Season 3 Episode 4 has dropped, and it's a good one. Probably the most Mandalorian episode this season.

As soon as it ended, I wanted to go back and watch it again.

Spoilers on Saturday. Have a good week.

I'm up to episode two. Tried to watch three, but Disney Plus has been really janky for me lately. The episode didn't load and the viewer froze up. Been trying to reload and no luck so far.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 22, 2023, 07:41:32 AM
I'm up to episode two. Tried to watch three, but Disney Plus has been really janky for me lately. The episode didn't load and the viewer froze up. Been trying to reload and no luck so far.

Have you tried clearing the cache in your browser, or forcing a hard refresh?

CTRL+F5 does it, I think.

Quote from: Lurkndog on March 22, 2023, 12:13:57 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 22, 2023, 07:41:32 AM
I'm up to episode two. Tried to watch three, but Disney Plus has been really janky for me lately. The episode didn't load and the viewer froze up. Been trying to reload and no luck so far.

Have you tried clearing the cache in your browser, or forcing a hard refresh?

CTRL+F5 does it, I think.

Nope. Tried and it was still freezing. I did manage to get it working tonight.

The part with Dr. Pershing and the mind device wasn't so bad. It's clear the ex-comms officer turned up the device without permission, for whatever reason. I don't expect the New Republic to be goody-two shoes, but I would mind them going crapsack world.

4 was good. My only complaint was that it seemed a little short on the runtime.

Quote from: Thornhammer on March 24, 2023, 11:08:00 AM
4 was good. My only complaint was that it seemed a little short on the runtime.

It didn't bother me, and I've watched it three times now.

Perhaps CHAPTER 21: DOCTOR PERSHING EATS PASTE will be longer.

Episode 4's cameo was neat. It's technically saturday, so I'll drop a minor spoiler.

Jar Jar became an icon of the goofiness in the Prequels, and that's not Ahmed Best's fault. It's good to see him get a character without all that baggage to play.

Spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 04
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter 20: The Foundling

We open on the Children of the Watch on the beach outside their cave, doing weapons drills and sparring.

How do you spar with flamethrowers?

Bo-Katan walks through, observing their ways. It seems like she is deciding whether to participate or not.

Grogu is seated by the shore, mind-controlling some crabs.

Mando comes over and says "play time's over" and takes Grogu to where the younger Mandalorians are wrestling. He announces Grogu as the next challenger. The others protest that Grogu is too little, but Mando stands firm on the challenge. Grogu is assigned to spar with Ragnar, the kid who got his helmet at the beginning of S3E01.

Ragnar chooses darts as the weapon, and he and Grogu are given paintball wrist launchers. Ragnar wins the first two passes, as he fires before Grogu seems to be ready. Then Mando tells Grogu to show them what he can do. Using the Force, Grogu somersaults over Ragnar twice and empties his dart gun into Ragnar to win the challenge, and the respect of the onlookers.

Stung by his loss, Ragnar wanders off and gets grabbed by a flying lizard monster.

The Mandalorians pursue the escaping creature with their jetpacks, but seem to run out of fuel after a minute or so. Bo-Katan's ship appears, and follows the creature to its nest.

They organize a rescue party, and Grogu gets left behind with the Armorer because he's too young. She tells him to follow her, and they go inside to the forge, where she talks to Grogu about the significance of the forge in their culture. As the Armorer goes to work on some beskar with a trip-hammer, Grogu flashes back to the day the Jedi temple fell.

Ahmed Best in a role that will surprise you!

Best plays Khelleran Beq, a Jedi Master who rescues Grogu and gets him off-world in a Naboo starship.

(In case you don't know, Best played Jar-Jar Binks in the prequel movies.)

Honestly, I really loved that they did that for him, and he made a pretty good Jedi.

This was the best possible way to kill off Jar-Jar Binks.

Note that the scene with Grogu's flashback parallels a similar scene in S1E01 where Mando first meets with the Armorer to get a pauldron made, and flashes back to his own traumatic childhood.

Flash forward to the covert forge, as the Armorer presents Grogu with a small round plate bearing the symbol of the Mudhorn. Grogu is small enough to wear it as a chestplate.

