The Mandalorian: Season 2, Episode 4 'The Siege' Recap and Review
A perfect encapsulation of everything that makes Star Wars great
Last week I called that episode the true beginning of Season 2, well with that the floodgates have been opened for series to truly flex it’s muscles. This episode, titled ‘The Siege’, focuses on what makes the series great; gun slinging action, deep use of Star Wars lore, and abusive amounts of adorable moments with the Child. Directed by acting legend and the series’ very own Greef Karga, Carl Weathers, this episode was the first in the season to truly hit all the right highs without a single low point and makes me ask why doesn’t Carl Weathers direct more?
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
We begin aboard the ailing Razor Crest with our favorite duo as Din tries to give the Child a lesson in pre-Empire Gunship maintenance, but after realizing the futility of attempting repairs while the Child is at maximum cuteness Din decides help is needed. They return to planet Nevarro, where it all began. Upon landing, he is greeted by his former handler, Greef Karga, played by Carl Weathers, and Nevarro’s newest Marshal, Cara Dune played by Gina Carano. As with every place Din visits, there is work to be done. This time it’s ridding themselves of the last Empire Base on Nevarro. After dropping the Child off at school to torment anyone who has a snack he desires, the group of Din, Greef, and Kara enlist a familiar face to aide them, the first bounty we ever see the Mandalorian complete, Mythrol played by SNL alum Horatio Sanz. Together, the group easily infiltrates the base and dispatch a few Stormtroopers before reaching the base’s secret purpose. They discover an eerie research facility hidden in the base. They discover a message from the head researcher to Ginacarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon, it’s revealed that they were using the blood of the Child to conduct experiments on living beings. This also confirms Moff Gideon to be alive which is news to Din. They set out and condemn the base to death by lava before Din sets off on his own to do… Mandalorian things, which leaves us to follow Greef, Cara, and the surprisingly useful Mythrol as they attempt to escape. Things quickly escalate for the three, from Stormtroopers with blasters to Stormtroopers on bikes then reaching crescendo with Stormtroopers in Tie Fighters. Just as things start to look bleak for Greef, Cara, and Mythrol, the newly-repaired Razor Crest screams over the horizon and heroically destroys the Tie Fighter threat. With a freshly chromed Razor Crest, Din and the Child continue on their journey to meet the mysterious Jedi, Ahsoka Tano. In the closing moments, we join Moff Gideon on his Starship. Here, we learn that a spy for the Empire has placed a tracker on the Razor Crest during repairs. We also see the army Moff Gideon is planning to use against the Mandalorian, Dark Troopers.
As a Star Wars fan, one aspect of the series that I appreciate is it’s effort to not only solidify the continuity between the movies and animated series but to also pull from wealth of content from the Expanded Universe now known as Star Wars Legends. The Bounty Hunters Guild, Vibroblades, and Blurrgs all have been featured in the series and all were conceived in the Star Wars Legends. This episode gives us the Dark Troopers which were first introduced way back in 1995 in the videogame Star Wars: Dark Forces. If you haven’t played the game, you may not understand how much of a threat these troopers are. Depending on the iteration, these guys are Cyborg Clone troopers who may or may not wield the power of the force. The existence of the Dark Troopers may explain the use of the Child’s blood. If Moff Gideon could produce some force-sensitive troops it could aid in the resurgence of the Empire. Judging by the experiments using the Child’s blood pointing to them trying to transfer force-sensitivity into someone using blood with a high Midiclorian count, or ‘M-count,’ I’d say that was in the cards but many more applications for the research including the creation of a Snoke or two.
The end of the episode paints a beautiful picture of what is headed our way this season. For starters, Din is taking a force-sensitive Child to a secretive Jedi by the name of Ahsoka Tano, following Din is Moff Gideon with a platoon of Dark Troopers, and since Moff Gideon is also carrying the mythic Darksaber, he is being pursued by a group of Mandalorians led by the Heiress of Mandalore, Bo-Katan Kryze. Everything is leading to an epic meeting of all parties involved and I personally am salivating at the thought.
As I search for an adjective to describe this episode I find myself struggling to pick just one. Carl Weathers has given us an episode that was thrilling, funny, heartwarming, eerie, and of course, adorable. But as I look at all those, it makes me realize that I was describing Star Wars as a whole. There is a feeling people get when they reminisce about the franchise that embodies the core of what is trying to be achieved with The Mandalorian. This episode achieves all of that, this episode is Star Wars.