‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Premiere Recap: How to Slay a Dragon

Absence makes the heart grow fonder—and I was already very fond of The Mandalorian. There was something deeply satisfying about the way showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni managed to expand the scope of the already expansive saga by narrowing the storytelling to one man (and one baby). Eight episodes telling eight distinct stories with laser-focused storytelling. No narrative tricks, hooks, or gimmicks. Just characters, adversity, resolution. I will go on the record here and now, in my first Mandalorian recap, by saying that yeah, I do think The Mandalorian deserved the Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. So where does Season 2 of our Emmy-winning, internet-breaking fave start? In the bad part of town.

Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is a Mandalorian on a mission: he’s gotta get his foundling Baby Yoda (a.k.a. The Child, if you’re part of Disney’s marketing team) back to his home planet. The problem is that no one knows what Baby Yoda is (aside from cute) or where he comes from (Planet Cute?). Djarin’s quest has led him to a gritty city, seeking information from a sketchy Abyssin named Gor Koresh (voiced by John Leguizamo). Djarin meets up with Koresh at a Gamorrean wrestling match, the kinda setup pulled directly from the imaginations of kids stuck trying to come up with scenarios for their random Star Wars figures. That is exactly what this show is.

Koresh has intel for Djarin, who’s trying to find any other surviving Mandalorians after the covert on Nevarro was wiped out. Koresh doesn’t have much to say, just that there’s a Mandalorian on Tatooine. No name, no city, just a Beskar needle in a planet-sized haystack. Fortunately for all of us viewers, every planet in Star Wars has always metaphorically been as big as a city and we’re spared scenes of Djarin spending weeks scouring Tatooine.

A return to Tatooine means the return of everyone’s favorite garage owner, Peli Motto! Yep, Amy Sedaris is back. This too brief scene really feels like Sedaris’ Mandalorian victory lap, as she yells at droids and rolls her eyes at Djarin and coos over Baby Yoda… and offers to buy Baby Yoda’s offspring, should he have any. If Peli Motto’s Season 1 appearance was Sedaris at a 6, then this feels more like Sedaris at an 8—truly testing Star Wars‘ capacity for weird. And her exposition is necessary, and includes a cameo from a droid that could’ve been the star of the whole saga if it wasn’t for a bad motivator. Now Djarin knows where to look for this mystery Mandalorian: Mos Pelgo.

Mos Pelgo may sound like the name of a ’80s Danny Elfman solo project during his time off from Oingo Boingo, but it’s actually a remote town with few resources. In full Western fashion, Djarin rolls up into Mos Pelgo on his steed and finds the town’s sole watering hole—a watering hole tended by the literal bartender from Deadwood. Djarin asks if the Weequay bartender has ever seen a Mandalorian ’round these parts—and then, definitely on cue, enters Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant). Cobb Vanth is Mos Pelgo’s  marshal, and he wears—let’s just call it what it is—Boba Fett’s scavenged armor, one ravaged by Sarlacc stomach acid.

Let’s talk about where Cobb Vanth comes from. All of this—Cobb Vanth, Mos Pelgo, the town’s takeover by the mining collective after the fall of the Empire, and how Vanth used some stolen silicax crystals to trade for Fett’s armor and defeat the miners—are parts of Chuck Wendig’s recent trilogy of novels, Aftermath, brought to live-action. References to obscure Star Wars lore, recent or ancient, is my jam. And I particularly love the way The Mandalorian—a technologically revolutionary, big-budget show at the top of Disney’s list of priorities—goes out of its way to embrace all of Star Wars, big and small.

You can’t tell because of the helmet, but you know Djarin’s completely enraged to find out that the Mandalorian he trekked to Tatooine to find is just a random dude. As we were reminded throughout Season 1, a Mandalorian’s armor, the helmet, chest-plate, even the jetpack—they’re religious artifacts. And here’s this dude, with his impossibly hydrated hair defying all of Tatooine’s harshness, just wearing it without respecting it. At this moment, Djarin’s ready to just drop everything and waste this guy—forget the mission, and forget Baby Yoda, who is right there. Djarin justifies it, saying the kid’s seen worse.

What this feels like, though, isn’t Djarin overreacting and picking a fight. This—seeking out his own Mandalorian heritage and protecting the lore—actually feels like his mission, not taking Baby Yoda back home. After all, he’s seeking out Mandalorians based on the thinnest of leads. He’s telling himself that if he can find a clan hidden away somewhere that he’ll be able to network his way to Baby Yoda’s home planet. But that overlooks the fact that while there are ancient songs of Mandalore that tell of a battle between his people and the Jedi thousands of years ago, Baby Yoda’s specific origin has no such connection. It feels like Djarin wants to find his people, and is using Baby Yoda as a cover for his own vulnerability. This is, after all, a guy who didn’t even have his own clan until the Season 1 finale. He got a taste of family, and now he wants more.

But anyway—Cobb Vanth! Lucky for him, this showdown’s interrupted by some Tremors-style terror as we get our first-ever glimpse of a living, breathing, and burrowing krayt dragon. It’s big, it’s nasty, and it can eat a bantha in one gulp! Vanth sees an opening: he’ll gladly fork over his armor, rocket-shooting jetpack and all, if Djarin agrees to use his (rocket-less) jetpack and all his other gizmos to help slay a dragon. Deal!

