The Mandalorian: Chapter 15- The Believer

" I never saw your face..."

The penultimare episode... and it's a superbly taut and brilliantly made action thriller in which our heroes brave all sorts of dangers order to find out the location of Grogu next season. Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are now confirmed members of Mando's gang alongside Cara Dune- and our old friend Mayfeld is sprung in order to get inside the Imperial base. It's a nicely rich mix of people with some excellent characterisation on display.

The opening scene, with its CGI-enhanced depiction of a New Republic prison, is amazing. So is Boba Fett's ship Slave-1 (friends of mine had the Kenner toy of this when I was a nipper), which appears rather a lot though the magic of CGI. There's some awesome action with some pirates. There are tense scenes with a total bastard of an Imprerial officer.

But the episode focuses around a fascinating conversation between Mando and Mayfeld in which the later points out that Mando is happy to bend the rules about removing his helmet when something he cares about is at stake- over the course of two seasons we've seen the grizzled, taciturn bounty hunter turn into a devoted father. We see him first bend then break this rule, a rule that means a lot to him. For such an undemonstrative man this shows us that Mando cares a lot for this kid.

And so we see at the end, as Mando sends a threatening message to Moff Gideon. This is simply superb telly.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6- The Prisoner

“A lady never tells...”

This is the third episode in a row which puts the plot to one side in favour of a story of the week. I’m sure we’re all getting rather impatient by now, but at least this episode is a cut above the previous two, and has Richard Ayoade as a rather arrogant droid and a rather complex double crossing heist plot which feels, again, like something out of a Western.

Our man Mando used to run away with a rather interesting gang, played here by a nice little variety of character actors. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Xian, a rather flirtatious Twi’lek (why do no other Twi’leks look quite like Bib Fortuna did, with two proper gnarly tentacles rather than straight pointy ones?), but you can tell from the start that there’s no honour amongst these thieves, which makes them very different from Mando. Things go entertainingly wrong throughout with some superb directing throughout, with this episode again being shot like a horror film.

Meanwhile the smarmy droid has his own agenda with baby Yoda, but it’s never a good idea to try and shoot a toddler who is strong in the ways of the Force. This is one tough childminding gig. Mando certainly has guts.

We get clever plot twists, flirting, X Wing fighters and a gripping story. Fine. But can we get back to the arc now, please?

The Mandalorian: Chapter 2- The Child

“I’m a Mandalorian. Weapons are part of my religion”

A short second episode follows the explosive first one and, well, if we’re talking pure plot, it’s entirely filler. But that’s not the point, of course; this is episodic telly, not cinema, and the advantage of that is that stories get a chance to be a bit picaresque, to breathe, to let the characters get a bit of development without rushing towards the resolution of the plot. One could almost say that good storytelling is like good sex. Ahem.

Anyway, this episode is essentially thirty-one minutes of the Mandalorian being delayed from leaving Tattoine  with his baby Yoda quarry because some Jawa have nicked his ship. That's it. But so much fascinating stuff happens, not least of which is that the first ten or so minutes are free as the camera lingers on Mandy and baby Yoda in what I, as a geek, have to refer to as Tenser's Floating Crib (did I think of that, Dave, or did you once use the phrase in passing?) as they walk for a bit and discover the theft of said ship as Mandy does a load of impressive Indiana Jones stuff trying manfully to besiege the Jawas' big tracked vehicle thingy. Through all of this, the camera shows little Yoda watching silently and thinking its little baby thoughts. Film critics speak of the male gaze; this episode has a lot of the baby Yoda gaze.

The only other character is Mandy's mate from last episode, played by Nick Nolte under a lot of makeup for someone so famous. The subtitles tell me that he's an Ugnaught, which is a cool detail, and the two part on friendly and honourable terms.

The main bit of coolness, though, is of course where baby Yoda shows the Force is strong with him by raising his cute little hand and levitating the rhino thing. This is several layers of cool. Two episodes in and I'm enjoying this very much.