2:36 Are we about to find out the true allegiance of this person? Kane, I think, is her not-at-all foreshadowing name.

3:08 Her contact is an Imperial Probe Droid, with the trademark Red Eye Lens of Evil?!?!? Why does no one at Disney know how to write covert operations or security protocols?

4:18 Kane is more on the ball than Gideon. When you are “meeting” in public, you can’t be wasting time with irrelevant commentary and objections. She already temporized her information by saying “according to reports…” meaning this is not her conjecture or analysis and she does not necessarily believe the reports. She is not the one to be arguing with, even if this was the time and place. Which it should not be.

And this is a really awful way of making contact. The probe droid is bigger and more noticeable than a person, and these holograms have all the drawbacks of an in-person meeting, namely, visibility, as well as those of a normal telecommunications method, namely the need to be in a particular place at a certain time to receive the call, and the inability of the not-present party to be aware of their surroundings and contribute to the situational awareness, and act with discretion.

4:26 “I shall deal with our Mandalorian friends.” Who reports to whom? Also, that’s kind of pointless. She’s emplaced in the New Republic bureaucracy on Coruscant. Her dealing with the Mandalorians is not an option.

4:49 I guess those black and white guys are supposed to be his new badass army, to replace the terminator droids Zombie-Luke carved up at the end of last season.

5:36 Citizens are sick of the New Republic and its rules and regulations? The totalitarian Empire afforded its citizenry more personal freedoms and less bureaucracy?

5:49 Oh, wow! They are totally out of movie characters! Now they are turning to book characters to ruin! Grand Admiral Thrawn is coming back?! Is that officer supposed to Pellaeon? They addressed him as Captain before, when I assumed this sort of gathering would require admirals and above, at least if they are a meeting of relative peers, with a Moff. They would not be Gideon’s underlings, if they were conducting the meeting without him, so they have to be powerful enough to ignore him if he has to take a call. But this show/franchise is so bad at the world-building that you can’t be sure one way or another whether or not they are aware of this stuff. That being said, reflexively thinking of competence as the default, my first thought on seeing that guy and hearing him called Captain was to wonder if he was Pellaeon, as an Easter Egg. But they’re going all in.

5:56 And Hux is here, working on “Project Necromancer” which is assume means the Snoke cloning operation, so they are confirming that all roads lead to their bullshit sequel trilogy.

6:30 Yeah, get bent, Gideon. After what I saw of your methods in dealing with Kane, I don’t blame Thrawn one bit for not trusting you.

That being said, I don’t trust Favreau & Filoni to adequately depict Thrawn’s level competence. Then again, I always thought he was a bit of a Mary Sue villain, and Mary Sues are Disney Star Wars’ stock in trade.

6:37 Holy crap, Gideon cannot be that dumb! “I am an expert spymaster, and I yet I have not been able to pick up a single hint of the man you claim is relying on secrecy for his plan of return.” Yes. That means his plan is WORKING! This guy is as stupid as Bail Organa who becomes worried and makes a compromising phone call after he and Obi-Wan agreed on no communication, and Obi-Wan gives him … no communication.

7:28 Moff “Secrets are my business” Gideon is lying about a project that has been exposed, is known to New Republic leadership and is also known to a group of Mandalorians who stormed his ship, captured his lead scientist and primary experiment subject and shredded his droid army.

And, for that matter, why is he scoffing at the idea that Din Djarin’s covert is working with Bo Katan, saying they are enemies, when he saw them interacting, and Din bending over backwards to cooperate with her, trying to hand her the Darksaber, while Gideon laughed at them?! If they can cooperate to rescue Grogu, why could they not have cooperated against the pirates in Nevarro?

8:47 At least he put the pieces together relatively quick. And I don’t think it’s a plot-mandated deduction. We’ve already seen that he knows enough about Mandalorian culture to understand the significance of the Darksaber, he has a stash of beskar he can use to hire them, which he seems to prefer to do for really important jobs, like retrieving Grogu, or extracting him from Republic custody. He probably knows enough to figure out that it would take something like regaining their homeworld to bring together those two groups.

9:05 Hux looks like Corey Stoll. He definitely looks too rugged for Hux.

I also want to know what exactly a Praetorian Guard is, that makes them specifically effective against assassins, and why three of them. My first thought was of the red-clad guys who hung around Palpatine.

