Last episode, The Mandalorian was given a clue by Bo-Katan to go to “the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus.” This episode is written and directed by Dave Filoni because of course, he is closely connected to a character he created. The first episode he has done so without Favreau’s script. We open to a city with industrial stacks spewing smoke. There is an alarm gong ringing and soldiers running out with blaster rifles. They are aliens and wear breath masks, but we never get to see their faces. They scramble to the battlements where there is blasterfire in the forest of barren trees, the desolate landscape is a very ecological message. Also, fighting is someone with twin white lightsaber blades! We see under her hood that it is Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson)! She is an incredible genre actress, Dawson played Nevada in Zombieland: Double Tap (2019). The character was introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), she was an apprentice to Anakin Skywalker, and she was voiced by Ashley Eckstein. We last saw Ahsoka, chronologically, in the Star Wars: Rebels episode, “Family Reunion - and Farewell” (2018), co-directed and co-written by Dave Filoni. The last time we saw Ahsoka was in the Clone Wars episode, “Victory and Death”, written by Filoni, which was out on May 4th.
The battle with Ahsoka is good, but there isn’t context in what is happening. Jedi is usually more subtle, breaking out the lightsabers are usually last resort so what is the threat that she couldn’t get past the guards? A gunfighter, Lang (Michael Biehn) watches from the battlement and he is joined by a woman magistrate (Diana Lee Inosanto). It is absolutely a treasure to have Biehn in the SW universe. He is well known as Corporal Hicks in Aliens (1986) and thankfully left out of the Avatar movies to be here! Inosanto is known as a stunt person, she starred in, directed, and wrote the action movie The Sensei (2008). Lang as a gunfighter makes me think of another one, Gallandro, in Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (1980). The Magistrate dares her to reveal herself. Ahsoka walks out with her lightsabers. The Magistrate says that she won’t give her some form of knowledge. She has a citizen taken to the edge of the battlement by the guards. Ahsoka gives the Magistrate one day to surrender. The Razorcrest appears from hyperspace. The Mandalorian is piloting the ship to Corvus, which looks like cloudy planet, and says to Baby Yoda he found a beacon. He has to remind Baby Yoda to get in his seat for the landing. At his seat, Baby Yoda reaches out with the Force to the ball socket on his favorite switch. The Razorcrest flies over Calodan with its guards standing watch. There are some tall beasties eating tree branches when the Razorcrest has landed. Mando takes the ball socket and Baby Yoda to the city.
At the city walls, the leader asks The Mandalorian if he is a “hunter”, bounty hunter, and still with the Guild. Mando tells him “last I checked” and the gate is opened. Baby Yoda is hidden in a pouch underneath his cloak. He tries to talk to citizen (Wing Tao Chao), but is taken to the Magistrate by some guards. Prisoners are locked in poles along the path to the Magistrate. The gates open to what looks like a Japanese garden with some ponds around it. The Magistrate sprinkles red powder to the water. She mentions to The Mandalorian that a Jedi is after her. He stresses that his price is high. The Magistrate is given a metal spear by a droid. She hands it to him and he realizes it is made of Beskar steel. Lang takes Mando outside of the city gates. He sees Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian’s pouch and he says it’s for luck. Mando reaches the coordinates in the blasted forest. He carries his rifle and is doing a thermal scan. The Mandalorian uses his macrobinocular scope to see the beasties in the distance. He is suddenly struck by Ahsoka Tano’s lightsabers which he deflects with his gauntlets. She flips away with Mando’s flamethrower igniting her cloak. He catches her with his grappling rope, but she leaps up over a tree branch to bring him up on the other side. She notices Baby Yoda. Her clothing now has the tunic with short skirt, but she has added trousers and dark boots. Also her montral, the horns, her head tails do not look as large as in Clone Wars and Rebels.
Mando paces as Ahsoka sits quietly with Baby Yoda under the moon. She sets Baby Yoda on a rock next to Mando and explains that they can communicate through thoughts. Also, she tells him The Child’s name! Won’t spoil it, you have to see the episode! I will say the name of the child in Lone Wolf and Cub is Daigorō. Also, the name sounds vaguely like the Saiyan in the Dragon Ball anime. Ahsoka continues that he was raised on Coruscant at the Jedi Temple. So Baby Yoda was at the Jedi Temple at the time when Yoda was in the Jedi Council! We of course did not see The Child in the Clone Wars. He was taken from the temple at the end of the Clone Wars by an unknown person and hidden. The Mandalorian’s task is to take Baby Yoda to his people, but the Jedi are gone, and Ahsoka is no Jedi. She left the order one year before the Emperor took power and never became a Jedi Knight. This was in the Clone Wars episode, “The Wrong Jedi” (2013). In the morning, Ahsoka tests the Child for his ability in the Force. Mando sets Baby Yoda on a rock and Ahsoka sends a pebble out to him with The Force. She asks for him to return the stone, but he drops it. Ahsoka detects the fear in Baby Yoda and says he has hidden his powers to survive. She realizes that she has not earned the trust of The Child.
Ahsoka has Mando hold up the stone and use Baby Yoda’s name to compel him to move the stone. He takes out the ball socket and Baby Yoda yanks it over to him with the Force! Ahsoka knows that Baby Yoda’s attachment to Mando makes it dangerous for her to train him. She starts to leave for the city when The Mandalorian says the Magistrate sent him to kill her. He offers to help in excahnge for training Baby Yoda. He says there is a small army, two assassin droids, and a gunfighter, Lang, whom he says is ex-military, Imperial. It looks like an Old West shootout. Ahsoka explains that the Magistrate is Morgan Elspeth, her people were killed in the Clone Wars, and she turned to help build the Imperial Starfleet. Ahsoka says they have to free the three prisoners he saw before the inner gate. He says, “they’ll never see it coming.”! Honestly, I would not mind if Ahsoka does not return later in The Mandalorian, if she does great, but a single appearance would make her unique. This chapter offers some great battles, back story to Baby Yoda, and surprises, but it is a missing a tight story like the other episodes.
Four Bars of Beskar Steel out of Five!
#TheMandlorian, #TheJedi, #RosarioDawson, #MichaelBiehn, #DianaLeeInosanto
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