– Spoiler Review –
In what felt like what would’ve been a season long quest, the second episode of The Mandalorian’s third season wastes no time in taking us to Mandalore and the mines beneath. But will Din Djarin find the forgiveness he so desperately searches for or something far more important? Find out in our review of “Chapter 18 – The Mines of Mandalore!”
In the season three premiere, I was left curious why exactly Din Djarin was so dead-set on being part of the Children of the Watch again, despite their honky rules and everything else he’s seen and learned being away from them on his quest with Grogu. “Chapter 18 – The Mines of Mandalore” takes the moment to actually explore his reasons, though it’s with a surprising person: Bo-Katan Kryze. He explains he’s looking for redemption because he believes their creed, the creed he took after the Death Watch rescued him as a child, is what makes the Mandalorians who they are, how they survived. Can they be anything without a creed, without a compass to guide their actions? How and why these two figures of Mandalorian future are even together again, let alone debating what it means to be one, is one of the more intriguing and exciting aspects to a rather great episode overall.
I was concerned the quest to repair IG-11 would consume the season, or a good portion of it, before we’d get to see Din bathe in the Living Waters in the Mines of Mandalore, the season following the show’s traditional way of having a bunch of little errands before moving the story forward. “Chapter 18” proves me wrong, as Din stops at the first place he can think of to get parts, Peli Motto and the Jawas, but they can’t provide…though Peli offers up the cowering R5-D4, and while Din is originally incredulous, she sort of forces him to take the droid without actually forcing him. With R5 in tow, Din heads straight to Mandalore to find the mines and get his transgressions erased, though while in space over the devastated planet, he takes a moment to continue little Grogu’s education on navigation, pointing out on the sector map how close they are to where they met Bo-Katan last episode.
The need for a droid stems from determining if Mandalore is truly poisoned or not, so he sends it out to take samples before he and Grogu venture forth…only for R5 to go missing. Din heads out, pressurized helmet and all, to find the droid, finding himself attacked by creatures known as Alamites, his control of the darksaber still clumsy but he manages to best them in the end. He learns Bo-Katan was right and the Armorer wrong, the planet isn’t literally poisoned, so he and Grogu set out to find the Mines, heading deep into the undercity and sewers, believing this is where they’ll find them, near where Bo-Katan told him last episode. Instead of the mines, Din and Grogu encounter creatures in the dark…and a giant spider-droid! It incapacitates Din and brings him to a lair, strapping him up to a weird contraption (potentially to pump out his blood), and afterwards the being controlling the giant droid crawls out, a spiky, scary looking take on General Grievous, as it has one remaining (as far as I could tell) flesh part: an eye inside a robotic head. Grogu tries to use the Force to free Din, but it only alerts the monster and Grogu flees with Din’s words at his heels: “Get to Bo-Katan.”
It was a lot of fun to see Grogu on his own, escaping from Alamites in his pram and managing to rudimentarily communicate with R5 to have him taken to Bo-Katan. Where she seemed surprisingly apathetic last episode, upon seeing the N-1 flying in, she takes a far more antagonistic tone, saying she wants to get rid of him forever, though her first words as the ship lands is she just wants to be left alone. She knows something is wrong the moment only Grogu can be seen in the cockpit, having her droid download where they’ve been, and heads out with the two in tow back to Mandalore. Even more fun than Grogu alone is Bo-Katan and Grogu, as it’s nice to have him with someone else again, especially someone with so much history with the Jedi, which the two talk about briefly as Grogu leads her to Din. The stories she could tell the little dude, more so than Luke, would be a blast to hear from her now, even for us. Defeating an attack by the Alamites, Bo-Katan finds herself facing off with the creepy droid, initially in trouble due to its weird electric shooting stick, but she finds the Darksaber in the ground and proudly wields it, showing how mighty it can be in the right hands. It’s a measurable difference in skill, Bo-Katan sliding around and even managing to defeat the giant spider-droid with it as well, and it was a blast to see her finally use it in such a deadly and precise way, especially after Din continues to struggle with it. Star Wars Rebels’ “Trials of the Darksaber” showed us how someone could become so proficient with the Darksaber, in one of the show’s many fantastic episodes, so maybe between Bo-Katan and a potential Sabine Wren appearance, perhaps the training can be passed down eventually.