9:22 I would imagine a group as old as these guys would be less into the whole chants and salutes business among themselves, in private and especially over Star Wars Skype. Like they’d be at least a little cynical and clearly in this for their own advancement and power. Even Pellaeon, from the books, while he was a believer, was not the sort to be all hoo-rah, like a new recruit. I’d think they’d end their meetings with a more perfunctory and off-hand “Long live the Empire,” instead of a group cheer.

10:04 A 3PO unit should have extremely precise and accurate grammar. It should not say “a shuttle is advancing over the city,” when describing the arrival of a new ship to the scene. From where is it coming, that moving toward the city constitutes an advance?

And they have all these droids, they have droids that can carry Grief’s cloak, and expert droid-smiths in residence, why are well-dressed (I think) people picking up rubble in the streets?

10:07 Also, that’s not a shuttle, that’s a big ass warship, with escorts.

10:29 Okay, at least the show writers know the truth, and they are not trying to scare us into believing it is an Imperial attack. On the other hand, they clearly do not know what a privateer is. A privateer is a civilian ship authorized by a government to conduct independent naval operations against that government’s enemies. These are Mandalorian mercenaries, not acting in a privateer capacity, unless they are here raiding on behalf of Jack Black’s planet of the Lotus Eaters.

12:32 Din’s little head twist, like “I am not taking mine off.”

13:16 Calling Din “Mando” in the middle of a camp full of Mandalorians, where you are the only non-Mandalorian, seems like walking into a black neighborhood and addressing your one black friend as “Afro!” Even if that’s what you normally call him when he’s the only one around, it’s still kind of weird.

14:11 Why give it a droid designation, if it’s being piloted by a Babu Frickian? It’s no longer a droid, it’s now a vehicle. An Anzellan Walker.

14:35 Grief is very good at correcting dialogue after I already noticed it was bad.

14:44 That is not great puppet effects, or CGI or whatever failed to make the Anzellan look like he was actually walking on the table.

15:04 Contra Din, Grogu actually looks too big. I was also wondering why Din would trust a strange mechanic as the pilot to the walker-droid, but I suppose Grogu is better.

But didn’t he want this thing to take atmospheric readings and generally act as a Polish mine detector? Having Grogu operate it in an open-air cockpit seems really unsafe. This actually looks like a smaller-scale version of that Warhammer 40K thing that came out a few years ago, with a space marine piloting from an open position on the chest, with no additional protection, inviting the bad guys to take down the giant walker by sniping at the exposed pilot. Or some of those really bad GI Joe tank designs, which featured the commander stationed in a little chair atop the tank, rather than inside of it.

15:23 As a skeptical military fiction buff, I am side-eying the rapidity with which Grogu mastered the vocalizer controls to say “no”, but as an older brother of 6, older cousin of 7 and uncle of 15, I find that to be the most plausible depiction of a small child yet.

15:43 I would be 100% on Din Djarin’s side if he was raising any sort of practical objection, like Grogu’s exposure in the cockpit, instead of just being Grumpy Dad.

16:10 What exactly does the head do? Is Grogu following any readouts from the sensors I assume are up there?

16:43 Those look like the fruits with the stupid name from the Rebels cartoon.

18:30 Since Din has already been down there, his participation should be a given, and not just because he’s the lead character (for now, as the scale tips gradually toward Bo Katan), and Paz should be signing up right after him, because of all the giant monsters he has rescued Paz’s kid from. Not just because he’s the only other member of the covert with a name.

18:51 What a surprise! It’s the headband lady who has been on all the missions where her faction worked with Din!

19:00 And the only other guy with lines! You’re up, Paz.

19:02 My faith in tropes is vindicated!

19:09 I am Spartacus! This is a chance to be one of the first to set foot on their long-lost homeworld, to which people have gone and returned with no casualties. This is not exactly a suicide mission or a big sacrifice to warrant the dramatic music.

19:17 Okay, now it might just be faster to say who is NOT going. It would be really funny if one of them got confused and stood up and said “This is The Way.”

19:26 Um, if absolutely every significant Mandalorian character aside from Satine (assuming she survives “rebels” since I am still only on season 1) and Boba Fett is going on the surface exploration party, who is going to be in charge of the fleet, and who is going to remain to protect their holdings on Nevarro as well as the town-planet itself, that being their only current customer and source of income? Rebuilding a bombed out planet is going to take some funds, and I don’t think these guys are going to be enthusiastic about opening the place up to tourism or selling beskar ore in bulk.

21:14 “It’s worse than I thought.” You can breathe the atmosphere, which had previously been believed to be impossible, and the Living Waters are accessible, which had also not been believed. How bad did Paz Visla think it wasn’t?

