‘The Mandalorian’ Launches Second Season With Confident, Action-Packed Episode [Review]

Remember blockbusters? The closest anyone will get to that blockbuster feeling in Fall 2020 is the second season of Disney+’s flagship series, “The Mandalorian,” which dropped its premiere this morning, a little less than a year after the show debuted with the streaming service in November 2019. When the action of “Chapter 9: The Marshal” hits its climax, and the aspect ratio has to expand to fit it all in, it’s hard not to think a little bit about what was lost in a year without Marvel, Star Wars, or other blockbusters. Luckily, the season premiere of one of television’s most beloved current shows isn’t pure spectacle, finding ways to honor the deep Western genre foundation of season one while also dropping hints of where this year will go.

Season one of “The Mandalorian” told the story of the title character (Pedro Pascal), one of the few remaining people who have dedicated themselves to a particular way of life. Wearing the iconic armor comes with certain expectations, including never removing the mask and rarely taking a moral side. In the first season, Mando agreed to a job that led to the discovery of ‘The Child’ aka Baby Yoda, but he refused to give up his new ward, sending him on the run for most of that first season before a final showdown with the villainous Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). The Mandalorian made some friends along the way, saved some villagers, and flew away with a plan to find more of both his kind and that of the child.

His new quest sees Mando return to Tatooine, briefly reunited with Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris), who last appeared in “Chapter 5: The Gunfighter.” Other familiar faces like Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) are nowhere to be seen, but that almost certainly changes soon enough. In just nine episodes, “The Mandalorian” has built a network of characters and locations that has impressively given the show its own personality, even as it’s returned to places and people originally defined by the original “Star Wars” trilogy. Properties based on popular franchises often fall back on familiarity, repeating what fans liked about the source material in the hope that they’ll just like it again, but “The Mandalorian” has succeeded by finding its own voice, incorporating elements of the Lucasverse that people already love into something new. The action of “The Marshal” and its canon-shaking final shot works better for people who know all the related material (and not just the films, but the books too) but the episode is also entertaining on its own terms, another Western-inspired story of a man who goes to the edge of society to save a village from a violent threat.

It feels important here to remind viewers when “The Mandalorian” takes place. The action of the show is set after “Return of the Jedi,” and closer to that film than the drama of “The Force Awakens.” After the destruction of the second Death Star, the universe is in a bit of a power vacuum, some of which has been fleshed out in books like “Star Wars: Aftermath” by Chuck Wendig and “Star Wars: Bloodline” by Claudia Gray. The former introduced into canon a character named Cobb Vanth, a man who found the armor of Boba Fett, the Mandalorian who inspired this show and was last seen falling into a Sarlacc Pit in ‘Jedi.’

In “The Marshal,” director Jon Favreau and company tie the original trilogy, the more recent book, and their own show together by bringing Vanth into this universe. Played by Timothy Olyphant, who should be the clear #1 choice for a major role in any TV episode called “The Marshal,” Vanth is an opportunist. Still, he’s also worked hard to protect his mining town of Mos Pelgo from threats, including Tusken Raiders in the nearby hills and a massive creature that lives in the old Sarlacc Pit. Mando unites the Raiders and the villagers together in an action-packed effort to lure the sandworm from its cave and destroy it. The episode ends with an image that won’t be spoiled but arguably has even more canonical implications than the notorious final shot of the series premiere, the one that gave the world Baby Yoda (although probably won’t produce as many plush toys).

The first third of “The Marshal” has a habit of overexplaining itself a few too many times to make sure that viewers know that this season is going to be about reunions with Mando and Baby Yoda with their kind, but Favreau confidently leans into what works about this show from the prologue. The season opens with a sequence designed to remind viewers that this is a Sci-fi Western through and through with Mando and his green buddy walking down a dark street at night, the red eyes of creatures peering through the darkness. They might as well be gunslingers walking down a dusty road in a Western town. Those genre beats feel even more prominent than ever to start season two—there’s damn near a high-noon showdown between Cobb and the Mandalorian when they first meet…in a space saloon, of course.

From its tight fight choreography in the prologue to its massive showdown, “The Marshal” plays incredibly well purely in action blockbuster terms. It’s unsurprising that Favreau confidently directs the action scenes, and Olyphant is an always-welcome guest star, but if there’s a flaw here it’s in length. “The Marshal” is the longest episode of “The Mandalorian” ever at 55 minutes, and it could have been tightened in a few places. One of the best things about season one was how rarely this show succumbed to bloat. It was a tight eight episodes and most of them were under 45 minutes. However, audiences who have been craving any sort of blockbuster action in 2020 are unlikely to complain about getting too much “Mandalorian.”

“The Mandalorian” sometimes feels like it’s operating on three simultaneous levels. On one, it’s undeniably calling back to the average fan of the series, someone who gets excited by seeing Tusken Raiders and Jawas again. On another, it’s trying to satisfy the true hardcore fans of the Lucasverse, the people who know the name Cobb Vanth. And then it’s working on its own terms, recalling the genres that inspired George Lucas in the first place to find its own voice. When it’s really clicking, it’s working for all of those audiences, something that’s a lot harder to pull off than it looks. It’s a show that keeps threatening to lose one of those demographics—to become too much of an echo of things done better before or err on the other side and alienate the fanbase. The season premiere of “The Mandalorian” promises an even more confident threading of that needle. [B]

“The Mandalorian” Season 2 will premiere a new episode every Friday on Disney+.