Bo-Katan's ship lands somewhere out in the wastelands, and the rescue party disembarks and heads for the monster's lair on foot, so as not to alert it to their presence. They arrive at the base of the mountain at sunset, and make camp for the night.

When rations are handed out, Bo-Katan asks Mando how they eat with their helmets on. They don't, he replies. Instead, each Mandalorian is supposed to go find a place where they can be alone, and take their helmet off. As leader of the war party, Bo-Katan is given the honor of eating alone by the campfire. She doesn't seem to care for the experience.

In the morning, they break camp and begin the climb up to the raptor's nest. Even with grappling hooks, it is a tough climb. They arrive at the top, to find a huge bird's nest littered with Mandalorian armor. Paz Vizla immediately charges in, looking for Ragnar, who we learn is Vizla's son.

They come across three baby raptors. Suddenly, the adult raptor appears, and regurgitates Ragnar, who is still alive. Paz Vizla charges in, but the raptor drops Ragnar, grabs Paz Vizla in its jaws, and grabs Ragnar with its foot.

The raptor takes flight, and manages to swat Bo-Katan out of the air with its wing. She loses a shoulder pauldron as she tumbles down, but manages to restart her jetpack and save herself.

Bo-Katan uses her grappling hook to pull her into the side of the beast, and stabs it with a vibroblade, causing it to release Paz Vizla from its jaws. He tumbles free and lands by the nest.

Mando closes with the raptor and stabs it in the foot, causing it to release Ragnar. He tries to grab Ragnar, but fails. Ragnar falls, but keeps his head and goes into a stable skydiving position, and Mando is able to fly down and catch him.

The raptor falls into a river, where it is eaten by one of the giant dinosaur turtle alligators.

Mando returns Ragnar to a grateful Paz Vizla. Vizla thanks Mando, and they share a heartfelt "This is the way."

The rescue party returns in Bo-Katan's ship. The gathered Mandalorians applaud the sight of the rescued Ragnar by clanking their armored forearms together. The Armorer commends Bo-Katan on achieving the highest honor of the Creed: saving a foundling. "This is the way," they both agree.

"We have brought you three more foundlings in need of care" Bo-Katan adds, as the three baby raptors are herded out of her ship.

The armorer makes Bo-Katan a new pauldron. At Bo's request, the Armorer puts a Mythosaur emblem on it. Apparently, the Mythosaur can be used by all Mandalorians. Bo tells the Armorer that she saw a real Mythosaur under the Living Water on Mandalore. The Armorer seems to asccept this as a vision, but Bo-Katan insists it was real. "This is the way," the Armorer replies, in a "say you don't believe someone without saying you don't believe them" kind of tone.

*****

I really liked this episode.

I'm a bit surprised that the Children of the Watch didn't immediately head for Mandalore once they learned it was habitable. Shouldn't it be their holy land or something? But then again, they're not really from there, and were probably kicked out at some point.

I can't tell if Bo-Katan is becoming a part of the Children of the Watch, or if she is just being a polite observer. It seemed like she wasn't happy having to eat alone by the campfire. I suspect that Mando is the only one she'll speak her heart to.

I'm waiting for the big bad to be revealed. We still don't know whose TIE interceptors those were last episode. And the pirate thread will also have to get picked up at some point. And whatever happened to Doctor Pershing, and who was behind that?

I don't really know what's next, though. I didn't see this episode coming either.

What did everybody else think?

Quote from: Lurkndog on March 25, 2023, 12:52:09 PM
What did everybody else think?

I liked it with once caveat. Having the "Yoda people" jump around like frogs is becoming a thing. Yoda did it in the prequels, and Grogu is doing it in The Mandalorian. IMO it looks more comical than cool, and takes me out of the story. Like, the issues of interacting with a foot tall alien necessitates them doing something like that. Makes me think that they just shouldn't.

The two guys "sparring" with flamethrowers was stupid. I'm pretty sure a flamethrower doesn't "block" another flamethrower. Eh.

Bo Katan is interesting. My impression is that she's playing along to get along with The Watch members. But she may be coming around to their ways. The modern Mandalorians drove their society to ruin. Maybe it's time for a return to tradition for a while.