21:52 Why do insertion drops, with full maneuvering capabilities, if you are going to land in a tight little clump that can be taken out with a single shell? You might as well land the ship and file off one at a time.

21:59 And some of them landed with their weapons holstered. Why? I would assume given how many other things Mandalorians do with their hands while flying with jetpacks that you don’t need your hands to control them.

22:51 At least give that thing a bubble of the same stuff they make the X-wing canopy or the front window of a TIE fighter out of, for crying out loud! Not the glass on the undersea walkways in Fortress Inquisitorius, though.

22:59 I give Katee Sackhoff this, you always know that’s a woman in that armor when she walks.

23:09 “Somewhere below is where our ancient capital once stood.” The line should probably be “Somewhere below is all that is left of our ancient capital,” or “This is where our ancient capital once stood.”

24:32 You seriously NEVER checked the planet out again?!? They have people who can build this stuff running around, and all the Mandalorian expatriates were all just, “Nope, completely uninhabitable, nothing to see, impossible to live there.” Bet they feel pretty darn stupid. It would also explain how the weird little alien in a bug robot in a bigger bug robot was actually making a go of it with his manned Mandalorian snare, when supposedly no Mandalorians have set foot here since it was bombed.

25:24 Okay, that thing looked a lot bigger and a lot farther away. Like a flying city-ship or something. As the personal vehicle of a trio who own jetpacks, it is somewhat underwhelming.

25:36I get what the hair and makeup people are going for with these ragged-looking guys, but it does raise the question of why Din looks so well-groomed on the couple of occasions when he has taken off his helmet so far.

26:51 Am I supposed to know what the ISB is? Also, that guy talking sounds like the guy who always plays the older black authority figure.

27:29 Skinny Pete!

Imagine going to Hollywood to become an actor and you get cast as “meth addict” and “starving guy”. Gotta be a hit to your self-esteem, I’d think.

28:04 Setting aside that a single planet has “always been too powerful” for any enemy to defeat, no matter how effective or well-armored, their heavy infantry, Bo Katan, who up until a couple episodes ago, ridiculed Din’s group as a cult and constantly mocked his traditions and practices, is now denouncing factionalism and division as the reason for Mandalore’s fall.

Giving the show the benefit of the doubt, this looks like an arc, and hopefully not a complete failure to maintain characterization. That said, they have mostly required the audience to fill in an awful lot of blanks for this to actually BE an arc. Best case scenario, she was made to see the light by a glimpse of a mythosaur, which got her to think maybe there is a reason behind Din’s traditions and practices, and so she decided to respect them, by keeping her helmet on while delivering him back to his covert, and then was gratified to be taken in by them after seeing the Empire bomb her castle (where she would sit around on the throne, waiting for players protagonists to show up on a quest). Slightly worse, is that she had a little bit of a crush on Din, and that, combined with the warm-fuzzies everyone (everyone too big to eat, at least) gets at the sight of Grogu, stirred her womanly feelings and got her to rethink her ‘tude.

28:34 Am I the only one who finds it a bit weird that Din Djarin has been making his living as a mercenary hunting criminals and dealing with the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars setting for years, and still clings to the literal truth of his insular religious group’s preaching about outsiders?

“Everyone but us is corrupt” is the sort of thing believed by maybe the smith-priestess’ assistant or understudy, who spends all their time in the forge, with this doctrinaire recluse, not a guy who travels the galaxy searching for fugitives. You’d think a bounty hunter would need to understand all sorts of things about how to find, track and get the jump on his targets, which would entail a high level of worldly knowledge and the quick realization that not everything he has been told about outsiders is strictly and objectively true.

29:18 Not shown: the excessive animosity that makes Bo Katan doubt her ability to lead. She already got her whole former faction to follow her to Nevarro to ally with Din’s cult. As soon as she asked both groups to conduct a joint operation, she got a swarm of volunteers in .. (checks above) … 56 seconds. There has been no unprofessional behavior on display on the mission, no signs of any quarreling or animosity, unless you count the guy who said he witnessed the bombing when Paz Visla said it looked worse than he thought. And that line was more of a non-sequitur than a retort or argument.

30:00 He serves her now? I thought they were more allies and friends. Why is the show including the social structures, especially on top of a line where Din claims his people don’t follow them. They follow honor and character and whatnot, but they express their recognition of those qualities, by according the one who has them noble titles? Why?

31:00 You never mentioned until now that you are looking for the Forge? What did the Methalorian survivors think you were there for?

