Ever since the start of Disney+, ‘The Mandalorian’ has increasingly gotten a lot more attention and love from fans as the plot continues to thicken and of course Baby Yoda. 

SEASON 1 RECAP 

After completing a bounty for Guild leader Greef Karga (played by Carl Weathers), a Mandalorian bounty hunter (played by Pedro Pascal) accepts an under-the-table commission on the outpost world of Nevarro from an enigmatic client with connections to the former Galactic Empire. The client directs the Mandalorian to find an unnamed fifty-year-old target who the client’s colleague Dr. Pershing (played by Omid Abtahi) insists he be brought back alive. The Mandalorian receives a single bar of beskar steel, sacred to his people, as a down payment. He takes the steel to a covert Mandalorian enclave where an armorer uses it to make him a pauldron. The Mandalorian travels to the planet of the target’s last reported location, where vapor farmer Kuiil (played by Nick Nolte) is tired of the constant bounty hunting activity in his area and hopes the Mandalorian can end it. Kuill directs the Mandalorian to a heavily defended encampment where he reluctantly works with bounty hunting droid IG-11 to clear the camp and find the quarry, a child. IG-11 attempts to kill the infant per its bounty orders. The Mandalorian shoots and destroys the droid, taking the child alive. The Mandalorian returns to his ship with the child to find it being stripped for parts by Jawas. He attacks them but they escape in their Sandcrawler. The next day, Kuiil helps the Mandalorian locate the Jawas and negotiate for the return of his ship’s components. The Mandalorian agrees to retrieve the egg of a rhinoceros-like Mudhorn in exchange for the stolen parts. He and the child find the Mudhorn’s cave, but the beast attacks him and damages his armor.  

After a prolonged battle, the Mudhorn is about to kill the Mandalorian when the child uses the Force to levitate the beast, allowing the surprised Mandalorian to stab and kill it. He collects the egg and takes it to the Jawas, who crack it open and eat its yellow insides. With his ship’s components returned to him, the Mandalorian works with Kuiil to repair the ship. The Mandalorian then leaves the planet with the child. 

The Mandalorian delivers the child to the client on Nevarro and collects the bounty, 20 bars of beskar steel. Uncharacteristically, the Mandalorian asks about the client’s plans for the child and is told that they are not his concern. Returning to the Mandalorian enclave, the armorer replaces and upgrades the Mandalorians damaged armor and weapons using most of the beskar steel. The Mandalorian accepts a new job from Karga and prepares to depart. Feeling guilty for abandoning the child, he returns to the client’s base and kills the stormtroopers guarding it. He rescues the child from Dr. Pershing’s laboratory, where it was being experimented on, but chooses not to kill the doctor. On the way back to his ship, the Mandalorian is ambushed by Karga and other bounty hunters who demand that he hand over the child. He refuses and a firefight begins. Outnumbered and cornered, the Mandalorian is saved when other Mandalorians arrive from the enclave, attacking the bounty hunters and allowing him to get to his ship and escape with the child. 

Arriving on the sparsely populated forest planet Sorgan, the Mandalorian encounters ex-Rebel Alliance shock trooper-turned-mercenary Cara Dune (played by Gina Carano). Dune is in hiding and asks the Mandalorian to leave to not draw attention to the planet. He prepares to leave but is approached by desperate fishermen who offer to hire him. They want him to drive off a band of Klatoonian raiders that have been attacking their village. He accepts the job in exchange for lodging and uses their credits to enlist Dune’s help. They are housed by Omera (played by Julia Jones), a widowed mother, and the Mandalorian confides in her that no one has seen him without his helmet since his tribe took him in as an orphaned child. The Mandalorian and Dune help the villagers drive the raiders away and destroy an old Imperial AT-ST the raiders were using. With peace restored, the Mandalorian plans to leave the child in the village, but a Guild bounty hunter finds them and is killed by Dune. Realizing the child is not safe in the village, the Mandalorian departs with the child. 

