Pirate invasion! Air Raid! Space Politics! Buckle up for a non-stop thrill ride of an episode this week on The Mandalorian.
Episode 5 of season 3 takes us back to Nevarro, where a very busy High Magistrate Greef Karga is interrupted by the unannounced arrival of Pirate King Gorian Shard’s fleet in Nevarro airspace. Remember him? It’s the seaweed-faced pirate whose thugs got obliterated by Mando in the premiere episode. He’s coming for revenge, putting the city under siege and driving the Nevarro people (Nevarrian? Nevarrese?) out into the desert for refuge. Gotta say, though, for a thriving planet with a former combatant as its leader, their defense is surprisingly nonexistent.
The High Magistrate sends a distress call to the New Republic, which gets received by a familiar face: X-Wing pilot Carson Teva played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. In an ongoing display of the New Republic‘s inefficiency, the overworked administration must revise Teva’s request to help. We meet again with the suspicious ex-Imperial Officer Elia Kane, who coldly convinces Teva’s superior to ignore the call. Foreshadowing what will become of the Republic, Teva warns his superior that their ignorance will bite them in the arse when it’s too late before going off to seek the help of, who else, our Mandalorian.
This episode is a return to form after two lackluster ones. Here we got everything we came to the show for: Mando and Grogu, impressive battle sequences, and most importantly, plot developments. I complained last week that the show appeared to juggle way too many plot threads without cohesion, but this week’s episode proves that there is a way to tie all of them together meaningfully. The pirates from the premiere episode come back in a big way, giving us the most fun side quest of the season so far. The Bo Katan arc continues to chug along nicely in the background (She does play a bigger role among the Mandalorians than Din Djarin this season, doesn’t she?) Meanwhile, the Coruscant political thriller side of the show finally affects our main characters’ lives. I cannot wait to see how it will eventually play out in the grand scheme of things.
That aside, The Pirate is simply FUN. It’s chock full of callbacks and references to Star Wars‘ more profound lore, even more than usual. Who else had that Leonardo DiCaprio meme face when Greef Karga said, “he shot first!”? Or later, when his distress call holo mirrors that of Princess Leia’s? There are also appearances from creatures that die-hard fans will be thrilled to see. This is always the tricky balance in the show: you gotta please the casuals AND the connoisseurs. This episode passes the test.
With three episodes left to go, the show’s got quite a lot to resolve. What’s with that mythosaur everyone’s so worked up about? Can Bo Katan reunite the scattered Mandalorians? How will Elia Kane wreak havoc with our heroes? Where’s Moff Gideon, who’s shown to have escaped his incarceration? Those are heavy stuff to tackle, but with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni behind these storylines, I’d say: “I like those odds.”