31:24 The bombed-over planet is mostly smooth enough that skids are the best contact surface for your vehicle?

31:24 See, there. Why did IG-12’s head turn to follow the ship?

31:47 I can’t think that slumping on the floor is better for the wounded then being strapped into those chair-things that the scout team rode in on.

it gives me very much a vibe like Starscream is about to start chucking the weakest off of Astrotrain.

32:27 Ah, here’s the disunity Bo Katan has been afraid of! They have different rules for Mandalorian chess.

32:58 I’ve seen the term vibroknife associated with Star Wars since I have been a kid, and this is the first time I have seen one on-screen. And it looks stupid.

33:36 If you have a jetpack you can turn on that fast, why didn’t Paz use his to jump over Axe’s slide?

34:10 Baby Yoda DID something! Beyond comic relief or being a deus ex machina. Which, I suppose, this could count as, but it’s actually a character moment! From a Watsonian standpoint, they have to suddenly realize what kind of example they are setting for a foundling, one whom Axe has helped to rescue from the Quarren sailors and who has beaten Paz’s kid in a training duel, and who thus has connections to both factions.

And from a Doylist standpoint, when the stupidest-looking thing on the ship is calling you out, you have to realize how stupid you are behaving.

Shake hands, make nice, and switch to Mandalorian Monopoly. Which is a real game, and I kick ass at it (I have played and won four games, three against a nine and ten-year-old, but one was against a Harvard-educated lawyer – the secret is to play as a character with economic bonuses, not combat ones, which you’d think would be self-evident for Monopoly, but apparently not).

34:30 Grogu and Din just interacted. Not simply Din commanding, and Grogu obeying or not which is the usual extent, they exchanged a look and a nod, suggesting for the first time, a common understanding and purpose.

34:40 Is the smith-priestess about to see the attack Gideon was talking about?

34:50 Please don’t tell me the Imperials are already on the ships.

34:54 Okay, phew.

35:03 But now that we are back planet-side, I have to wonder about the purpose of those two scenes showing her doing what she said last night that she would do. Did we need to see the ship flying up through the storm, then the whole chess fight between Axe & Paz, then the ship still pushing through the storm, only to reach its expected destination? Is the smith-priestess Up To Something?

36:15 That much explosions suggests a lot more fuel and powered machinery than one would expect to find in a land-sailing-ship.

Also, what the fuck do all these giant creatures in desolate wastelands EAT?! What did the mudhorn eat? What did the giant crocodile turtle eat when raptor dinosaurs were not dumb enough to fly down by the water? What did the raptor dinosaur eat when it could not get Mandalorian kids? Are banthas plentiful enough on Tattooine to feed the giant sandworm that terrorized Cobb Vance’s town, while also competing with Sarlaacs?

Is this thing a mythosaur, or will a mythosaur arise to save them all and spread around Bo Katan’s conversion?

37:05 I might be worried about making sure that monster is not an issue, instead of just pressing on to the Forge, but they do have a starship that could kill it from orbit (I would assume).

38:33 The Empire paid Din in beskar to capture Grogu. No one should be surprised that they finally got around to equipping troops with it.

Also, how do we know they are NOT Mandalorians? Is it so impossible that some of these disunited and fractured factions decided that if they could not beat them, they would join them? Or is it a “no true Scotsman” type of thing?

38:52 I wonder if the writers are aware that a large weapon with a high rate of fire like the one Paz Visla carries has the primary purpose of laying down cover, and that in any given combat situation, that should be his job, rather than something he volunteers to demonstrate that he is now over his quarrel with Axe?

39:26 They have jetpacks. Why are they falling into the chasm?

39:46 “Their armor is too tough for my guns! I must use a small knife and my fists and feet” said no experienced warrior, ever.

40:03 Actually, this close-quarters fighting reminds me of the John Wick sequels, where everyone has bullet-proof suits and use multiple gunshots at close range as if they were punches.

40:12 Following an enemy into an unfamiliar tunnel when they inexplicably retreat after what looked like a roughly even exchange of casualties is just begging to be trapped or ambushed.

40:22 Paz Visla is presumably wearing beskar armor just like the others. So why did he stop and let Din go ahead of him? Shouldn’t he have used his heavy weapon to lay down cover and let the rest of the force get through the choke point with minimal enemy fire?

41:01 Duh. Trap.

41:07 So far as we know, beskar only comes from Mandalore. When Gideon started paying people in beskar ingots and now troops they recognize as Imperials, somehow, show up with beskar armor, on Mandalore, it never occurred to you people that they had a base here? Early in this pursuit sequence, they ran through a section of tunnel that looked like an Imperial corridor much like where they are now.