The Mandalorian defeats a pursuing bounty hunter in a dogfight. He lands his damaged ship at a repair dock run by mechanic Peli Motto in Mos Eisley on Tatooine. He seeks work in a cantina to pay for the repairs, meeting aspiring bounty hunter Toro Calican, who is tracking elite mercenary and assassin Fennec Shand. Calican needs to catch Shand to join the Guild, and the Mandalorian agrees to help in exchange for the bounty reward. They capture Shand in the desert, but she destroys one of their speeder bikes. While the Mandalorian retrieves a dewback for transportation, Shand tells Calican that the Mandalorian betrayed the Guild by stealing the child, making the bounty on him and the child worth more than hers. Shand offers to help Calican capture the Mandalorian if he sets her free, but he shoots her instead and rides the remaining speeder bike to the repair dock, taking Motto and the Child hostage. The Mandalorian arrives, disorients Calican with a flare, and kills him. He uses Calican’s money to pay Motto for the repairs and leaves Tatooine. 

The Mandalorian contacts his former partner Ran Malk for work and is offered a place in a five-man job. He is joined by ex-Imperial sharpshooter Mayfeld, Devaronian strongman Burg, droid pilot Q9-0, and Twi’lek knife-expert Xi’an for a mission to rescue Xi’an’s brother Qin, a prisoner of the New Republic. The team infiltrate the prison ship, fight through security droids, and kill the ship’s security chief though not before he triggers a security beacon. The crew rescues Qin but double-crosses the Mandalorian. Q9-0 finds a message from Karga to the Mandalorian discussing the child and finds the child in the Mandalorian’s ship. Meanwhile, the Mandalorian escapes, defeats each crew member, and captures Qin. The Mandalorian leaves Mayfeld, Burg, and Xi’an locked in cells on the prison transport before delivering Qin to Ran. He departs with his payment while Ran immediately launches a fighter to kill the Mandalorian but discovers the New Republic beacon on Qin. A trio of New Republic X-wing fighters arrives and attacks Ran’s station. 

The Mandalorian receives a message from Karga, whose town on Nevarro has been overrun by the client’s troops. Karga proposes that the Mandalorian use the child as bait to kill the client and free the town. In return, Karga would stop his guild from hunting the Mandalorian and the child. Sensing a trap, the Mandalorian recruits Dune and Kuiil, with Kuiil bringing along a rebuilt and reprogrammed IG-11 to protect the child. They meet Karga and his associates but are attacked by Mynocks. Karga is injured and the child uses the Force to heal him. In return, Karga murders his associates and confesses his original plan to shoot the Mandalorian and take the child to the client. Instead, Karga pretends that Dune has captured the Mandalorian while Kuiil returns the child to the ship. During the meeting, troops led by the client’s boss Moff Gideon (played by Giancarlo Esposito) open fire on the building and kill the client, trapping the Mandalorian, Karga, and Dune inside. Gideon arrives, demanding the child. Outside the town, two scout troopers kill Kuiil and take the child. 

SEASON 2 BREAKDOWN  

The Mandalorian has been tasked with returning his charge, a child, to its people, the Jedi. He begins searching for other Mandalorians who he believes can help him find the Jedi and is directed to a rumored Mandalorian operating out of the Tatooine town Mos Pelgo. There he learns that there is no Mandalorian in Mos Pelgo, but is confronted by marshal Cobb Vanth (played by Timothy Olyphant) who wears Mandalorian armor. Vanth explains that he freed his town from the control of the Mining Collective using this armor, which he bought from Jawas in the desert. The town is now frequently attacked by a krayt dragon. Vanth agrees to give the Mandalorian armor back to its people in exchange for help killing the krayt dragon. The Mandalorian arranges an agreement between the villagers of Mos Pelgo and a local clan of Tusken Raiders to work together to kill the krayt dragon in exchange for peace between the groups. They lure out the krayt dragon, which is killed by the Mandalorian. He leaves with Vanth’s armor, watched by a scarred Boba Fett. 

