What we’re obsessing over from “Chapter Nine” of The Mandalorian
Like any sane, decent Star Wars fans, we watch the new episodes of Mando day-of. You’re welcome, Disney+. We are your humble servants.
So after the season premiere, officially titled “Chapter Nine: The Marshal” we have a few fan-boners poking out of our standard Imperial-issue star shorts. Allow us to break down our very favorite, and most rant-worthy insights.
“It’s a film noir western, and I’m here for it.” -Alex
I do have an appreciation for a show that doesn’t feel it has to remind me what a show is about when a new season starts. Dropping us right into the “current goings-on” is immediately engaging.
The episode takes us to two planets, the noir-esque planet where Mando and Baby need to meet with a gangster, and everyone’s favorite sand planet, Tatooine.
Mando’s meeting with the gambler Gor Koresh at the fight is a classic trope for seedy underworlds. It reeks of film noir, which is appropriate for Mando as a gun-for-hire lone-wolf blah blah, you get it. If you weren’t spending the whole Fight Night scene wondering if the Child was going to force choke one of the fighters, then you and I are in different headspaces.
Maybe the Maltese Falcon is a relative of the Millennium Falcon?
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Gritty westerns and film noirs both love the loner. Which brings us to our next settings: Tatooine’s desert outposts of Mos Eisley and Mos Pelgo.
Mando blowing into town is your quintessential western introduction. Everyone’s peeping the newcomer, and nobody smiles. I don’t know if I had noticed this before, but Mando has a spur-like sound effect as he walks. If you didn’t think it was a western before, watch Mando spur-slink into the empty “saloon” and ask the barkeep for information. And then get greeted with the “Marshal.” And then have the Marshal turn out to be Timothy Olyphant, who has never not been a cowboy. (Sidebar: If you like him in this, try Deadwood. It’s coarse and can be a rough watch, but he and Ian McShane are dope af.)
Clock the spittoon? Western western western. Clock Baby Yoda climbing into said spittoon? Now it’s an adorable western.
“Look, Mr. Frodo! It’s an Oly-phant!”
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Dani and I have been debating the reimagining of the “Cowboys v. Native Americans” motif as this relationship between Tatooine settlers and the Sand People. It seems like it’s actually tastefully executed in Mando. It’s much better than the “savages” concept we get from OG trilogy and the prequel trilogy. (Give me a hit off that smoky coconut. It’s space-peyote.)
The town hall meeting is another great western trope. The idea that everyone in town can get together in one room for a debate reinforces the limited scale of the town and the collective efforts of settlers to overcome the existential threat that will consume their livelihood.
If huffing space-peyote from a smoking coconut isn’t a euphemism, then I don’t know what a euphemism is.
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“The design of this episode is its own friggin’ character.” -Dani
Dani here, ready to talk art nonsense at you. The start of the episode on the noir planet was lovely and all (looking at you, space graffiti) but my ears really perked up when Mando got to Mos Pelgo. All the buildings are raised! I immediately commented to Alex that I was confused why they wouldn’t have built their homes underground like the Lars family’s moisture farm. On a hot planet like Tatooine, it seems like an obvious choice to build down. Initially we thought it was for the western town aesthetic, but the justification was in the forthcoming reveal of the krayt dragon. Good job, design bebes.
The second mind-boggling design trick from this episode was Cobb Vance’s dweeby fit into Boba Fett’s armor. I’m telling you, gang, I have lost sleep over this since Friday. How the heck did they make Boba Fett’s armor look so ill-fitting on Vance? I know the intention was for it to look dopey and ill-fitting, but from an actual costuming perspective, it’s an impressive feat. I can’t figure out if they scaled it a little differently in scenes, but his introduction in the saloon made that Mandalorian armor look like a kid’s Halloween costume and I was amazed. The idea of using armor fit to demonstrate how a character is unqualified to wear it isn’t anything new, but the idea that they made Boba Fett’s iconic armor so goofy looking was genius in my eyes. 10/10, would recommend.
No thanks needed for this side-by-side armor comparison for all your nerdy analysis needs. It’s an honor to serve.
