After the first three episodes of The Mandalorian, I wasn’t quite sure what angle they were going to take as the show progressed. After watching the fourth and fifth (which dropped today) episodes, it’s clear that this show is a western. And that is FINE with me.
This show doesn’t have a whole lot of depth, and that is okay. Does every show have to have some huge underlying plot that leads to a huge reveal like Watchmen likely will? No. But, the The Mandalorian does give us a bunch of badass action scenes from an intergalactic bounty hunter….plus Baby Yoda.
The fifth episode was the first where we saw Baby Yoda in real danger at the hands of Toro Calican (Jake Cannavale). We all knew this whole episode that Toro was gonna do something stupid, but threaten Mando with Baby Yoda? Even I thought he was smarter than that.
And that’s exactly where the western elements start to play in. This whole show is basically just Mando jumping from planet to planet doing bounty hunter-y things…like you would see in a classic Western. For example, tell me if this plot sounds familiar: an outlaw comes across an quaint little town and finds that there’s trouble brewing. He feels it is his duty to rid the town of the evil that is corrupting the area. That’s more or less the plot of The Lone Ranger. Point proven. Additionally, there isn’t an ensemble cast – it’s basically just Mando and Baby Yoda, with Greef Carga (Carl Weathers) making the occasional appearance.
Episode 5
Mando and Toro (honestly kind of a badass bounty hunter team name) go to hunt down Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), who is an absolute master with that rifle of hers. And they make Toro out to look like this young punk who has clearly bitten off more than he can chew, but continues to act like he knows better than Mando.
When Shand gives Toro the information that killing Mando would make him a legend, he stupidly kills her and goes to capture Baby Yoda. Mando eventually gets back to the hangar where Baby Yoda and his ship are. Of course Mando kills Toro and Baby Yoda is saved, but the whole point to this rant is that there’s not much substance behind each individual episode – which like I said, is fine.
Of course they gave us a nice little cliffhanger at the end of the episode where we see the legs of someone whom we don’t know walking toward Shand’s lifeless body. Now THAT’S what I’m talking about! Give me a character that’s gonna hunt down Mando. I’m hoping this creates a little more continuity besides just the Baby Yoda storyline.
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