This leads to an uneasy alliance between Din and Bo-Katan, who can’t believe, despite herself, she saved him, but Grogu’s a pretty convincing little kid, as it’s like saying no to a puppy! This is what leads to their conversation about the future of the Mandalorians, where Din talks over his reasoning for continuing on into the Mines and Bo-Katan reveals she feels like Mandalore is metaphorically poisoned, not worth clinging to anymore. It’s clear as the episode goes on she’s truly tired of fighting her own people, of the old ways, hence why she’s not so eager to take back the Darksaber and instead is willing to help Din, as she looks for some other way to go forward for their people. He won’t leave with her until he’s done so she decides to show him the way, and while they travel into the city where the Mines actually are, Bo-Katan lets Din and us learn a little about her, talking about her being in the Mines for her initiation due to being part of the ruling family, though it’s clear she puts no stock in all the myths, like mythosaurs and the like from Mandalore’s history. As Din goes to bathe himself, he suddenly plummets into the water and Bo-Katan jumps in after him, where it becomes quickly clear the Mines run very, very deep. Did Din get pulled down? Did he just fall and become unconscious after hitting something? As Bo-Katan finds him and begins to pull him to the surface, something appears before her, its true size and shape obscured by all the dirt she’s been kicking up trying to rescue him, but one thing’s clear: the mythosaur is a factosaur now! I can’t claim credit for that joke, but the giant, reptilian eye hints at a larger creature and it’s hard to imagine it’s anything but the legendary mythosaur itself (which digital correspondent and all around amazing lady Ash Crossan almost got Pedro Pascal to spoil)! The episode ends as the two emerge from the water, with Bo-Katan clearly shaken, yet excited, the myths might be true all along…after all, there’s truth in legends. I’m excited by the possibilities here, with Bo-Katan and Din together more, while potentially seeing the mythosaur is sending me soaring like little Grogu did to greet Peli. With The Mandalorian’s season three feeling less planet of the week and more arching story, things are looking up!
Here are a few other things:
- Pelli mentions R5 worked for the Rebellion, which builds off his Legends and now canonical backstory of heroically sacrificing himself at the Lars Homestead so R2-D2 could be picked instead, and Artoo’s story inspired him to try and fight in the Rebellion as well. This sacrifice was canonized by the excellent short story “The Red One” in Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View! Looks like he managed to fight with them after all before ending up with Peli!
- Speaking of Peli, one thing I really liked about her part of the episode is how Boonta Eve is regarded as an actual holiday people celebrate, as I think I equated it for far too long with podracing and not an actual holiday itself.
- Star Wars, especially written by men, sure loves its fathers, as Bo-Katan ends up only mentioning and fondly remembering her father, without a word spent on her mother.
- It seems like we’ll have plenty of Bo-Katan to enjoy this season, as actress Katee Sackhoff mentions she’s excited for people to see episodes as far along as the seventh (!) of the season in a recent interview.
The Mandalorian’s “Chapter 18 – The Mines of Mandalore” is an exciting episode which tests Din, Grogu, and even Bo-Katan in unique ways as the future of the Mandalorians hangs in the balance.
+ Grogu going solo
+ Exploring Bo-Katan
+ Storylines happening quicker than expected
+ Bo-Katan’s control of the Darksaber vs Din’s
– All aliens need to be killed again?
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
THE MANDALORIAN REVIEWS
Season Three: Chapter 17 – The Apostate
The Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 5 -Return of the Mandalorian | Chapter 6 – From the Desert Comes a Stranger | Chapter 7 – In the Name of Honor
Season Two: Chapter 9 – The Marshal | Chapter 10 – The Passenger | Chapter 11 – The Heiress | Chapter 12 – The Siege | Chapter 13 – The Jedi | Chapter 14 – The Tragedy | Chapter 15 – The Believer | Chapter 16 – The Rescue
Season One: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 – The Child | Chapter 3 – The Sin | Chapter 4 – The Sanctuary | Chapter 5 – The Gunslinger | Chapter 6 – The Prisoner | Chapter 7 – The Reckoning | Chapter 8 – Redemption