s the child who is a ward, and the adult is the guardian. You generally want a modifying suffix for someone who does the protecting.

5:39 - After training with Luke on the Boba Fett show, Grogu is probably wondering why everywhere he goes, school involves getting shot and being told to put down the wildlife. He probably misses that school with the droid teacher where he stole the other student’s crackers.

6:25 - This kid has absolutely no luck at all.

6:37 - These warriors have shitty reflexes and situational awareness. I’ve seen normal people with absolutely no combat training, on the lower percentile of athletic ability, react a lot faster to kids being in danger. That many people wearing jetpacks, at least one should have already been airborne by the time the big guy said “No guns.”

7:24 - It always gets away? This is a recurring problem!?! A. Why have you not tracked it down and eradicated it for revenge, and to stop it from coming back? B. Why are you not taking precautions against its return? Lookouts on the heights, anti-air weaponry set up during training times, airborne patrols, taking turns, if fuel is an issue… This particular sect of Mandalorians utterly sucks in almost every way I can imagine.

7:31 - Like that. Super obvious.

8:35 - The smith-priestess says that it will kill the child at the sound of jetpacks. What do they think the beast is currently doing to the child?

8:52 - I think the smith-priestess just wants to stockpile her ammo and explosive supplies. Absolutely nothing in this episode has me at all convinced they give a rat’s ass about the safety of the foundlings. Also, why is he still called a foundling? Why is that his identity? I was under the impression that there are a lot of foundlings in the Mandalorian community (not least because the restrictions on removing your helmet would appear to make it very difficult to get kids any other way), so referring to one as such is rather unspecific, and also, foundling is just a reference to how he came to the group and should not apply once he is accepted. It’s like adopting a child and years later still referring to it as “the orphan”.

8:59 - I can’t help but think that Grogu, whose particular strength appears to be subduing giant beasts, and gravity defying abilities would be highly useful on this mission.

9:23 - I’d be seriously rethinking wishing to become a Mandalorian in his shoes.

13:48 - This Jedi whipping his speeder bike through public transportation spaces is not going to do much to challenge Palpatine’s narrative that they were the menace that had to be destroyed for the good of the Empire.

14:17 - That looks an awful lot like a Naboo ship. Are we getting a prequel cameo?

15:22 - What did that flashback show us? Only what we already knew, that Grogu was smuggled out of the Jedi temple during the massacre of Order 66. Did we really need to see basically just more of what we saw in RotS (not to mention the Kenobi show), in lieu of advancing the story of this one?

Best face I can put on it is that the smith-priestess’ words about trials revealing flaws and strengthening one’s mettle/metal, juxtapose with Grogu’s memory to show that he’s been through trials of his own. But basically as a package or passenger. Not trials that required growth or effort on his part, but then that might be an artifact of contemporary victim culture, where simply being able to claim one has suffered is a mark of status, rather than any sort of requirement to cope and adjust and deal with it. As if suffering or being denied automatically imparts strength.

17:48 - Why is Paz Visla carrying his heavy weapon, if they aren’t supposed to be using them? I can sort of see the jetpacks, even if they aren’t supposed to use those either, because once they have the kid, they can use the jetpacks for a quick escape, but a gun that big seems more of an encumbrance on this kind of mission.

17:56 - Why do they have a campfire? How do they know that won’t alert the monster? Even if it’s sheltered, light radiates out, and you don’t need a straight line of sight to notice it. And why would they have campfires in general? Why not more high tech camping gear, like Luke was setting up on Daogbah, if they need to cook food? I would also assume that the sensors and other apparatus in their helmets would preclude the need for firelight and their indestructible armor should stop any small predators that a campfire would scare off.

18:07 - This is utterly dumb. Why not just all turn your backs on one another, like in a locker room? And, again, why sit around a campfire, if everyone has to eat separately?

18:43 - Bo Katan has the honor of sitting by the fire because she being played by the most famous and conventionally attractive actor the leader of the War Party, so we get to see her without her helmet. But even without it, Stackhoff was doing a pretty good job simply using body language to convey her regret over her life choices.

19:07 - Seriously, just what do you think the creature had in mind when it snatched the kid, that you think he’s still alive after all this time? I can sort of see camping overnight if you think the morning is the optimal rescue time (but why can’t their helmets see in the dark – that’s not too far out of modern tech’s reach, and should be #1 on the list of features for a helmet you wear 24-7, possibly even above the extreme degree of protection to allow a wall to be dented before you suffer head trauma when a piston-strength arm smashes your skull into a warship’s metal bulkhead. I would think seeing in the dark is a problem that comes up a lot more often than super-strength battle droids bashing your head into wall), because if the kid is not dead by the time Bo Katan flew from the covert to the lair and back and back again, the creature does, in fact, have something else in mind, and if he’s dead, no sense killing yourselves on a risky night climb. But I still want to know the thought process here.

19:16 - “It will kill the foundling if attacked. It has happened before when it has taken others.” IT, not “one of their kind”. Why is this asshole raptor taking child hostages, when the Mandalorians cannot even be arsed to kill it in revenge for prior transgressions? How did this cycle start? Did it just randomly come along and grab a child one day as a hostage against future Mandalorian aggression? Or does it have something else in mind? Eating is the only thing I can imagine, so why would the kid still be alive?

