«The Mandalorian», Season 2: «Chapter 10: The Passenger»

First off: this discussion of the episode includes spoilers! So watch «The Mandalorian – Chapter 10: The Passenger» before you read on.

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Let's recap. In Chapter 9: The Marshal, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) aka the Mando, set out in search of other Mandalorians. With their help, Djarin hopes to find out where there might be more of Baby Yoda’s kind.

This journey led him to Tatooine. While he didn’t find any Mandalorians, he did get his hands on Boba Fett’s armour. And he stumbled across a krayt dragon he had to kill in exchange for the armour. But at the end of the episode, Djarin is right where he was at the beginning: searching for other Mandalorians.

This status quo doesn't change in Chapter 10 – «The Passenger» – directed by Peyton Reed: Mando gets the tip to travel to Meermond Trask. Supposedly, the clan of Mandalorians is hiding out there. Maybe even his own clan, which has been all but exterminated on Nevarro. He could certainly use their help to track down Jedi. But Djarin doesn't make it that far. On the way there, he, the Child and passenger Frog Lady (more about her later) get stranded on an ice planet.

What we get is the most chilling episode of «Mandalorian» yet. These are the top five moments and easter eggs.

1. Jetpack to the sky

How awesome was Mando's shtick at the beginning of the episode? On the way back from the «Incident with the Dragon» (10 points for those who get the allusion), he and the Child are attacked by four desert bandits. Mando easily deals with three of them. But the fourth manages to take the child hostage.

«Wait. Don’t hurt the child. If you put one mark on him, there’s no place you’ll be able to hide from me.»

Djarin offers the bandit a deal. «There’s a lot of value in this wreckage. Take your pick. But leave the child.» The little alien brute takes him up on the offer. He picks out Mando’s jetpack. And zooms away with it. Feeling all high and mighty. He’s alive, after all. And has spoils of war to enjoy.

Turns out he gloated too soon.

Djarin takes the child in his arms. «You OK?» Then he casually presses a button on the remote control around his wrist. Whoosh. The little bandit blasts into the air; an Icarus hurtling towards Tatooine’s twin suns. We don’t actually get to see much of it. We just hear a scream. Far away, at first. Then, it gets closer and closer. The alien bandit smashes into the ground with full force. Bam. Dead. And the jetpack? Well, Mando simply calmly steers it back towards himself.

Djarin looks over to the Child. Shrugs his shoulders. Ah, well. He was asking for it. Then, up pops the usual title card – «The Mandalorian» – accompanied by Ludwig Göransson's music.

Goosebumps guaranteed.

2. Practical effects here, practical effects there

In my eyes, «Star Wars» has always had the most awesome practical effects (OK, except for the prequels). I'm talking mainly about actual, real costumes, alien designs, droids and scenery. None of the Jar Jar Binks CGI crap. In chapter 10, we get many such practical effects.

For example, the ant thing playing the galaxy’s most famous card game – Sabacc – with Peli Motto in the Mos Eisley cantina. The card game that rose to fame because Han Solo once won the Millennium Falcon in a Sabacc game against Lando Calrissian.

Speaking of ants. The director of the episode, Peyton Reed, also directed the two «Ant-Man» films. Coincidence?

Then there’s Treadwell, the WED-15 droid we got to know in «Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back». Back then, he was helping Han Solo repair the Millennium Falcon at the rebel base on Hoth. How did he pop up on Tatooine almost 10 years later? I’ve no idea. That would be worth a spin-off series, wouldn’t it?

And to finish off, we have the episode’s title character: some sort of frog lady. Species: unknown. My first thought was she could be a Lanai, as seen in «Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi». But those are birdy aliens. The passenger carrying her her spawn-like brood in a tank on her back is not a birdy alien. In any case, her brood must be fertilised before the next equinox by her husband, on the estuary moon of Trask in the gas giant Kol Iben’s system. Sexy. Otherwise, her family line will die out. Not so sexy.

And it just so happens that the Frog Lady’s husband claims to have seen Mandalorians on Trask.