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“Essentially they’re calling back to so much lore, from the OG trilogy and even Season 1.” -Alex
Okay, so I’ll be honest. It seemed like this season was determined to come out the gate with a couple of my pet peeves:
1. Amy Sedaris’ mechanic irritates me. She’s tonally grating compared to Mando, and not in a fun way. Don’t get me wrong- I love Amy, but this character does not feel like a Star Wars character.
2. The repair droids are a nod to the prequels, and they’re not funny. They’re low-brow slapstick. (I’m sensing Dave Filoni in the wings on this one.)
3. Revisiting Tatooine in the search for another Mandalorian is an obvious nod to Boba Fett. Maybe too obvious.
4. I’m bored of people calling each other womp rats. Invent some new alien rodents, please!
Once we settle into the meat of the episode, the setting of Tatooine starts to redeem itself. The Gunslinger is my least favorite episode of season 1, but the interactions with the Sand People and the battle with Fennec Shand were worthwhile. I was glad to see that called back in this episode.
On a similar note, does everyone in Mando just drink Spotchka 24-7? What’s the import rate for that coming in from off-world? Because we know there aren’t any luscious krill ponds in the deserts of Tatooine.
TFW you blow in off that dusty trail, stop a guild from enslaving a town, become the sheriff, and get back to day-drinking.
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Dani noted that a lot of the themes in this episode feel like echoes of the Legend novel “Kenobi.” Krayt dragons and Sand People and adorable western towns in need of saving. So the callbacks keep coming, even when those callbacks aren’t canon. (We miss you, Expanded Universe.)
The flashback from the end of Return of the Jedi was exciting. (I have to imagine the subsequent scene of a bunch of party-goers being massacred by a mining guild would have really brought down the mood during the Yub-Nub montage, though.) It’s yet another anchor of where we’re at in the timeline, and a reminder that our characters lives have been shaped by the events of the films, even if we’re not seeing those lead characters.
Side note: I fucking love camtonos. And Cobb’s podracer speeder. And we finally got to see the jetpack rocket! A lot of payoffs this episode for Boba Fett fans.
Take it from the Rocketman – Tatooine ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.
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And I know what you’re thinking. We can’t end a segment on callbacks without mentioning the Boba seed at the end, right? Yeah yeah, we know. It’s Boba Fett. Calm down. He’s probably the shadowy figure that was alluded to in The Gunslinger walking up to Fennec’s body. Any show about the Mandalorian has to address Boba Fett because he’s technically the source for the concept. The cult fandom of Boba Fett surely inspired the creation of Jango Fett and the clone models, as well as the Clone Wars expansion of the Mandalorian mythos. So yeah, we’re going to have to deal with the granddaddy of Mandos. Unless it’s one of the clones. Because, spoiler alert, they also look like Boba Fett.
“Give me a space doggo and I’m in.” – Dani
This episode checked a lot of boxes in my fandom, because I’m here for design stuff, droids and creatures. And this episode delivered.
I had thought that the cute rodent creatures in Mos Pelgo were womp rats, but then the internet took me down a few notches. They’re Scurriers, and we saw them in the special edition of A New Hope and in the prequels. So, not womp rats. But super adorable. I’m now going to devote a large portion of my free time to writing fan fiction about keeping a Scurrier as a pet. Try and stop me.
“Our story opens on Riddliesyx, the youngest in a family of successful Scurriers. But Riddlestyx wasn’t like has brothers or sisters on Tatooine. Riddlestyx had a gift…”
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Speaking of space-mammals, let’s talk about the very good boys who greeted Mando in the valley. You thought they were naughty babies, but then he gave the command and they went full-on doggo mode. My heart melted when they tried to wag their non-existent tails. I know we saw them in the prequels in the Tuskens’ camp, but, you know, there was a lot of murder after that. (And not just the men, but the women. And the children.) This version of the Massiffs was just delightful. If Tuskens get to keep Banthas and Massiffs as pets, maybe head-to-toe sandproof bandages aren’t that bad.
