One positive to my attempts to align my The Mandalorian Season 2 reviews with my blog’s goal to highlight Asian-descended entertainers concerns my hope that it’ll help distinguish my articles from the many other reviews due whenever a new episode drops.  On the downside, it rose the question of whether or not I could really ignore episodes with no Asian-descended entertainers in major roles.  Season 1 didn’t exactly have an overarching storyline, but continuity still felt important; Chapter 9: “The Marshal” implies the same for Season 2.  So, each of my future Mandalorian reviews will contain a section of brief thoughts for each chapter I didn’t cover.  For simplicity’s sake, I’ve split my coverage of Season 1’s chapters away from my first S2 review.
When I first watched The Mandalorian S1, Disney+ had already posted all eight chapters.  Consequently, I didn’t adhere to the service’s weekly schedule, instead playing two chapters every night.  Additionally, I came in with a few spoilers, such as “Mando”‘s real name and his acquisition of a “Baby Yoda”.  These factors could’ve affected some of my opinions.
- The Mandalorian: This slog at least makes Mando seem more human than most masked Star Wars characters, between Pedro Pascal’s endearingly tough vocal performance, and Mando’s need to form friendships and learn new skills in order to achieve his goal.
- The Child:Â This amusing installment delivers relatable insight into Mando’s physical limitations, and an impressive display of his budding camaraderie with the Child.
- The Sin:Â This truly great chapter provides the deepest exploration yet into the many facets of Mando’s character, and his places among other bounty hunters and Mandalorians.
- Sanctuary:Â The first one-parter benefits from lush visuals and Mando’s compelling interactions with self-reliant women, but suffers whenever the cinematography becomes too dark.
- The Gunslinger:Â This chapter saddles Mando with an obnoxious partner, but provides a humorously interesting look into Tatooine post-RotJ, and memorable demonstrations of Mando’s sympathy.
- The Prisoner:Â This action-packed chapter feels disengaging when knowing that Mando will make it through every set piece alive, and when finding his old friends obnoxious.
- The Reckoning:Â The plot gets back on track in this tense reversal of a three-week trend in which Mando’s and the Child’s adventures each felt duller than the last.
- Redemption:Â The best S1 chapter delivers the necessary catharsis, excitement, and humor for a finale, and intrigue for a transition into Mand-er, Din’s and the Child’s next journey.
Plug
If you’d like a non-toxic place to further discuss The Mandalorian, join the Star Wars Television Discord server, which I help moderate: https://discord.gg/7cGUdCz
Great article! You should do a weekly review of the episodes, it would be cool to hear more in depth what you think of them.
I have a longer review of “The Sin” in the works; it marked the first chapter directed by Deborah Chow, and her only one not to end on a cliffhanger. People more experienced than I in discussing “Star Wars” have already praised “Mando” S1 to high heaven, so I doubted my ability to add anything new, and apparently also my ability to attract people disinterested in watching the show themselves. The latter problem doesn’t exist anymore, but I’ll try to solve the former by discussing how certain S2 chapters – specifically, the ones that I predict will show what happened to either Dr. Pershing or Paz Vizsla after helping ensure the Child’s survival – affect revisits of “The Sin”.
Enjoyable quick look at these episodes