The episode of “Guns For Hire” began with Quarren and the re-introduction of Axe Woves and Koska Reeves. This mirrored director Bryce Dallas Howard’s episode 11, “The Heiress.” Din Djarin was traveling with Bo-Katan Kryze to find her fleet on Plazir-15. This also debuted The Duchess and Captain Bombadier. The Head of Security, Helgait sent them to the lower levels to find the list of rogue droids from the Ugnaughts! A droid problem in the deep part of a city? An Empire Strikes Back (1980) call back! Spoilers ahead! Bo-Katan and Mando reach the basement level with the high-tech workers like Moss and Roy from The IT Crowd. This workroom is seriously industrial with sparks falling out of an 80’s metal band. Bo-Katan introduces herself, but the Ugnaughts ignore her, continuing to solder Super Battle Droids, and other work. She continues saying they will help with their “droid problem” and then gives up. Din Djarin introduces himself as “friend of Ugnaught Kuiil”, he forcefully asks them for help, and ends with of course, “I have spoken”!
The Ugnaughts stop work and look at him. At a table, all of the Ugnaughts sit with the two Mandalorians. Their leader is Saifier (Dale Dickey) and his performance artist is Misty Rosas who also the artist for Kuiil! She is also a singer so I would really like her singing on the new DJ Rex playlist and the song to show up in an episode! He says there is no malfunctions with the droids they built. Din tries to save the conversation saying the Ugnaught work on droids is legendary. The others nod. He says like them they have a task and need their help. Saifier hands over a data pad with the rogue droids. They take the hyperloop pod to the city. Din explains he had “spent time” with Ugnaughts, one in particular, Kuiil from season one! He says Bo-Katan insulted them saying their work was malfunctioning. I do like the investigation like a twist on Obi-Wan tracking down Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones (2002). Then, he says they predicted a malfunction with a droid at the loading docks.
At the dock, super battle droids march, this would be terrifying during the Clone Wars. The B-1 Series Droid Foreman (battle droid voice, Matthew Wood), stops them, Bo-Katan tells him, they were sent by The Duchess to find the rogue droids. Din starts to wave his hand in front of the droids walking out carrying cargo. The droid foreman warns Mando. Then, Din starts kicking the droids! One stumbles and then punches The Mandalorian sending him back! The droid runs and Bo-Katan tries to blast it, before starting the chase! Din has to leap over containers spilled by the droid, but Bo-Katan has her jetpack take her over in a mini-burst. The chase leads into a crowded city street. This causes screams from citizens. The battle droid hurls a container dodged by Din and Bo-Katan does a spinning jet pack boosted twist! The super battle droid goes into an alley and then leaps on a landspeeder crushing it. The droid next hurls a post that causes an explosion. It passes by a speeder bike store, Gray Scooters?, like the ones ridden by the gang in The Book of Boba Fett, but all white models. I still say they rode swoop bikes, more snub-nosed than the longer speeders, the term was in the Han Solo Legends novels by Brian Daley.
They split up, Din makes his way through stores, and then crashes through a window to tackle the Super Battle Droid. He blasts it, but when it falls, we also see on the other side, Bo-Katan with her blasters! Tiny constable droids float around them projecting yellow crime scene beams. Bo-Katan studies the droid and takes out a spark pad. She reads from it “The Resistor” which Din says could be a droid bar. A droid bar? There was a droid spa in Clone Wars, “Evil Plans” (2010). Bo-Katan wants to enter the bar her way. Through an alley, they enter The Resistor, and we see a multitude of droids like the group in the Jawa Sandcrawler. Including a few RX-series pilot droids! The appearance of the Mandalorians make them all pause. So this is like two scenes, Sandcrawler and cantina, combined from Star Wars (1977), love it! They are greeted by the Bartender Droid (Seth Gabel). Din throws the spark pad on the bar. He threatens to rip out the droid’s memory circuit with a device. A protocol droid tries to walk away until stopped by Mando. Bo-Katan takes him aside and the bartender droid interrupts that he wants the situation resolved. He fears that the droids will be replaced by humans! This is the sci fi reverse of the current A.I. situation, topical!