But before I get too distracted by the cutes and cuddlies, let’s take a moment to recognize the second appearance of the true hero of the Star Wars universe: R5-D4. We first met this white-and-red astromech on the sands of Tatooine when the Lars family tried to buy him because he was obviously superior to R2-D2. But then R2-D2 told him in droid-speak that he was carrying plans that could save the lives of millions of people and take down the Empire, and R5-D4 VOLUNTARILY BLEW A CIRCUIT AND FAKED A BAD MOTIVATOR so that Owen Lars would buy R2 instead. (Can’t you hear it in your head? Luke saying, “Uncle Owen, this droid has a bad motivator!”) Yeah, well he didn’t have a bad motivator, and if R5 hadn’t made that selfless act, Star Wars literally wouldn’t have happened. All of this is canon. Read From A Certain Point of View. End of rant.
All of this to say, our boy R5 made the ultimate sacrifice and he’s still puttering around Mos Eisely. It isn’t a glamorous life, but it’s honorable. He hung out in the cantina for a bit in Season 1, and in Season 2 he’s playing map-droid to Peli Motto. Lean his story. Remember his name. I have just decided he will also be featured in my upcoming Scurrier fan fiction. You’re welcome.
I’m willing to bet that at some point in my life, I’m getting an R5-D4 tattoo. A Tatoo-ine, if you will.
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“Mando continues to impress me by calling itself out.” -Alex
Feel the tension when a “Mandalorian” asks Mando to share a drink. Everyone’s like… “does he have a metal straw or something?” A real Mando would never remove their helmet. It feels like he started by saying, “Hey, don’t you love that we don’t have a secret handshake?” You have to immediately wonder if this guy murdered Boba Fett and stole his armor. When he takes off the helmet and you see the laser hole in the dome, if you weren’t thinking it before, you better be now. The “bought it off some Jawas” throwaway makes you doubt Cobb’s integrity as a narrator. I love an unreliable narrator more than I love a shot of Spotchka under 2 warm Tatooine suns.
There are multiple times in this episode that Jon Favreau seems to know what you’re thinking and then boxes you into the corner with his logic. It seems like what The Mandalorian does best is understand Star Wars fans. This show knows we’re a bunch of nerds pushing the glasses up the bridges of our noses saying, “well, actually, why doesn’t he—” and before we can finish the thought, the show explains why we’re taking the alternate route. Why wouldn’t he just obliterate the krayt dragon with the Razorcrest? Oh good, vibrations.
The sleeping Star Wars fan dreams of a screenwriter complimenting him on catching a continuity error at a science fiction convention panel.
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They did a good job setting up the krayt dragon’s menace. It eats sarlaccs. The acid was a genius reveal. You already thought this thing was going to wreck these honest folk. But spit burning acid on them? Yeah, I’m on the next bantha home, thank-you-very-much. By the way, the knight hunting down the dragon is also a classic Arthurian/fantasy myth and trope. Did you watch The Witcher season 1? There’s a whole episode devoted to it. The Hobbit? They spend 3 full-length movies beating that premise to death (the book is great though).
One outstanding question that Jon Favreau did fail to logic-box: Why don’t people just let go of ropes when they get pulled? Seriously! It’s easier to let go of a rope than to hold onto it.
From a story perspective, this is a pretty tight tale. It’s straightforward, it knows it’s tone and tropes, and it basks in them. You have to appreciate a writer who knows they’re writing the story you expect them to write, but has the sensibilities to anticipate the plot-guessers like me, and then tactfully and tastefully bamboozle us. Star Wars is trope-y as hell. It’s a beautiful amalgamation of hero genres- sci-fi, western, fantasy, film noir, war drama. So many elements of so many things. So to see those tropes and play them, and still stay one step ahead of the audience, is really the only way to win at Star Wars. Yub nub to you, Mr. Favreau. Yub nub indeed.
Thems all the brilliant revelations we thought worth recording, friends.
We can’t wait to see where the Season 2 story arc is going to take us, but we sure hope we see more of Cobb Vance. (And also R5-D4. Mostly for Dani.)