Mythical wife and I just caught up with The Mandalorian’s second season, which is kind of miraculous in its own right, as we’re both on new parent schedules plus we don’t want to introduce our child to screens, so our general television consumption is probably a tenth of what most of our friends and family tend to watch. The fact that we’re only a week removed from the finale is a miracle, since there’s a litany of shows and movies that we’ve stated interest in wanting to watch but the realism is that it’ll be eons before we do, if we even remember to watch them in the first place.
However, a week removed wasn’t nearly enough time for the shitheads of the internet to spoil a ton of shit for us in advance of our opportunity to watch the show. Between all of the excitable fuckwits on social media who couldn’t shut the fuck up even if it there were guns held to their family’s heads, and now actual sci-fi/pop culture sites themselves just outright blow covers and spoilers under the guise that there’s some appropriate official statute of limitation when it comes to being allowed to talk about shit, it’s been impossible for mythical wife and myself to not get spoiled to varying capacities.
Mythical wife apparently got it worse than I did, because of her choice of people she connects with, but even a relative shut-in like me was still spoiled to some degree when someone posted a gif of X doing Y, revealing a pretty substantial moment of the show (was that so fucking difficult, no), so we agreed that before it could get any worse, we needed to buckle down and watch the show before I declared jihad on everyone I know for when they would inevitably spoil more shit for me.
Yes, it sounds like I’m making my problems the problems of others, but at the same time, do people really lack the common sense to just shut the fuck up about things for just a little while? Yes, the answer is always yes.
Regardless of quality of acting, plot, and other superlatives, one of the greatest things about The Mandalorian in general, is that they’re fairly quick and short episodes, and it’s a very easy show to stay on top of, provided the effort is put forth to actually start watching it.
And just like that, I’ve conveniently blathered on long enough to create a meaty post that hasn’t actually gotten to the point, and now I can comfortably tuck anything else that might be considered spoiler-ey behind a cut.
To get straight to the point, I loved The Mandalorian S2. Almost as much as I loved the first season. When the day is over, I think it’s easiest for me to describe the allure of the show is the fact that it’s a show that has heart, and clearly has something of a soul that makes every little thing that happens sort of matter. It’s not too complex, the plot is fairly linear, and even the episodes that might seem like filler, still serve some purpose(s) in either unfolding later plots, or introducing things that might come into play later.
Ultimately, the story is always about The Mandalorian and he whom I will still just refer to as Baby Yoda, and the show does a good job from ever deviating too far from the central plot of the whole show. I give a tremendous amount of credit to the directing of the show in general, because it’s incredible how much emotion can be derived from pregnant pauses or the angles in which a character in a helmet is shown on screen, and as was the case with season one, mythical wife and I were concerned that Baby Yoda were going to be exploited hardcore, like well, all of the second Star Wars trilogy, but they did an excellent job of not leaning too hard, and when he did show up, it was always a delight and not a nuisance.
One comparison that I noticed was that the show was run very reminiscently to how Netflix created their own little universe within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, when they launched Daredevil. Much like Daredevil, The Mandalorian had a standalone season, built a following, and then in the start of the second season, began introducing characters and concepts that have high potential to break off into their own series. By introducing X and integrating Y into the plots, there’s two shows right there that can be branched out into, and I’m going to guess that WW are going to get their own show at some point, and despite the mixed feelings about the appearance of Z, there’s probably some potential to run a project off that route too, although I really hope they don’t.
But just like how Netflix ran Daredevil is exactly how it felt to me that Didney+ ran The Mandalorian, and as a result, they’ve basically created a self-sustaining galaxy within the Star Wars universe, that hopefully remains as far, far away as possible from the movie properties any further, with a lot of spin-off potential, and hopefully some meaningful crossovers in the future.
Speaking of the characters of the season, another comparison I made was that the season felt a lot like a Final Fantasy game, or maybe even Mass Effect. Protagonist travels around with one mission, but needs to gather intel and resources. Protagonist encounters characters along the way who could be of great help to him and his mission, but not without aiding them with their own personal goals and objectives first. Protagonist helps side characters, earns respect, recruits allies, and then collectively set out for the final boss. It tickled me how familiarly predictable certain plots were, but no less satisfying and entertaining when they came to fruition.
And of course, I can’t talk about S2 of The Mandalorian without mentioning Sasha Banks (Mercedes Varnado), who was W. I’m already high on her as one of the best female wrestlers in the world as it is, but I always liked how she’s not just the pretty face and great wrestler, but also known to have some nerdy likes and fandoms, and I’d buy into narrative that she wanted in on The Mandalorian because she actually likes Star Wars, and not just to be one of the notable names that go through the revolving door of cameos throughout the series.
One of my biggest curiosities was if she was going to follow in the footsteps of others wrestlers who have done some acting, and bust out a signature move. Although I was totally expecting to see A METEORAAA, I had a real lol moment when she did a tornado DDT to Y. I fucking love the idea of Sasha Banks in Star Wars.
Man, it must be nice to be Jon Favreau. After basically creating the MCU, he doesn’t really need to work another day in his life, but now he’s got his fingers in the Star Wars pie, and seems to actually be doing a good job of managing creating content while not pissing off the tryhards too much, the guy is quickly achieving lord king status of bringing fandoms to life in tasteful and entertaining ways. Not bad for a guy I always thought was a B-actor, but appears to be one hell of an S+director.
But there we have it, The Mandalorian season 2. Fantastic through and through, left me feeling entertained, satisfied, and awaiting more, although I’m skeptical to know where they go from here, aside from the several branches they’ve clearly planted. But if they’re going to be anything like how Netflix did the Hell’s Kitchen Universe, then everything’s going to turn out just fine.
