As predicted, this episode sees Mando and his wrinkly son land on desert planet and timewasting hijinks ensue. That is not to say ‘The Siege’ is a bad episode, it is just painfully mediocre. All of the series hallmark strengths (Visual presentation, score) and weaknesses (characters, plot) are present. If you would like more on those, check out the previous reviews published on this website. This week, we are diving into the scraps of plot that have been presented thus far and deciphering what they mean.
Let us begin with the remnants of the Empire that have been
the ongoing antagonist—as much as there is one. This is clearly meant to be the
group that becomes the First Order. Or, potentially, it would have if not for
our intrepid Mandalorian. Their only goal, as far as we know, is to return the
Empire to its previous glory.
To this end, Moff Gideon and his minions have been trying to
bioengineer force sensitives. Thus far it has failed. This is why they wanted everyone’s
favorite animatronic puppet. They were using his blood in their experiments,
but they have run out so the search for him and Mando have intensify.
We know that Gideon had a hand in the Great Purge of
Mandalore that lead to the large-scale destruction of Mandalore and the scattering
of Mandalorians. He also, presumably at the same time, obtained the Darksaber,
likely from Bo-Katan.
From this information, we can infer that Gideon wishes to wield
the Darksaber as symbol of power to gather forces to his side, like Darth Maul,
Pre Vizsla, and Bo-Katan before with. He then wishes to infuse his army with force
sensitivity using Dr. Pershing’s blood transfusion and wage war against the New
Republic.
Ahsoka Tano is set to her live action debut, likely next
week in an episode directed and co-written by Dave Filoni, her co-creator. As
discussed last week, she could very well bring with her a number of Extended
Universe characters. The big mystery is what happens when she is given Lone
Wolf’s cub. Obviously, he is going to stay with Mando, either by choice or
because Ahsoka senses in the Force that he should continue adventuring with his
adoptive father.
The final tease we have is the final scene of the season premiere.
In it, Temuera Morrison makes a brief appearance, presumably as Boba Fett
several years after escaping the Sarlacc Fit he fell into like a chump in Episode
VI. Boba, and his father Jango, wore Mandalorian armor despite not being
Mandalorian. Of course, with the introduction of The Watch fundamentalist group
in The Mandalorian, it is possible—maybe probable—that the pair are
retconned into being part of that group.
How all these plotlines will intersect is unclear, if they
do at all. What is clear is that they must start progressing as only four
episodes remain in this season. Given how little this show engages in meaningful
plot progression, that makes it likely some of these plots will be left to the
third season. Most likely of those is the conflict with Gideon as he seems to
be the primary antagonist. Now, this seemed to be true of Dooku, Grievous, and
Vader in Clone Wars and Rebels (both also led by Filoni) before
they pivoted in later seasons.
Because of everything mentioned above, this season of The
Mandalorian has a shot at redeeming itself. While everything up to this
point has made this seem unlikely, the people working on this series are
unbelievably talented and have long track records of success and top-notch
creations. Hopefully, that comes out in force. Come back next week to find out.
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