‘The Mandalorian’ Chapter 5 Review: Womp Rats

Dave Filoni returns to writing/directing duties with this fifth episode of Disney+’s The Mandalorian: “The Gunslinger”. In it, “Mando” (I’m not sure why everyone calls him this unless it’s some sort of racial epithet for Mandalorians?) visits that original hive of scum and villainy, Mos Eisley, on Luke Skywalker’s adopted home planet of Tatooine. What should be an exciting return to one of the legendary locations from the first film in the original trilogy, alas, feels an awful lot like the Tatooine sequences of the Star Wars Holiday Special complete with a cameo by Amy Sedaris that reminds a little too much of that televised disaster’s singing Bea Arthur bartender.

Sedaris is generally fantastic, but she’s also really ever only Sedaris. Her Peli Motto, a Rhea Perlman-haired, tough-talking mechanic who suddenly discovers her maternal instinct, is awful. In sequences where she becomes Baby Yoda’s protector, she does her Princess Carolyn character from Bojack Horseman; for the rest of it, she resurrects Jerri Blank from Strangers With Candy. Not enough to just stick out like a sore thumb, in other words, Peli stinks of burlesque. She crosses an invisible line from seamless character work to stilted — some would say unforgivable — fan service. The second consecutive episode now referencing “womp rats” suggests the series is now in danger of being described the same way.

Worse is aspiring bounty hunter Toro Calican (Jake Cannavale) introducing himself in the Cantina in a way that’s meant to evoke Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, but comes off instead as Alden Ehrenreich’s version. Star Wars was the first movie I saw in theaters. When Luke and Ben go into the Cantina, they’re told to leave their droids outside, the place is packed, smoky, and they immediately get into a fight. That version of the Cantina was terrifying and intoxicating to me as a kid, offering glimpses of aliens engaged in all manner of skullduggery to the rollicking tunes of a boozy house band. This Cantina is curiously empty, smoke-free, and the bartender is EV-9D9, Jabba’s torture droid fallen on hard times. It’s polite. The idea that there’s been a change of ownership and the new stewards have cleaned everything up, sometimes to the detriment of the original’s dirty charm, is a ready-made metaphor for Disney’s absorption of this property.

Toro wants to recruit Mando for a mission to capture “elite mercenary” Fennec Shand (溫明娜 Wen Ming-Na), a dangerous quarry Toro feels unprepared to capture alone. This leads to a scene where Luke’s sighting of Tusken Raiders is replicated, segueing in “The Gunslinger” into a genuinely stupid barter sequence; and then another callback to the original film in the spotting of a Dewback. It bears mentioning that there are also long takes of Toro and Mando on speeder bikes, shooting across the desert, scored by composer Ludwig Goransson in a bloop-bloop early-Eighties sci-fi style exactly like identical sequences from Hal Needham’s Megaforce. My fear after the disastrous last episode was that The Mandalorian was turning into a Glen Larson show. This installment hasn’t done much to assuage that fear.

Just five episodes into an eight-episode run, The Mandalorian already feels like it’s bloating its already short, half hour runs with filler. Thinking back to the remarkable second episode, I wonder if everything wouldn’t be improved with a quarter of the dialogue. Consider a sequence where Mando gets shot by a sniper round. He says “Only an MK-modified rifle could make that shot,” before clarifying that the only reason he survived was because “at that range [my] beskar [armor] held up.” That’s a lot of non-edifying, irrelevant information. Later, when he also survives being shot at much closer range by the same weapon, we wonder rhetorically if all this chit-chat serves any purpose other than to satisfy fanatics.

What’s good is Wen’s ferocious Shand. She elevates the material in a way the material hasn’t been elevated since the departures of Nick Nolte and Werner Herzog. If there’s hope for this series to find its footing, it’ll be on the strength of supporting cast like this who can rise above what they’re given. Unfortunately, “The Gunslinger” has its sole interesting element, Shand, spending most of it either waiting to be introduced or unconscious. I worry that the show is diverting from the things that could work in favor of the things that will be popular. In the end, there are so many bad decisions and delaying tactics it’s possible to overlook that The Mandalorian’s biggest problem is that its central tension is played out. There’s nowhere to go with a Baby Yoda that’s only used for cooing reaction shots, adorable misbehavior, and being a hostage. We know it’s capable of more. It’s time to get to it. The show’s spinning its wheels now for a second consecutive week. It’s only got three more shots to find its way.

Walter Chaw is the Senior Film Critic for filmfreakcentral.net. His book on the films of Walter Hill, with introduction by James Ellroy, is due in 2020. His monograph for the 1988 film MIRACLE MILE is available now.

Stream The Mandalorian Chapter 5 on Disney+