Why don't they return to Mandalore? Because the world is literally glassed. Maybe they could survive there, but it would take a build up of infrastructure, like moisture vaporators and greenhouses and eventually massive terraforming. I don't think The Watch has the resources to do it, and other Mandalorian factions have simply given up.

So, we know The Watch don't take off their helmets even around each other.
Do they wear their helmets when makin' babies? That would be creepy and awkward and probably someone's fetish...
I like the idea of them having that tradition, but they have to be somewhat practical in how the rules work. Having the camp break up and everyone go off alone to eat puts them at a real danger of getting picked off. What if they didn't have anyplace safe to go?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 25, 2023, 05:10:51 PM
Why don't they return to Mandalore? Because the world is literally glassed. Maybe they could survive there, but it would take a build up of infrastructure, like moisture vaporators and greenhouses and eventually massive terraforming. I don't think The Watch has the resources to do it, and other Mandalorian factions have simply given up.

I get the impression that the surface of Mandalore may have been uninhabitable in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear barrage, but the radiation levels have fallen off rapidly since then. That fits descriptions of places like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were both resettled after the bombing.

At least they didn't bring up Carl Sagan's "nuclear winter" hypothesis, which is now considered to be disproven.

Since the air is breathable, it seems like Mandalore doesn't need to be terraformed, just rebuilt. It clearly has a functioning biosphere, though growing crops may take some work.

"Bombed back to the stone age" seems like an apt description.

Quote from: Lurkndog on March 25, 2023, 06:53:24 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 25, 2023, 05:10:51 PM
Why don't they return to Mandalore? Because the world is literally glassed. Maybe they could survive there, but it would take a build up of infrastructure, like moisture vaporators and greenhouses and eventually massive terraforming. I don't think The Watch has the resources to do it, and other Mandalorian factions have simply given up.

I get the impression that the surface of Mandalore may have been uninhabitable in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear barrage, but the radiation levels have fallen off rapidly since then. That fits descriptions of places like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were both resettled after the bombing.

At least they didn't bring up Carl Sagan's "nuclear winter" hypothesis, which is now considered to be disproven.

Since the air is breathable, it seems like Mandalore doesn't need to be terraformed, just rebuilt. It clearly has a functioning biosphere, though growing crops may take some work.

"Bombed back to the stone age" seems like an apt description.

Dunno. Most of the surface seems to be fused crystal now.

https://creditsandcanon.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/themandalorian_minesofmandalore_mandaloresurface.jpg?w=1629

This is Star Wars. I imagine an army of droids could churn it apart and expose the soil underneath. Maybe "un-glassify" it. The environment seems capable of supporting life, but how much? And for how long?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 25, 2023, 08:16:34 PM
Dunno. Most of the surface seems to be fused crystal now.

https://creditsandcanon.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/themandalorian_minesofmandalore_mandaloresurface.jpg?w=1629

This is Star Wars. I imagine an army of droids could churn it apart and expose the soil underneath. Maybe "un-glassify" it. The environment seems capable of supporting life, but how much? And for how long?

That was at the site of a nuclear blast, though. And trinitite mainly forms out of fused sand. So I'm not sure how much of Mandalore's surface could be fused.

If the Alamite primitives are able to survive on Mandalore, I think regular Mandalorians would do just fine.

Another reason why they might not want to resettle Mandalore immediately is that they fear the Imperial remnants coming back to bomb them again if they move back to Mandalore openly. Given what happened to Bo-Katan's castle on Kalevala, this seems like a credible threat.

Season 3 Episode 5 has dropped, and it's another banger. A lot of plot threads come together in this one. And another delightful cameo.

Spoilers on Saturday.

If you need to avoid spoilers on this one, stay off Reddit and YouTube. It is already heavily spoiled.

They completely blow through a lot of plot threads fast in this season.

The cameo was really good, was all "waaaaaait...IT IS!"

Quote from: Thornhammer on March 29, 2023, 10:44:21 PM
They completely blow through a lot of plot threads fast in this season.

The cameo was really good, was all "waaaaaait...IT IS!"

Yeah, they're really knocking them down.

I wouldn't say it is going too fast, though. The victories don't feel unearned.