42:17 Gideon is not only a collector of Mandlorian gear for its obvious utility, he’s actually a fanboy! This is hilarious.

42:56 This monologue is completely undermining the apparent intent to present Gideon as some new arch-menace. Especially in the same episode where they are invoking Thrawn and bringing in his top henchman, Pellaeon, which tells us all that old continuity is still a thing, and Gideon is going to fail.

Although the trilogy in which Thrawn was introduced also featured the birth of Han’s and Leia’s children Jacen & Jaina. Not Ben, is what I am saying. It also suggested the Clone Wars were fight where the clones were used as a soldier for a faction attacking the Republic, rather than ostensibly fighting for it, that clones which were grown faster than human growth rates went insane, and a lot further back in the past than in the movie timeline. So how much, and which, continuity are we supposed to be paying attention to?

43:35 I cannot begin to comment on the stupidity of leaving a captive in full armor like this, even if you have taken the guns out of his hands and removed his jetpack. Taking off the helmet should have been step one. They are ON Mandalore, another bath of absolution shouldn’t pose too many logistical issues for the plot.

44:00 Oh, yeah. She has the Darksaber. Why hasn’t she been using it to cut her way through to help Din?

44:07 The callback is certainly deliberate, but it’s awfully clunky coming on the heels of her prior revelation about their previous exchange of the saber, and her confession of the consequences.

44:50 So in addition to being a cheesy speech for the audience, Gideon also basically reminded Bo Katan why she should never surrender to him again, and also that she possessed a tool capable of cutting them an egress. And then he left, assuming the execution of his trapped foes would happen according to his wishes.

45:44 And it turns out that gun does have a limitation. Nice effect.

46:09 JET. PACKS. Why is falling a thing?

46:22 These must be the praetorian guards Gideon got from Hux. Why are they only deployed against a lone, disarmed soldier, instead of the leader? And if a request for them has the immediate reaction of assuming an anticipated assassination attempt, why are they not shadowing Gideon?

47:09 I saw “Obi-Wan Kenobi”. I don’t believe those are mortal wounds in this universe.

49:13 Xander Berkeley played Pellaeon! Nice job with the accent, I didn’t recognize his voice at all. And Brian Gleeson played “Brendol Hux”. IIRC, the guy in the movies was named Armitage. And was played by Domnal Gleeson. So this is maybe a relative, played by a relative?

According to IMDB, he is Domhnall Gleeson’s younger brother. He also played the younger version of their dad in Assassin’s Creed. I suppose Brandol Hux is the father or big brother of the guy in the Bad Movies.

Not sure how to call this one. There was a lot of action, so not as much dialogue stupidity and not as much ineptitude at capers, but instead we had a lot of tactical ineptitude and plot holes. Although it seems like they actually went ahead and killed off a character, however unimpressive he might be as a sacrifice and how unearned his last stand was. I guess we shall have to see where this is going.

One more thing wrt to external knowledge, Gideon ordered the TIE interceptors and Bombers deployed to wipe out the Mandalorian fleet. My understanding of TIE interceptors from various novels as well as original Battlefront 2, is that they are very fast but weakly armed and armored. They are pain to try shooting down, but go down fast if they get tagged. What they are utterly ineffective as, is targeting larger ships. They even have trouble taking down Y-Wings, due to their much stronger armor, or troop transports. Taking out even the heavy gun emplacements or the engines and other parts of an Acclamator Star Destroyer would be right out. And this Mandalorian fleet does not have fighters. We saw they were not particularly effective against Bo Katan's ship or Din's fighter (a full human generation older, I might point out - Din's starfighter was in use when Vader was a kid, and the TIE interceptor was only deployed in the last stages of the Galactic Civil War, right before the Emperor's death, when Vader's children were grown, in their mid-20s. So about 35-40 years newer), and the Mandalorian fleet has lots of ships like Bo Katan's. As for the TIE bombers, they are tough and pack a punch against bigger ships in the game, but their munitions require particular angles of attack, and they are no match for heavier guns. I think Bo Katan's transport ships are probably heavily armed enough to kill the bombers and tough enough to shrug off the Interceptors, so it's hard to believe the fleet is in trouble. I mean, I was expecting something to go after them after the weird emphasis on the Smith-Priestess' return flight, but I was thinking capital warships or some sort of surprise attack by new tech, like a stealth ship, or simply overwhelming numbers.