'The Mandalorian' Episode 7 Review: The Mandalorian gets the band back together as the show prepares for the end
There are some episodes that retroactively make the episodes before them even better than they originally were. This episode of 'The Mandalorian' has the opposite effect.
It makes the preceding filler episodes feel even more frustrating, as they were keeping the show from what feels like its true potential. The latest episode of 'The Mandalorian' is parsecs above the rest and highlights just how much of the season's episodes can be skipped.
The episode begins with a message from Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), who informs the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) what happened after Mando's last stand on Navarro, where he escaped with the child (Baby Yoda to the rest of the Internet).
The client (Werner Herzog) and the Imperial Stormtroopers under his employ have occupied the town, disrupting Bounty Hunters Guild activity in the search for the Mandalorian, Greef shares.
Greef wants Mando to bring Baby Yoda back to lure the client to a meeting, then kill the client, ending the threat, after which Greef will clear Mando's name (uh, figuratively speaking), and everyone goes home happy.
Mando being Mando, he takes nothing Greef says at face value — he's going to need help. He gathers a crew of familiar faces — Kuiil (Nick Nolte), Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and even IG-11 (Taika Waititi), who has been reprogrammed by Kuiil even if Mando still doesn't trust him.
There is something epic about the gathering of this crew, especially for a character who has been alone for so long. The group doesn't all trust one another either, and tensions are high as they prepare for battle — later joined by Greef Karga and a few bounty hunters.
It is exciting and entertaining, and watching it all unfold feels like this is what the show ought to have been all along — and indeed, it is what the promotional material for the series seemed to promise it would be.
This episode is 'The Mandalorian' at its finest. For a 35-minute episode, it somehow packs in a lot of story into very little time with what seems like effortless ease — none of the pacing is rushed, every scene and every story is given its own time.
The mysteries we've been waiting on answers for all-season aren't yet revealed — but enough is revealed to provide some satisfaction that the questions surrounding Baby Yoda are at least being explored.
It makes you wonder whether the Mandalorian was supposed to be a live-action movie. You could watch Episodes 1, 3, 7 and presumably 8 and it would be a complete story in its own right.
Yes, there are episodes that flesh out Kuiil and Cara Dune's characters a little more, but nothing about the episodes that featured them reveals information that a person can't glean from just watching Episode 7 and assuming that the Mandalorian has met them before.
Even IG-11 could have been any random droid found by Kuiil, with no connection to the Mandalorian whatsoever.
The episode is bittersweet. It shows you the best of what 'The Mandalorian' can be, while all but admitting the episodes leading up to it were more or less a waste of time that would have been more forgivable if the show had released all of its episodes at once.
We're glad the show got here, but really, it took them long enough. The next episode of 'The Mandalorian' airs December 27, on Disney+.