It’s not surprising to learn that the krayt dragon—a dirt monster that’s as big as a skyscraper—causes trouble for others. Enter: the Tusken Raiders, a vicious people who love to pillaging almost as much as they love jumping into the frame to terrify dopes who’re in over their head (the only thing Luke Skywalker and Toro Calican have in common). They also have a bone to pick with the krayt dragon, and they want to blow it up real good as well. The problem is, their plan of appeasing the krayt dragon by feeding it a bantha every now and then isn’t working.

Djarin, Vanth, and a group of Raiders watch as the dragon eagerly scarfs up a side-order of a fleeing Tusken and doesn’t even touch his wooly main course. They’re gonna need a bigger posse. Who doesn’t love a team-up? The people of Mos Pelgo, that’s who! But they do it anyway, begrudgingly, because Watchmen taught us that nothing erases generations of differences like the threat of a giant monster.

What I love about this episode, aside from it just being The Mandalorian on my TV in 2020, is the way it digs just a little deeper on some of the very first creatures we ever met in the Star Wars saga. This episode gives the Tuskens a voice—like, literally, we get to hear what they have to say about all the jerk settlers who moved into their territory and steal their water. This is the most we’ve seen of actual Tusken culture in 43 years of universe-building, and it’s fascinating. But also, we have to look at Vanth’s flashback to his Jawa encounter. Not only did they rescue him while he was wandering through the desert, fleeing the miners—they give him water! And when they found his safe of precious crystals, they didn’t just take it from him and dump him. They insisted on a trade when Vanth was in no position to bargain. Since we first met these cultures, we’ve seen them as terrors and hagglers. Not anymore.

The unified forces of the Mos Pelgo settlers and this clan of Tuskens, backed with legit Mandalorian firepower, approach the dragon’s lair with a plan—the wrong plan. I don’t call snidely pointing out plot holes criticism, but when I saw that they were loading up a bunch of explosives on a bantha, it seemed like the clearest way to slay this beast would be to get it to eat a bantha bomb. But instead, they dig a trench and bury a bunch of bombs so they can blow up the dragon’s vulnerable underbelly. However, if you dive into the Star Wars Wiki, you’ll see that Tuskens probably weren’t up for offering up another bantha to the dragon considering how closely their people are tied to the creatures. Like seriously, every Tusken is assigned a bantha companion at birth and when two raiders marry, their banthas get hitched too. No wonder they didn’t want to kill another bantha!

I also can’t fault this plan because it leads to the kind of action-packed spectacle that only The Mandalorian can deliver. No other show on television goes this big and this hard with this budget. The battle is massive, with blasters fired and Tuskens flying everywhere. When the dragon started to vomit up acid, I was shook. Things can always get worse in Star Wars!

But, to sound like a true nerd, what I loved most about this battle was how director Jon Favreau played with the episode’s aspect ratio. The rest of The Mandalorian, most of this episode included, is filmed in 2.39:1, which results in a very wide, cinematic picture. But TVs don’t come in 2.39:1 ratio; they come in a 16:9 ratio, which is the aspect ratio that The Mandalorian slyly wipes to when the dragon erupts from its lair.

It’s a subtle shift, but the effect mirrors how films treat shooting scenes for IMAX. This action setpiece is the literal biggest battle we’ve seen on The Mandalorian, and Favreau makes sure it takes up your entire TV screen. It just feels huge, and unlike any other TV show.

Details like these are really what set The Mandalorian apart, because you’re not gonna get that from the plot. The episode plays out as expected: the initial plan doesn’t work, so Djarin does exactly what I thought he would do before the battle even begun. He tricks the dragon into eating a heavily-armed bantha and, after jet-packing out of the beast’s throat, makes the whole thing go boom. The Tuskens celebrate by harvesting the dragon’s meat and finding its precious pearl (a nod to the novels), and a grateful Vanth turns over his armor to Djarin as promised. It ends pretty much how you knew it would—but that’s beside the point, and it’s a point I feel I gotta make in this initial recap.

‘The Mandalorian’ on Disney+: 5 Things You May Have Missed in Chapter 9

Star Wars has never, ever been about plot. Even the plots for the first trilogy were lifted and remixed from George Lucas’ favorite myths and movies. What sets Star Wars apart, though, is character and, for lack of a better term, vibe. What makes The Mandalorian pop are moments like Djarin challenging Vanth to a bar fight, our hero’s disgust and rage radiating underneath his helmet. What makes The Mandalorian fascinating are moments like the Jawas being way more fair and kind than we previously knew them to be. What makes The Mandalorian appointment television is how expertly it melds technology with storytelling, creating a completely seamless world that ignites the imagination. It’s just a ride, man, and it’s so much fun.

And then there’s the ending, one that isn’t going to break the internet as much as Baby Yoda’s debut but it’s a major deal for those in the know. As Djarin speeds away, the aspect ratio restored to its wide expanse, we see a scarred, cloaked figure watching him. That actor is Temuera Morrison, and that character is Boba Fett.

We knew this was coming from reports of Morrison’s casting, but this is still a major deal. In fact, Djarin’s skirmish with Cobb Vanth sets up a super tense dynamic between the show’s lead and this high-profile guest star. Real talk: like Vanth, Boba Fett is also not a true Mandalorian. Din Djarin probably has some opinions about the most notorious Mandalorian being a poser, and he’s not just going to hand over a set of Mandalorian armor to said poser. Plus, who thinks Boba Fett is gonna politely ask for his armor back? There is a lot of story potential to mine here, potential that the original trilogies never got to (remember how Boba Fett did nothing except die in the movies? I love him).

And that’s what The Mandalorian is all about: finding the potential, pulling out the pearl from the guts.

Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+