TL;DR – An episode that is mostly one long action scene, and it just works

The Mandalorian: The Tragedy Review –

As we have seen in shows recently, it isn’t easy to have long action scenes and pull them off. There is so much that goes into a critical action scene, and it is hard to do that successfully at a film level, let alone with the limited time you get to shoot with TV. Well, today’s episode showed that you could pull it off, with some creativity.

So to set the scene, in last week’s Chapter 13 we learned that The Child or Baby Yoda is called Grogu, but that to get him trained they need to go to the old Jedi Temple on Tython. Well, one hop, skip, and hyperspace jump later they arrive, however, it is soon apparent that they are not alone. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

This is the week that many of the plot threads of the season coalesced into one moment. For example, back in Chapter 9, we got to see the shadowed outline of a figure that we discover this week was Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison). There was the tracker put on the Razor Crest back in Chapter 12, which is very much the instigator for the titular tragedy in today’s episode. Also, the drive of the Imperial Remnant to get their hands on Baby Yoda which comes to pass this week.  

This week Baby Yoda connects with the seeing stone, meaning that Mando (Pedro Pascal) was stuck in place and could not do what he would have typically done in this situation and retreated. As far as plot conveniences go, this was one that felt a little forced and is nothing comes from him connecting with the stone in the future I think I will feel a little more down on it than I do at the moment. Whatever the case, it means that we get stuck in place as the stormtroopers come flooding in.

Many things go down in this episode, and many of them were stormtroopers ending in a heap on the ground. In the battle there were two very different styles at play, the first is the sniper Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) who fells wave after wave of the white cladding menace. This was good if for no other reason than it made up for how wasted she was in Season One. Then, on the other hand, we got the sheer melee brutality that was Boba Fett and his striking weapon. We had seen staffs used before in Star Wars, most notably in Rogue One, however, here we get some solid crunch.

Where this episode stands out is in its position of pushing everyone towards the season finale that is rushing towards us. With Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) capturing Baby Yoda, it is the push Mando needs to find allies old and new to fight to get him back. The destruction of the Razor Crest, of course, hampers Mando, something I don’t think I have felt as strong as since maybe the USS Defiant got smashed to pieces in Deep Space Nine. This does feel a little similar to the arc of Season One, but we’ll see.

In the end, do we recommend The Tragedy? Well, on the one hand, the title was clearly worded to make the memes of Darth Plagueis the Wise flow through the internet again. But this aside, I think I would recommend it for the action alone because Robert Rodriguez really knows his stuff here.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen The Mandalorian yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Mandalorian
Directed by – Robert Rodriguez
Written by – Jon Favreau
Created by – Jon Favreau
Based On – Star Wars by George Lucas
Production/Distribution Companies – Lucasfilm, Golem Creations & Disney+
Starring – Pedro Pascal with Gina Carano, Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Gabriel Ebert, Katy O’Brian & Giancarlo Esposito