THE MANDALORIAN Episode 6 Discussion Thread

Season one of The Mandalorian enters into its final few episodes with yet another standalone adventure. I imagine some of you are getting restless to revisit the Baby Yoda story introduced in the show’s first three entries. Not this week. While I do appreciate the smaller scope of this show and its willingness to embrace old school episodic storytelling, I have to admit the urgency of the first three episodes lent more excitement to what was going on.

But this is fun too. This week Mando visits some old criminal pals to do a quick job. This ends up being kind of a guest star smorgasbord starting with Mark Boone Jr. as head honcho Burg. Mando’s old associate talks him into joining a team (and volunteering his ship) for a good old fashioned prison break. This team includes Bill Burr and Clancy Brown, but most importantly a Twi’lek (Harry Potter’s Natalia Tena) named Xi’an. It is strongly implied Mando and Xi’ian used to be lovers. So now we all get to enjoy the mental image of Mando fucking with his helmet on.

This may shock you, but things do not go well during the prison break and the gang of assholes end up betraying Mando. The Mandalorian isn’t exactly inventive when mining Western tropes, so we’re not treated to any real surprises. Baby Yoda pops up a couple times, remains cute.

Nevertheless, this was a lot more fun than last week’s episode. The guest stars are better (though Tena is a bit too arch for my tastes) and it’s cool seeing elements of the New Republic in play. There are also some pretty fun cameos, such as Dave Filoni himself as well as Anakin Skywalker voice actor Matt Lanter, if that floats your boat.

We only have two of these left to go, and even if we do pick up the Baby Yoda business, I feel safe assuming they will still be rather smaller scale affairs. This just isn’t a show focused on a larger narrative. That’s fine; I’m having a good time with it anyway. A brief reminder: next week’s episode will arrive on Wednesday, not Friday like normal. Then one more, and we’re done with The Mandalorian for a while. Will the finale tie into The Rise of Skywalker? Almost certainly.

What did you think of "The Prisoner"? Sound off in the comments below!