The Mandalorian - Chapter 19 - Review

After a less than impressive first episode and a pretty decent follow-up, the third episode of The Mandalorian, had a chance to keep the story moving ahead. They failed in that, oh sure there were some parts of the story that got some attention, but for the most part, they did the exact same thing here as they did in The Book of Boba Fett, focusing on the wrong characters.

The show picked up right after the end of the last one, which is not something I was expecting and while it was nice to see Din and Bo have a moment, more so with Bo asking after the creature, the quiet was not to last. The ship fight was perhaps the most interesting in the series so far, not only because it had some great shots, but it started to indicate a real threat. Seeing Mando jump out of one ship and then land next to his, before taking off and taking out a Tie Interceptor, which made its live action debut here, was very cool. Even Bo managed to pull off some sweet moves, giving her a chance to take out the last enemy ship, the entire sequence was great. Sadly that is where the fun ended, because the show pivoted from being The Mandalorian and instead became The Scientist.

Before I get too negative, I do appreciate the show explaining that the New Republic is not tarring every Imperial soldier with the same brush, giving them a chance to repent and join the new society. Seeing housing and jobs being provided, shows that while they may not be doing perfectly, they are trying. Of course, I couldn’t help but compare some of the visuals to the Coroscant shots that we go in Andor last year, and of course things look similar, but there is more life here. The sequence alone of Dr Pershing and Elia Kane walking the streets, or elevated platform I suppose, was great and showed that life is becoming somewhat normal.

Now though it is time to talk about the issues, anyone who remembers Kane from Season 2, should not have been surprised that she was being deceitful. Nothing against Katy O'Brian, she played the role perfectly, but when you know someone is not being honest and clearly attempting to lead someone else astray, being surprised when it all happens is not possible. My main issue with it, was purely that the story they were trying to tell wasn’t entertaining and was also way to long. People don’t buy Call of Duty to watch hours of political conversations, you don’t by a Metallica album for spoken word poetry, so if you watch The Mandalorian, you expect to see the character. When they did this exact same thing in The Book of Boba Fett, it wasn’t that bad as the show needed a shot in the arm, but here the show was doing fine. If the scenes were cut amongst scenes of showing Din and Bo attempting to get to the safe space, it might have been better, but on its own, no thanks.

Again, this is not a knock against Katy O'Brian or Omid Abtahi, both of whom brought a sense of vulnerability and confusion to the roles, though one could argue that Abtahi did it better, given O’Brian’s duplicity. But regardless of that, when the two had their conversation outside, not only was there a genuine level of empathy between the two, again duplicity aside, but that small start lead to a great sequence on the train. One can argue that ticket inspections are not fun to watch and of course, it would lead to them jumping off the train, but again the connection between the two characters was great. I suppose that the sequence just didn’t need to happen, there was no reason for it to exist, not the breaking onto the ship, we could have cut from them sneaking aboard the train, to stepping off and then walking towards and from the ship.

The small nuggets of information that we got from the time on Coroscant were good, it shows that there is more going on than what we have seen, but again there was too much time there. The opening ship fight was incredible and while it was nice to see Din being accepted into the fold once more, it would have been nice to see the character more. So far this third season of The Mandalorian is all over the place, and I can’t work out what they are trying to do.

The Score

8.0

The Pros

+Both O’Brian and Abtahi deliver some impressive performances, that make you want to support them

+Din being accepted back into the fold was a nice moment…

The Cons

-… though it sort of undercuts the storyline that they were looking to fill the season out with

-The time on Coroscant was too much, the scenes were to long and it didn’t really progress the story that much