The Mandalorian: Chapter 20: The Foundling
What is it ? : The Mandalorians are on the beach area outside their caves training, with some wrestling, firing guns, throwing weapons, etc. Grogu sits separately watching some crabs in the sand, when Din collects him to begin sparring with another foundling. Although there are doubts due to Grogu's size and apparent age, but Din pushes the point, and the opponent chooses dart launchers for the fight. The two have paint loaded dart launchers on Vambraces, and must hit the opponent the most number of times.
The opponent gets two easy hits on Grogu, but Din tells him to show everyone what he can do, and in the next round he flips out of the way and scores three hits on the opponent, Ragnar, winning.
Ragnar walks away disappointed, but a flying beast swoops down and grabs him, carrying him off. Some Mandalorians give chase on their Jetpacks, but the fuel is soon exhausted and the creature flys off, chased by Bo-Katan in her starship.
When they all return to the camp, Bo-Katan tells them where the creature has gone, and they plan a rescue mission, but must use stealth rather than their Jetpacks to avoid scaring the creature away with it's prey.
Din, Bo-Katan, Paz Vizsla and some others go on the mission, and the Armorer takes Grogu to her forge to make him a new piece of armour. As she beats the metal into shape, the sparks and noise make Grogu remember the day of Order 66 in the Jedi Temple.
Some Jedi are fighting Clone Troopers attempting to get him out safely, when they are killed as they send him up in an elevator. He is met at the higher level by a Jedi, Kelleran Beq, who fights off more Clone Troopers before the pair escape on a Speeder Bike.
They come under attack by LAAT/i's, and they only lose them by going into the train tunnels where the LAAT/i is destroyed by an oncoming train, as the pair emerge into a station and onto the plaza seen last episode. They reach a landing platform where a Chrome H-type Nubian yacht awaits them and Naboo guards fight with arriving Clone Troopers as Kelleran Beq and Grogu escape on the starship into Hyperspace.
In the current, the Armorer has made Grogu a breastplate with a Mudhorn Sigil on it, showing him as the same tribe as Din.
The Mandalorians arrive at the flying creatures nest, and camp for the night ready to attack in the morning. Bo-Katan asks Din how they eat without revealing their faces, and he tells her that they disperse to eat separately. And Paz Vizsla tells her as the war party leader she may stay by the fire, while the rest leave, and she sits and eats alone.
The next morning they scale the stone pillar to the creatures nest, discovering young in it, which the large creature arrives and regurgitates Ragnar for them to eat. The Mandalorians attack and the creature grabs Ragnar and flies off once more, with them in chase on their Jet Packs. Rescuing Ragnar and causing the creature to crash into a lake where it is eaten by a larger creature under the water.
Returning to the camp they are cheered, especially when they reveal they have returned with the young creatures to train as mounts. The Armorer notices that Bo-Katan has lost a pauldron in the fight so offers to replace it, and Bo-Katan asks if it could be decorated with a Mythosaur rather than the night owl of her clan, revealing to her that she saw one under the waters of Mandalore. Something the Armorer seems to think is more of a vision than reality, but creates the pauldron decorated with the Mythosaur as the image belongs to all of Mandalore. . .
High Points : The high point of the episode is definitely the flashback to order 66, and I really enjoyed the fact that the Jedi that rescues Grogu is played by Jar Jar himself, Ahmed Best.
It's also entirely possible, since the ship that the pair take from Coruscant is a Naboo Diplomatic vessel, and we know that at that moment Padme's is otherwise occupied with the events of Episode 3, that this is the other senator of Naboo's ship, Jar Jar Binks.
Low Points : Although a minor element, one that really annoyed me is Ragnar not being dead. The creature grabs him, and they have chance to come and go and come back to the nest, have a meal and camp for an entire night with him in the creatures belly, only for it to only regurgitate him for it's children as they arrive.
Even if it did decide to wait for all this time, and he wasn't killed by its digestive juices, I would think he would have suffocated in it's belly overnight.
Otherwise the episode is short, and not much really happens.
So what do you really think ? : The episode is kind of dull and neither of the main storylines is progressed. We do finally get some backstory for Grogu, but it mainly just raises more questions than it answers as he seems to be singled out for rescue, rather than being a part of an overall rescue mission to save all the younglings.
Final Words : Because the run time of each season is the same, the fact this episode is so short (only 30 minutes) means there's more screentime available for better episodes, so while this one is only okay, it does redeem itself somewhat on that feature.
Score : 8/10
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