With the second entry in Season 2, the Mandalorian’s journey takes a bumping turn as the Razor Crest gets precious cargo.
Warning: Your ship’s ping states there are spoilers on board.
This season of The Mandalorian has been knocking it out of the park, with a tense episode in Chapter 10, “The Passenger,” directed by Ant Man‘s Peyton Reed.
After an unfruitful trip to Tatooine, the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) has another lead on one of his fellow Mandalorians. The catch is that he has to provide transport for a passenger, the Frog Lady (on-set performer Misty Rosas, voice by Dee Bradley Baker), and her container of eggs. She wants passage to a moon called Trask, where her husband has fled to in order to give his family a better life. When she is there, he will fertilize her eggs. The trip is dangerous because her spawn are fragile, requiring travel without hyperspeed. On route, they encounter a New Republic patrol of X-Wings and are forced to flee to a nearby ice planet. The Razor Crest crashes and the crew are stuck, forcing the Mandalorian to help them survive the extremely cold night.
The episode did as I predicted, in that we got more of the Child. Baby Yoda got his fair share of screen time as he satiated his hunger by sneaking some of the frog babes into his mouth and also ate a random egg on the ice planet, bringing the wrath of ice-dwelling spiders!
Oh, those spiders! The ice planet they are stranded on gives viewers a flash of Hoth mixed with the horror of an Alien. It is such a relief to see the group finally escape to safety, with the help of the X-Wings from earlier as they face off with the horde of spiders. With this, we are getting more opportunities to see Djiran release that he can’t do everything on his own, whether he is accepting of help or not.
Another reason I loved this episode, and really appreciate, is the emotional growth of the Mandalorian. Din Dijran made his impact as a cold-blooded bounty hunter, until the Child entered his life, slowly thawing his heart. In this episode, the Frog Lady, a well-developed one-shot character, shows compassion, heart, and resilience. Her presence and motivation is a good foil to the Mandalorian’s “This Is The Way” approach.
The one thing that was a bit disappointing to me was that the episode didn’t follow up on the tease of Boba Fett from Chapter 9. Though there are plenty of opportunities to incorporate him, I was hoping for something more this week.
The episode was a fun one, nonetheless. I am super excited to see Chapter 11, and I can only imagine the journey we’ll take!
I have spoken.
