TV Review: “The Mandalorian: The Believer”(S2, Ep. 7)
By: Dr. Thomas J. West Iii
Tags: Culture, Star Wars, Television, Tv Reviews, TV Series

I think, quite honestly, this is my favourite episode of The Mandalorian so far this season. It has everything that I’ve come to expect and love about this show: pulse-pounding excitement, a dash of philosophy, and buddy-comedy narrative. In the episode, Mando manages to get Migs Mayfeld released from prison so that he can assist him in his efforts to locate Moff Gideon’s ship and save the kidnapped Grogu. They end up on Morak, where they hope to get the proper coordinates. Though the Mando and Migs fall afoul of an Imperial officer, Valin Hess, after Migs shoots him dead they manage to escape.

Migs Mayfeld is, in some important ways, the star of this episode, which is due in no small part to Bill Burr’s undeniable charisma. He’s just so damn charming that it’s impossible not to like him. More important, though, is the fact that he gets the lion’s share of the philosophy. As he rightly points out, for many people living in the Galaxy, who is in charge ultimately matters less than what happens in their daily lives (though it’s clear that the Imperials make far less forgiving masters than the New Republic). Men like him, and many others, serve whoever will pay them and allow them to live out their lives in some measure of peace. In the tradition of characters like Han Solo, he seems to owe allegiance to no particular politics or philosophy.

It’s for precisely this reason that his confrontation with his old Imperial officer, Valin Hess, is so meaningful. Hess is everything that we’ve come to expect from a servant of the fallen Empire: desiccated, ruthless, and unfeeling, both his appearance and his very name telling us all that we need to know about his personality and his philosophy. As unpleasant as he is, he does have a point when he observes that many people, even those that claim to desire freedom, really just want order. Though they might never say it, they find the chaos that often accompanies freedom terrifying and unsettling. One can see in his rhetoric a hint of what will to come, and that word “order” will come to have particular significance when the First Order makes manages to rise from the ashes of the Empire (it’s also one of those moments that has a great deal of resonance with the politics of our present moment).

Mayfeld, whatever his professed cynicism and lack of allegiance to any particular political organization, clearly feels some pull toward what the series imagines as the moral side of the equation. While he says that his shooting of Hess was so that no one could say they had seen Mando’s face, it’s pretty clear that what truly drove him to it was Hess’s casual and callous dismissal of all of those who died in a previous military operation. As is so often the case with Star Wars, even the most maverick and skeptical characters often have a moral and ethical core that’s belied by their external behavior and appearance.

Nor is that the only significant moment in this scene. When Mayfeld refuses to enter the officer’s mess for fear of Hess recognizing him, Mando does so in his stead. However, since the machine containing the coordinates requires a facial scan, he has to take off his helmet and thus, for the first time in the entire series, we finally see the face of Pedro Pascal. It’s a brilliantly staged sequence, and it allows us to feel the momentousness of this instant, particularly since Hess’s untimely interference means that he has to keep the helmet off. Given that Mando has been so rigorous in keeping his face hidden, the fact that he’s willing to forsake a central tenet of his faith in order to rescue Grogu speaks volumes about how much the Child means to him. It’s a strikingly human and emotional moment, made all the more so because this marks the only episode so far where the beloved little green creature didn’t make an appearance.

Nor is this the only emotionally moment with Mando, for the episode ends with him sending a transmission to Moff Gideon. “You have something I want,” he says, his voice pulsing with furious intensity. “You may think you have some idea of what you’re in possession of, but you do not. Soon, he will be back with me. He means more to me than you will ever know.” This is, of course, a direct echo and inversion of Gideon’s own proclamation when he first made it clear that he intended to take the child and destroy everyone in his way, though Mando is driven by love rather than greed. For a while now it’s been clear that Mando feels quite a lot of affection for his little green companion, but this may be the first time that we get an explicit statement from his own lips of just how much he means, and how far he will be willing to go to regain custody of him. There’s a power to Pascal’s vocal performance rarely matched in the rest of the series, and I felt a little chill race up my spine at the dreadful power that I felt as he spoke.

Esposito’s performance here is likewise stellar, and we see a number of emotions warring for dominance on his face. There’s certainly anger, because we know that Gideon is a man who absolutely hates to be crossed or challenged, particularly by those he deems to be below him (which is essentially everyone). However, there is also just the slightest touch of fear, and you get the feeling that it’s starting to dawn on him just how dangerous an enemy a Mandalorian, especially this Mandalorian, can be.

No review would be complete without mentioning the action sequences, in which Migs and Mando have to contend with several groups of pirates attempting to blow up their rig. It’s brilliantly executed, as such scenes in this series tend to be, and even though we know the final outcome (as always), that doesn’t mean that we aren’t on the edge of our seats for the duration.

Overall, this was a truly fantastic episode of The Mandalorian, and yet another indication of why this series remains one of the best offerings in the Star Wars universe. Now, on to the finale!