3. CGI at its best

Practical effects aside, the computer-generated effects are also more than passable. Especially in the grandiosely staged chase: on the way to Trask, Djarin gets into a sticky situation with the space traffic control of the New Republic, which has just emerged out of the power vacuum left by the fallen Empire.

The chase takes place because space control realises the Razor Quest must be the ship that raided the New Republic Correctional Transport in season 1, Chapter 6, «The Prisoner». The Quest is damaged and must make an emergency landing on an unknown ice planet – nope, not Hoth.

But it gets even better. Icky spider creature thingies.

4. How nasty is that?

Whew, this is where the real horror gets going. Especially for someone like me, who's not super into spiders. After escaping the X-wings in the Quest, and a not-so-smooth landing on the planet later, Djarin and his companions end up in a dark ice grotto. Djarin wants to fix the ship. But the Frog Lady makes off into one of the caves.

Then the foreshadowed albino spiders show up. The Star Wars wiki simply calls them Knobby white spiders. Originally, they appear in early concept drawings of «The Empire Strikes Back», where Luke Skywalker has to fight them on Dagobah.

The concept was thrown out for the movie but, years later, got taken up again in the «New Jedi Order» book saga with the Yuuzhan Vong. Mind you, with Anakin Solo – Han and Leia’s youngest child in the extended Star Wars universe, which no longer counts as part of the official canon – instead of Luke Skywalker.

Director Reed first shows us only the spider eggs. The setting sort of resembles Ridley Scott’s «Alien». Then the spiders hatch. Hundreds of little spiders. Then thousands. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they then get bigger and bigger. Before you know it, Mando and his people are being chased by critters the size of the Razor Quest itself.

It’s horror factor to the power of ten. Especially given it’s a Disney series. Didn’t expect that from the makers. But I’m lovin’ it.

5. Dave Filoni to the rescue

Showrunner and co-producer of «The Mandalorian» saves the day! Yep, the very same Dave Filoni who’s also the creator of «The Clone Wars» and «Rebels» and is George Lucas' protégé.

Namely, he plays one of the two X-wing pilots hunting for the Razor Quest. Just as the spider horde is about to put an end to our heroes, the two X-wing pilots blast the suckers away.

A magnificent moment. But what follows is even more important. The two pilots have apparently kept busy doing research in the meantime. They do accuse Djarin of having attacked the Correctional Transport. But at the same time, they acknowledge that he locked up three wanted felons. And that he would have done anything to save lieutenant Davan, who was, in the end, killed by said felons. Davan was played by Matt Lanter, by the way – the English dubbing actor who voiced Anakin Skywalker in «The Clone Wars».

The episode ends with the New Republic sparing Djarin. And so, Mando is able to repair the ship just well enough to disappear from the planet and «limp» on over to Trask.

To be continued.

What's next?

Another cool episode comes to an end. And it was that cool despite hardly pushing the main plot line, i.e. the search for other Mandalorians and Jedis, forward. A classic filler episode, really. The first season of «The Mandalorian» also had a fair amount of these. Chapters 4 to 6, most notably. Those were also the episodes that I enjoyed least by far. So really, I should feel no different about Chapter 10.

But director Peyton Reed did a great job staging it. He combines eerily likeable moments of character development with dynamically staged action. Like in the bandit raid at the beginning. Or the Razor Quest’s wild ride through deadly ice canyons, closely followed by two New Republic X-wings. And finally, the claustrophobic albino-spider action-fest. I like. I really like.

Next week, we’ll probably continue on to the estuary moon of Trask, as hinted at in the trailers. A place I couldn't find in any Star Wars wiki, by the way. Nor the ant or frog alien or the ice planet. And it’s better that way. «The Mandalorian» is slowly but surely starting to develop its own mythology, and even references itself when it comes to events or characters from the first season.

On Trask, we’ll probably finally get to see the character played by Sasha Banks, who seems so mysterious in the trailers.

Given that Djarin is on Trask looking for Mandalorians, it wouldn't surprise me if Banks actually did turn out to be the live-action version of Sabine Wren.

That would be something.

What did you guys think of this episode? Are there any more Easter eggs I've missed? Let me know in the comments. See you next Friday in the «Chapter 11» episode discussion!