Actually, I can imagine other things, all of which suggest they might want to get on this rescue really fast, before something awful happens to the kid, like eggs being laid in its flesh.

19:19 - Yes, Bo Katan, we heard the injunction against using jet packs less than 12 minutes ago. How short do these writers think our attention spans are?

19:55 - Some of these guys are free-climbing a sheer cliff, in armor, with extraneous weaponry, and not using their rope things. Which I am stipulating for argument’s sake, have some sci-fi method of attaching themselves when shot.

20:32 - Why the shushy motion now? Have they been talking? For that matter, why is it an issue? Given that they are all wearing helmets of a similar design, they should be able to converse freely on internal coms without being audible to anyone not on their channel. Unless this cunning, hostage-taking, creature is using the helmets of its prior prey to eavesdrop?

21:05 - I’m actually sort of impressed that they didn’t fall back on manufactured drama of someone almost falling. You know what would actually have been cool? If one of them did fall, and let himself drop rather than risk the child’s life by using his jetpack. It is The Way. They can always let him survive by Deus ex Beskar, but still have the others acknowledge that he was really, really lucky.

21:26 - If you can see heat sources, a campfire is the absolute worst thing you could have set up last night. All it would do is make it harder to pick out any approaching heat sources!

21:28 - A minute ago, Bo Katan said the creature was not here, now she’s telling Paz Visla to wait until they clear the area. Said area being a pile of sticks, in the wide open air, on a small platform, with a single heat source therein.

21:34 - “He’s my son” is not a good reason to not wait to clear the area (if clearing the area is called for, which it is not, but just say that). Rather it is a reason to let someone else take point so he is not orphaned before his rescue. It is also a reason to hold back & let someone with a more rational perspective make the judgment calls. All six of these Madalorians came on the rescue mission, and endured a dangerous climb to get here. It’s not like their commitment to his rescue can be questioned at this point.

Also, if the Mandalorians are all about taking care of foundlings and orphans, being his father should not matter, because everyone is just as concerned for his life and welfare. Is that not The Way? His overriding concern for his own son suggests that perhaps he does not adhere all that closely to The Way and sees the individual relationship as higher than the implied community one.

22:10 - The kid has been in the raptor’s gut all night?!?! Also, how was it going to kill him if it heard them approach? The first step in the process would have to be yakking him up, which should be a prime rescue opportunity. Also, why did it swallow him whole if it has teeth like that?

And what was the heat source? The babies? Or were they seeing Ragnar in the creature’s stomach? For that matter, why isn’t there some way of tracking a kid by his helmet? I can understand why warriors with a persecution complex would not want that tech in their helmets, but that could be part of your adulthood recognition, that you have the tracker taken out, because you are no longer relying on the group’s protection.

22:24 - So, all the precautions to this point have been futile, haven’t they?

23:05 - Explosives would have been nice to have now, wouldn’t they? The rationale for not taking them is that you can’t trust these highly-trained professional warriors to refrain from using them and spoiling the element of surprise. But by that same rationale, why is Paz Visla carrying his heavy weapon, especially when he knew scaling a cliff would be part of the operation. Just as the gun might have been useful once the kid has been rescued or the creature is on to you, so too with explosives.

And I can’t help but think they were all shooting their ropes at the crocodile-turtle in the first episode to set up that they have them for this fight, where they make sense. Tying yourself to a giant thrashing monster does not make sense, but using them on a creature whose ability to outfly and evade you has been a chronic problem, does.

24:09 - Why is returning Ragnar to his father on the cliff face more important than carrying him to someplace safe, like solid ground, if not the ship?

24:26 - I really hope they went back and blew up the nest with the hatchlings, otherwise this problem is not going to go away.

24:35 - What happens when Bo Katan needs to use a hanger with a low clearance?

25:17 - “You have done the highest honor of the Creed…” Why do I expect professional writers to be adept in the rules of English grammar or to have a post-elementary school vocabulary?

25:25 - No. No. NO! I had the semi-humorous thought while the raptor creature was being eaten that now its offspring were orphans, so were the Mandalorians going to take them in? They cannot be that ridiculous.

25:42 - Maybe they’re going to keep them to ride.

25:58 - I’m curious what kind of “modern refinements” are available in a pauldron. I could see if the smith-priestess was incapable of duplicating newer technology that went into the helmet or a breastplate, or if there is a protective jumpsuit beneath the armor with other technological aspects, but a pauldron is just a shoulder pad.

26:32 - This mythosaur, however lazy a name, actually seems to be being used kind of well as a symbol of Bo Katan’s re-commitment to her Mandalorian heritage and traditions.

So Carl Weathers directed this. I don’t know enough about directing to comment. But overall, this was a fairly dumb episode, if about average for the show. The whole plot was following a giant raptor thing to its lair to rescue a kid, with a flashback interlude that had no purpose other than jangling some Jedi keys and prequel nostalgia at the audience. The episode is called “The Foundling” in reference to Grogu’s flashback and Ragnar being the McGuffin they need to retrieve, but Bo Katan is really the central character, as she finds her place in this community. Too bad they already used “The Convert” as an episode title, since this might have been a better place for it.