The Mandalorian — ‘Chapter 2: The Child’ [1x2] ★★★☆☆
By: Dan Owen
Tags: Star Wars, TV, Review, The Mandalorian, Culture

The Mandalorian — ‘Chapter 2: The Child’ [1x2] ★★★☆☆

Following a premiere that set a sombre tone while delivering occasional bursts of cinematic action, “Chapter 2: The Child” was a more entertaining hour of The Mandalorian. This new Star Wars TV series has been cloaked in so much mystery that I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to be, but it seems like each instalment’s going to involve the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) having to overcome various obstacles to complete his mission: the safe transportation of the eponymous ‘Child’ to The Client (Werner Herzog).

There’s still not much else going on here, as the Mandalorian himself remains a total enigma and we’re likely never going to see his face. He looks cool and he does badass things, and that’s all we’re getting right now. This episode at least humanised him a little, as we discover he’s not a coldhearted bastard and continues a nice friendship with moisture farmer Kuiil (Nick Nolte). He may only be protecting The Child because it’s a pay packet, but the season’s natural arc is for the Mandalorian to fall in love with this “baby Yoda” and start to realise the child’s safety means more to him than payment and body armour.

Once again, this story leaned heavily on Star Wars iconography. I guess that’s forgivable, at least in the early going, to get everyone on board and accepting of this show as taking place in the same universe. So now we have the Mandalorian discovering his ship has been stripped for parts by Jawas (the small hooded alien with red eyes from Star Wars: A New Hope), then taken away in their Sandcrawler he fails to board. Instead, after getting some advice from Kuiil, the Mandalorian agrees to trade with the opportunistic Jawas, and he’s sent to retrieve an “Egg’ from a cave containing a giant horned beast.

There were some impressive visuals in this hour, particularly with the horned animal the Mandalorian has to fight with damaged armour and failing weaponry. The premiere didn’t strike me as being entirely beyond the budget of many other modern sci-fi shows, particularly Star Trek: Discovery, but a big fight with a CGI monster that doesn’t look even slightly subpar is impressive work. The sequence with the enormous sandcrawler was also handled well and wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of the movies.

We did learn only one new thing from this hour, however: the Child is definitely the same species as Master Yoda, and it’s likewise one with the Force. And we see the baby instinctively use the Force to help the Mandalorian defeat the beast, by making it levitate for long enough to land a fatal stab to the neck. I assume Yoda’s species are naturally attuned to the Force and the Client wants the child because Force-sensitive folk are hard to come by now. (The Mandalorian takes place after the famous “Order 66” the Emperor issued, which resulted in the near-extinction of the Jedi.)

There’s always a chance the baby will be revealed as the progeny of Yoda himself, and maybe they’re setting him up to return in one of the main Star Wars films one day — where he’d be around 100 years old. But who knows. It’s more likely just another way to layer in more Star Wars iconography. And the Child does look adorable, so Disney will sell lots of plushies next year.

Rick Fumuyiwa directed this episode. He’s a Nigerian-American filmmaker I’m not familiar with, but he came close to making the long-gestating Flash movie a few years ago. I thought he did a great job with “Chapter 2”, particularly the three main action sequences: a fight with some Trandoshan warriors in a cave, the sandcrawler pursuit, and the beast fight.

It’s strange, really, because if this wasn’t a Star Wars TV series I may be criticising how it’s just a string of action set-pieces with amazing production values. The characters (what few there are) don’t seem particularly deep and the narrative’s by-the-numbers, but it’s clearly happy to just offer viewers a weekly escape to the “galaxy far, far away” and luxuriate in the atmosphere of everything. The evocative music (a few melodies are now worming their way into my head), great stunts and action, excellent VFX and sound effects, and the general feel of The Mandalorian is working nicely.

Hopefully, we’re going to get some meat on its bones with “Chapter 3”.