The Mandalorian agrees to take a Frog Lady and her eggs from Tatooine to the estuary moon Trask, where her husband will fertilize the eggs, in exchange for information on other Mandalorians. Due to the eggs’ fragility, they must travel at slow “sub-light” speeds. On their journey, they are confronted by X-wing fighters who force the Mandalorian to a nearby icy planet because he is wanted by the New Republic for his role in a prison break; he crash-lands on the planet. While the Mandalorian fixes the ship, the child stumbles upon numerous eggs inside an ice cave which hatch to reveal a swarm of spider-like creatures. The Mandalorian, child, and passenger are trapped in the Razor Crest, the Mandalorian’s ship, until the X-wing pilots find them and kill the creatures. They explain that because the Mandalorian helped apprehend his accomplices from the prison break, they will drop the arrest warrant and leave him with a warning. After the Mandalorian finishes the repairs, the tattered Razor Crest takes off and resumes its journey to Trask. 

At Trask, the Frog Lady reunites with her husband and they direct the Mandalorian to a local inn where he can find information on other Mandalorians. A fisherman offers to take the Mandalorian to the others, but onboard the fishing ship he is ambushed by fishermen who want to sell his armor. The Mandalorian and the child are rescued by three Mandalorians, led by Bo-Katan Kryze (played by Katee Sackhoff). She enlists his help in seizing weapons from an Imperial freighter in exchange for information on the Jedi. After boarding the freighter, Bo-Katan reveals that their main objective is to capture the ship along with the weapons for their war effort to reconquer Mandalore. The Imperial captain is instructed by Moff Gideon to crash the ship, but his efforts are stopped by Bo-Katan who questions the captain about the Darksaber. He commits suicide. Bo-Katan directs the Mandalorian to meet the Jedi Ahsoka Tano in the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus. With the Razor Crest partially repaired, the Mandalorian and the child continue their journey. 

The Razor Crest requires further repairs before it can reach Corvus, so the Mandalorian and the child take a detour to Nevarro where they are reunited with their allies Cara Dune and Greef Karga. While the Razor Crest is being repaired, the Mandalorian is shown how much things have improved on Nevarro since he was last there, under the stewardship of Karga as magistrate and Dune as marshal. The last challenge that they are facing is a remaining Imperial base on the planet, and the Mandalorian agrees to help them destroy it. They discover that the base is being used as a laboratory by Dr. Pershing to conduct experiments with the child’s blood, which has a high M-count. They destroy the base and escape pursued by stormtroopers on speeder bikes and TIE fighters. Dune and Karga manage to stop the speeder bikes while the Mandalorian destroy the TIE fighters with the repaired Razor Crest. The Mandalorian and the child leave for Corvus, unaware that an Imperial spy has planted a tracker on the Razor Crest for Moff Gideon. 

The Mandalorian and the child arrive at the city of Calodan on the planet Corvus to find the population living in fear of the city’s magistrate, Morgan Elsbeth (played by Diana Lee Inosanto), and her guards, including a hired mercenary named Lang (played by Michael Biehn). Elsbeth offers to give the Mandalorian a spear of beskar steel in exchange for killing Ahsoka. The Mandalorian finds Ahsoka outside the town and presents the child to her. Using the Force, Ahsoka (played by Rosario Dawson) determines that the child’s name is Grogu, and that he had begun training as a Jedi before the rise of the Empire. She agrees to continue his training if the Mandalorian helps defeat Elsbeth. They overpower the guards, free the citizens, and the Mandalorian kills Lang. Ahsoka confronts Elsbeth, and demands to know the whereabouts of her master, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Afterwards, Ahsoka refuses to train Grogu due to his close attachment to the Mandalorian. Instead, she directs them to an ancient temple on the planet Tython where Grogu can use the Force to find other Jedi and decide his own fate. She also gives the spear to the Mandalorian. 

The Mandalorian takes Grogu to the ancient temple on Tython, and places him on the seeing stone at its center. Grogu meditates and is surrounded by a protective energy field. Boba Fett (played by Temuera Morrison) soon arrives with the mercenary Fennec Shand (played by Ming-Na Wen), who the Mandalorian had previously left for dead on Tatooine. Fett explains that the armor worn by Cobb Vanth belongs to him, as his father Jango was a Mandalorian foundling. The Mandalorian agrees to return the armor in exchange for the safety of Grogu, just as Moff Gideon arrives and deploys stormtroopers. Fett, Fennec, and the Mandalorian repel the stormtroopers’ attack, during which time Grogu finishes meditating and the energy field around him disappears. Gideon destroys the Razor Crest from orbit before deploying his droid Dark Troopers, who succeed in capturing Grogu. To honor their deal, Fett and Fennec promise to help the Mandalorian get Grogu back. They travel in Fett’s ship Slave I to Nevarro, and ask for Dune’s help in breaking criminal Migs Mayfeld out of New Republic prison. 

