SPOILERS AHEAD!
The sixth chapter of “The Mandalorian” (titled “The Prisoner”) manages to put things back on track — to a certain extent — after the events in the the fifth chapter.
This time out, the episode starts with the Mando taking the Razor Crest to a sketchy looking space station (sort of galactic chop shop) where he meets up with a group of old colleagues. The first of these is an unkempt man named Ranzar (Mark Boone Junior), who the Mando reached out to after the events on Tatooine, looking for work.
Ranzar tells the Mando, “One of our associates ran afoul of some competitors and got himself caught. So I’m puttin’ together a crew to spring him.”
Ranzar says they need to travel to the job on the Razor Crest, something the Mando isn’t happy about. When the Mandalorian expresses his disdain, Ranzar says, “the Crest is the only reason I let you back in here.” (The ship is old so it can evade various tracking codes.)
The crew (four in total) is led by a man named Mayfeld (comedian Bill Burr) — someone the Mando isn’t familiar with (but who was once an Imperial sharp shooter).
Also on the crew is horned Devaronian named Burg (Clancy Brown), an RA-7 protocol droid named Zero (Richard Ayoade), and a purple Twi’lek named Xi’an (Natalia Tena).
The setup of a reformed gunslinger teaming up with old colleagues is a pretty standard western trope. An example that comes to mind is the cowboy Paden (Kevin Kline) in the 1985 movie “Silverado” — a character who inadvertently reunites with an unsavory gang (led by a man named Cobb) he worked with at an earlier point in his life.
So the Mando and Raznar’s motley crew head out to a New Republic prison ship (meaning the individual they are rescuing was arrested, not captured by competitors).
As we know from previous episodes, the Mandalorian is no fan of droids, but has reluctantly agreed to let Zero pilot the Razor Crest on the mission.
The Mando is hiding Baby Yoda on the ship (which the crew soon discovers).
What starts as a rescue mission soon evolves into so much more. Before we know it, the Mando is double-crossed by his associates, and our hero has to take them all on one by one in order to escape the prison ship.
Overall, it was an entertaining episode. It is interesting to see how “close-ended” some of these episodes have been so far. I do wonder if the second season will feature longer story arcs.
There is a New Republic Soldier/Guard on the prison ship named Davan. The actor — Matt Lantner — was the voice actor for Anakin Skywalker in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
It is also worth noting that the three New Republic X-Wing pilots at the end of the episode are played by series writers/directors Dave Filoni (who plays Trapper Wolf — the name a nod to a wolf-based plot point in the series “Star Wars: Rebels”), Rick Famuyiwa (playing Jib Dodger), and Deborah Chow (playing Sash Ketter).
I enjoyed the fact that the episode took us to a new environment, and further developed the Mando's backstory. I also thought the irritating snark Burr brought to the role of Mayfeld made for a pretty interesting character (one I hope we’ll see again down the road).
The prisoner they are tasked with rescuing in “The Prisoner” is Qin (Ismael Cruz Cordova), the Twi’lek brother of Xi’an — someone the Mandalorian is all too familiar with (not in a good way).
The narrative has sort of a “men on a mission” structure seen in westerns and war films.
We also see Baby Yoda in action as he is stuck on the ship with the droid.
“Star Wars” fan Father Roderick Vönhogen offers some interesting Biblical insights into sixth episode of “The Mandalorian”:
I’m fascinated to see where the writers take things in the final two episodes of the first season of “The Mandalorian.” I’m hoping both are one continuous story arc, and set things up well for the second season (which is currently in production).
Stay tuned for my review of “The Mandalorian” Season 1, Episode 7!
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