The bartender droid says that they have all been reprogrammed, spared by Plazir-15, instead of scrapped by the New Republic. The droid bartender says he just wants to help them which gets a droid cheer, first time we’ve heard it?, from all of the bar patrons. In a side room, the bartender says that droids are served Nepenthe, this is the name of the “drug of forgetfulness” in Greek mythology. The bartender explains it is a droid lubricant that uses “refreshing” particles. They are like an update from the mainframe. He quickly selects and scans through a box of spark pads and detemines that the rogue droids all took the same Nepenthe. A Lab Tech (Jen Kobert) pulls out the super battle droid like a body on a morgue slab. It is being examined by the lab tech and the duo. A lab droid like a white version of the interrogator droid withdraws fluid from the super battle droid. The lab tech takes the fluid in a vial to be analyzed for particles. Suddenly, the lab droid sends out lasers that cut the lab tech’s shoulder! It begins cutting apart the lab! Din Djarin slices it in half with the Darksaber!
Now back to analyzing the fluid, the lab droid didn’t use its lasers to destroy the evidence, and finds that the particles are nano-droids. We know about nano tech. If there are nano-droids, only one droid needs to infected before it spreads to all systems and droids like a Butlerian Jihad in Dune. Din spots something and Bo-Katan finds that it is writing. The lab tech finds that it is a chain code, she finds out that it was built by the Techno Union, and it arrived by security leading to one individual! At the security office, Commissioner Helgait is working, he is told abou thte evidence with the Nepenthe and nano-droids. He leaps up and activates a large red button that will turn the droids into battle droids! Helgait says he’s survived the Republic and the Empire. He admires Count Dooku, but then hit by Bo-Katan’s electroshock dart and falls! Captain Bombadier has a giant Pill Bug fold into a “ball” to be used by The Duchess in a game. She throws it through holographic hoops aided by Grogu using the Force! The rest of the party goers cheer for her. Din and Bo-Katan bring in Commissioner Helgait. The Duchess is shocked. He doesn’t like the changes made by Captain Bombadier. The Duchess is disappointed in Helgait who served her family, but supports her husband. She exiles him to the moon of Paraqaat. Constable droids take him away.
The Duchess gives them both permission to speak with the Mandalorian privateers and also the Key to Plazir. For Grogu, The Duchess knights him in the Ancient Order of Independent Regencies, awesome! She waves goodbye to Grogu and he waves back, I don’t think this is the last we see of them. On the way to the landing field, Bo-Katan admits that she doesn’t have a plan. Crossing a field, the trio reach the line of Gauntlet fighters with the Class 546 Cruiser behind them. Behind Bo-Katan, Din Djarin, and Grogu is the Plazir-15 moon, Paraquaat? Axe Woves is there with Koska Reeves and other Mandalorians. Bo-Katan says she is there for her fleet. Axe says he is in command of it. She challenges him as a warrior. He fires a wrist rocket, but Bo-Katan leaps up with her jet pack and strikes him with both boots! They get up and he wields a vibro knife. She unsheathes a vibro blade from her gauntlet. It’s back and forth punches between them. Axe leaps at Bo-Katan using an assist from his jetpack he slams her into the side of a Gauntlet figher. He fires a wrist rocket that the others dodge. She in turn uses a jet pack assist to thrown Axe down and then has her vibroblade to his throat asking him to yield.
Instead, he grabs hold of her arms and does a short flight with his jetpack to the wing of a Gauntlet. Bo-Katan is kicked back, but wraps Axe in a fibrocord whip to slam him down! He uses the flamethrower from his gauntlet, but she blocks it with her personal combat shield. Again, Bo-Katan has Axe down with her viboblade to him. He says that she will never be a leader by not taking the Darksaber from Din. Bo-Katan stands and says that the strength of Mandalorians is being together. Axe says that the “religious zealot” doesn’t have any Mandalorian blood, but Bo-Katan declares he is Mandalorian. Din Djarin holds the Darksaber to give to Bo-Katan. He explains that he was defeated and lost the Darksaber to the cyborg in “The Mines of Mandalore.” Bo-Katan rescued him and defeated the cyborg so he poses the question that she had earned the Darksaber in battle. I had thought this at the time especially that she easily used in combat, but this Mando took back the Darksaber. Axe Woves agrees and there are head nods from the other Mandalorians. Din hands the Darksaber to Bo-Katan and stands by her side. Bo-Katan Kryze activates the Darksaber blade, the true heiress to Mandalore! All of the Mandalorians united? I think we might be missing one on Tatooine and bring in Fennec Shand (and Cobb Vanth?) while you are it! A great The Mandalorian episode with twists on Star Wars, a mystery, and the question of Bo-Katan's destiny resolved!
Five Bars of Beskar Steel out of Five!
#TheMandalorian, #GunForHire, #PedroPascal, #KateeSackhoff, #Grogu, #Lizzo, #JackBlack, #ChristopherLloyd, #SimonKassianides, #MercedesVarnado, #JenKober, #DaleDickey, #SethGabel, #MatthewWood
No comments:
Post a Comment