Dune uses her new credentials as a Marshal of the New Republic to transfer Mayfeld, an ex-Imperial, from prison to her custody. He agrees to help locate Moff Gideon’s cruiser, but needs access to an internal terminal. He suggests a secret Imperial mining hub on Morak. There, Mayfeld and the Mandalorian hijack a transport carrying the explosive mineral rhydonium, and they manage to reach the mining facility despite attacks from local pirates. They get Gideon’s coordinates from the terminal, but the Mandalorian is forced to remove his helmet in front of others for the first time since he took his Mandalorian oath. The pair are confronted by Mayfeld’s old Imperial commanding officer, whom Mayfeld kills when he gloats about atrocities committed by the Empire in Operation Cinder. Mayfeld and the Mandalorian escape with the help of Fennec, Dune, and Fett. Dune decides to let Mayfeld go. The Mandalorian sends Gideon a transmission warning that he is coming for Grogu, paraphrasing a similar speech that Gideon had previously given. 

The Mandalorian and Dune board an Imperial shuttle and capture Dr. Pershing. They enlist the help of Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves; in return Bo-Katan gets Gideon’s cruiser and the Darksaber, and the Mandalorian considers helping them to liberate Mandalore. They use the shuttle to get close enough to crash land on Gideon’s cruiser, with Fett pretending to attack them in Slave I. Bo-Katan, Koska, Fennec, and Dune fight through stormtroopers to the cruiser’s bridge. Meanwhile, the Mandalorian finds the Dark Trooper, barely defeats one of them with the beskar spear, and ejects the rest into space. He fights Gideon with the spear and overpowers the Moff, making him the new rightful owner of the Darksaber. The Dark Troopers fly back onto the ship but are all destroyed by Luke Skywalker (played by Max Lloyd-Jones; voiced by Mark Hamill), a Jedi that Grogu contacted on Tython. The Mandalorian gives Grogu permission to go with Skywalker and R2-D2 to complete his training. Later, Fett and Fennec travel to Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine where Fett kills Bib Fortuna and claims the throne.
 

CROSSOVERS AND MORE 

One thing that Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau incorporated into the series was crossovers which answered some questions about the Star Wars universe, but also raised some. The series has introduced characters that we would not have imagined such as Boba Fett (who was rumored to have been dead in the films), as well as Ahsoka Tano from the animated series ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ and ‘Star Wars Rebels’. Bringing in an animated character who had never received a live-action adaptation was a real shock, but somehow the creators managed to make these crossovers and character introductions as cohesive and in line with the plot of both ‘The Mandalorian’ and the Star Wars Fandom. 

Disney said on Twitter that over the next ten years, that ten series for Star Wars will be released directly on Disney+. This does not include the three movies that we are going to be getting. The first couple of shows that they announced were: 

• The Rangers of the New Republic 
• Ahsoka 
• A Droid Story 

• Lando 
• Rouge Squadron 
• Visions 
• Andor 
• The Acolyte 

• The Bad Batch 
• Obi-Wan Kenobi 

‘Rangers of the New Republic’ (which will be set as a Cara Dune and Bo Katan spin-off series) and ‘Ahsoka’ (which will take place around the Mandalorian) will exclusively be on Disney+. 

OVERALL THOUGHTS 

I personally think that ‘The Mandalorian’ is a great Star Wars show and considers both the plot and the time period in which certain events take place. It is also good to see how much dedication and hard work the producers and directors put into this, as well as the cast. From characters, to how they should respond, and their backstory carries so much and creates a lot of depth throughout the show. May the Force be with you all! 

RATING: 4.8/5