The Mandalorian: Season 2, Episode 7 'The Believer' Recap and Review
A thrilling, well-rounded episode that highlights the depths that Mando is willing to sink for the Child
In the previous episode, I felt a tad confused. Not by the story but by the character's actions. The main players, including Mando, just didn’t feel like themselves which pulled me out of the story and caused the emotionally charged moments to fall short with me. In this week’s episode, ‘The Believer’, it is quite the contrary. Mando is acting out of desperation and his choices are weighted more as a result. His determination to find and rescue the Child is palpable throughout the episode. But Mando isn’t the only one to let his emotions bleed into his actions as this week we are treated to a very emotional and nuanced performance by Bill Burr as the returning Mayfeld.
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
The episode begins with Mayfeld as he serves out his sentence with hard labor. Without detail, Gina Carano’s Cara Dune has Mayfeld released into her custody. She takes him back to Slave I where he meets Boba Fett, Fennec, and is reunited with Din. They plan to use Mayfeld’s history as an Imperial to lead them to Moff Gideon and the Child. For him to retrieve the information he needs to access an Imperial terminal on the planet of Morak where there is a base mining a volatile and explosive substance. To infiltrate the base, they highjack a transport vehicle. Mando is forced to enter the base with Mayfeld, to do so, he dons Trooper armor and bends his helmet rule by switching to a Trooper helmet. Here we get a nice moment where we begin to understand Mayfeld and where his loyalty really lies. During the drive, they are attacked by a group of pirates trying to blow up the convoy by igniting the material. Din manages to fight off the pirates for a while, but when it looks like he might get overwhelmed he is rescued by a couple of Tie-Fighters. They are greeted as heroes by the imperials, and after a quick look around they find the terminal they were looking for, but there is a problem. Sitting next to the terminal is Mayfeld’s old commander from his past. If he is recognized, the operation is over, and the terminal can only work if it scans the user’s face. In a quick decision, Mando takes it upon himself to retrieve the information by setting aside The Way of Mandalore and removing his helmet. But the commander is suspicious and confronts Mando. Just as Mando begins to break, Mayfeld takes the chance that the commander would not recognize him and steps in to talk their way out of the situation. It works a little too well as the commander insists they have a drink together. As they talk of the war, Mayfeld’s simmering hatred for the commander becomes too much to bear and he shoots the commander dead. This, of course, leads to a shoot-out and the two have to escape the base with the help of Boba, Fennec, and Cara. But Mayfeld wasn’t finished, as they fly to safety in the Slave I Mayfeld uses Boba’s sniper to blow up the material they just transported and effectively destroying the base at the same time. Because of this effort, Mando and Cara decide to let Mayfeld go and falsely report his death. With the location of Moff Gideon known, Mando couldn’t resist reaching out to Moff Gideon and with a very Liam Neeson-esk threat.
The use of Mayfeld in this episode is excellent, often we forget that there are no longer clones behind those Trooper helmets but people. Mayfeld gives a glimpse into the pain and horror the war between the Empire and the Republic has caused for many people. We see it in Mayfeld’s eyes as he looks at the villiagers while on the way to the base and we here it in his voice when he talks about the horrors he witnessed while he was Imperial. Overall the performance was top-notch by Bill Burr, he sold the horrors of war better than any other attempt by the show over the last two seasons. Mando too had some character-defining moments. His willingness to remove his helmet to ensure the success of the mission came without hesitation. This illustrates how much he cares for Grogu perfectly, the subject of his helmet has been touchy over the series but when it comes to saving his Child, the helmet means nothing. So now we have Moff Gideon with Grogu and a small army of Darktroopers on a collision course with a group of warriors led by a Mandalorian hell-bent on saving the one light in his otherwise dark and cold life.
The finale is set-up to be a knockout. Alone, you have the confrontation of Moff Gideon and his Darksaber and The Mandalorian and his Beskar spear but add the presence of Boba Fett, Cara Dune, and Fennec and you have the ingredients for a spectacle of a shoot out. We can even speculate further. Since Bo-Katan and her group of Mandalorians are actively searching for Moff Gideon to retrieve the Darksaber, I’d venture to guess at her the group’s appearance in the upcoming finale. While we’re at it, was Grogu successful in contacting a Jedi mentor? Could we see another Lightsaber enter the field of battle? We have to wait a week to find out.
The episode was not free of weak moments, after re-introducing him to the world, Boba Fett was relegated to the get-away driver, leaving him to twiddle his thumbs through most of the episode. Fennec and Cara Dune were also left out in the jungle to watch from afar. But aside from those admittedly small nitpicks, there is very little wrong with this well-balanced episode. Let’s all pray to the Sci-Fi gods for the season finale to live up to the hype built by this unstoppable locomotive of a season.