I'm Gonna Say It: 'The Mandalorian' Has Lost the Way

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Come one, come all, fans of The Mandalorian. Each Wednesday morning, we're breaking down the newest episode, from the best Grogu closed-captioning moment, to what’s going on with the latest friends and foes in Mando's redemption arc, to what it all means for the rest of the galaxy far, far away. Pop on The Mandalorian theme and dive in. This is the way.

"Chapter 21: The Pirate"

Disney+'s Cryptic Plot Summary: I actually don't know! My Disney+ Roku app—I kid you not—shows incomprehensible lines of code all over The Mandalorian's landing page. The thumbnail for this episode was just THE MANDALORIAN written on a blue square. Disney+ is rotting from the inside out.

Main Players: Greef Karga, Captain Teva, Gorian Shard, and pirates. Lots of pirates.

Director: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director Peter Ramsey, who makes his Star Wars debut with this episode. He's already confirmed to helm at least one episode of Ahsoka.

Can't-Miss Star Wars Easter Egg: Zeb Orrelios, the Star Wars Rebels character who makes his live-action (see: CGI) debut in the bar with Captain Teva.

Best Grogu Closed-Caption Moment: Between the two Grogu subtitles we get—[GROGU COOS] and [GROGU COOS]—I choose [GROGU COOS].

Captain's Log

Pick a Story, Any Story!

Allow me to introduce a new game, just for me, where I simply list every subplot in The Mandalorian off the top of my head. I won't cheat. If I get them all, you have to ship me the Mando Merch of the Week:

• Grogu's continuing education, Jedi, Mandalorian, or otherwise. I'll throw in the unspooling of the kid's Order 66 memories here, too, as a treat.

• Bo-Katan Kryze's spiritual journey, which may or may not lead to a battle to the death over the Darksaber with Mando.

• Mando not really knowing how to swing around the Darksaber—and the Darksaber itself—is a D-plot at this point, right?

• The trials and tribulations of Greef Karga as he tries to make Nevarro a Happy Place.

• The Andorization of this show—i.e. whatever's going on with Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane. Plus, the implications of Pershing's research. This dude was trying to engineer Force-sensitive Stormtroopers, remember?

• The exiled Mandalorians' search for a permanent home, whether that ends up being Nevarro or Mandalore.

• Mythosaurs!

• Captain Teva's search for Moff Gideon is going to be a thing now.

• (Related: Implied Moff Gideon redemption?!)

• Boba Fett, who's in a bacta tank, somewhere, hibernating until fans once again call for his return.

• The looming shadow of the sequel trilogy.

• The daddification of Din Djarin? (He doesn't really have a story anymore, post-bath.)

See my point?

Click Here

That's how I'm feeling after five weeks of this season. Let's do this quickly. Gorian Shart (misspelling intentional) and those pesky pirates return to wreak havoc on Nevarro—because this is Star Wars and peace can never exist in Star Wars. Greef Karga pleads to another character you forgot existed, Captain Carson Teva, for help. Teva asks the good guys for reinforcements; they refuse. Elia Kane is there, to remind you that Elia Kane's subplot still exists. Teva turns to the Mandalorians instead, who reluctantly agree to help. This decision comes after a quasi-halftime speech moment, delivered by the buff Mandalorian, to remind you that the Mandalorians have hearts underneath all that armor. Grogu is there, inanimate.

The merry band of Mandalorians bee-bop over to Nevarro, where—in a scene I've watched at least nineteen times over the brief and wondrous life of Disney+—the good guys kick the living shit out of the bad guys. Everyone cheers at the end. The big hip-hip-hooray is followed by a scene between the Armorer and Bo-Katan, where the former asks the latter to take off her helmet (?!?!) in the name of uniting all the Mandalorians. Also, Moff Gideon lives.

I turn my television off and stare at my reflection in the screen. The reflection stares back.

Official Grogu Metric Rating™

Two Grogus out of ten. I'm feeling like Deion Sanders today, who once stormed into Jackson State's locker room and said, "Everything we said we were not gonna do, we done!" Really, every criticism leveled at IP fare lately comes to a head here—because watching "Chapter 21" feels like I microdosed a Marvel movie. This episode follows the same three-act arc. In the first act, a group of extras are terrorized from a bunch of baddies yucking it up in a giant spaceship. We get the Nick Fury-esque assembling on the Mandalorians in the second act. The third act, of course, is a walloping CGI splatter painting of a battle—which leads to the very post-credits-y moment when Captain Teva finds out that someone extracted Moff Gideon from his prisoner ship. Reader, know that I get absolutely no pleasure in awarding only a bushel of Grogus every week, but the joy this show gave us all, roundabout mid-pandemic, feels increasingly like a distant memory.

Next Week on The Mandalorian...

Once again, like Grogu, I'm on the sidelines—watching, waiting, commiserating. Tilting my head, wondering what's coming next. It seems like all of the subplots converged this week? So this season's remaining three episodes will likely be some sort of jumble where, 1.) The Mandalorians round up all the exiled Mandalorians, while 2.) Captain Teva unfurls the mystery of Moff Gideon, while 3.) Elia Kane and Brainwashed Dr. Pershing lurk in the background, awaiting a tussle in the season finale. But I've whiffed these guesses for four episodes straight. This season's a doozy. I'll see you all next week—I'm going to call Roku customer support.

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