The Mandalorian: Chapter 21: The Pirate
What is it ? : Greef Karga is in his office on Nevarro discussing with civic planners the layout of the city as it expands, but he is interrupted when the Corsair of the Pirate King Gorian Shard arrives above the city and begins bombarding it. As the pirates continue their attack, Karga leads his people out of the city and tells them he is calling for help.
On a New Republic base, Captain Carson Teva walks into the bar and is told that there is a message for him, which is Karga calling for help, he discusses the matter with Garazeb Orrelios before leaving in his X-Wing.
He arrives on Coruscant, and visits the office of Colonel Tuttle, requesting additional resources to help Nevarro, but the Republic is short of resources, and will prioritise their own worlds first. Elia Kane enters and suggests that suffering will prove to Nevarro why they should join the Republic, something that Teva finds very "Imperial".
Next he travels to the camp of the Mandalorians, revealing that R5-D4 is a Republic agent, while the Mandalorians are reluctant to hear him out, he speaks to Din Djarin and tells him that his friend Karga is asking for help, before Teva leaves telling the Mandalorians that he knows they will relocate but he promises to not reveal their location.
Din speaks to the Mandalorians, telling them that although they once fought against Karga, they could earn themselves a new home, somewhere their children could grow up safe on Nevarro. Paz Vizsla speaks next, and while initially seems against helping Nevarro and Karga, tells them that Din and Bo-Katan have earned their trust and they should help.
Bo-Katan briefs them on the tactics, where Din will leads away the fighter protection from the pirate ship, and she will drop off the Mandalorians, before engaging the pirate ship.
The attack goes to plan, with the Mandalorians fighting their way through the streets, and the battle overhead raging, but the pirates recall the fighters following Din to engage Bo-Katan, so the fight becomes more desperate. Especially when the fighting in the streets reaches the town square where the pirates have set up a blaster cannon. However, Din and Bo-Katan destroy the fighters, except the last one which flees and begin taking out the pirate ships engines causing it to crash.
The Armorer takes out the pirates manning the blaster cannon, and the Mandalorians chase the pirates out of the city gates, where the towns people are waiting for them, causing them to surrender.
In the aftermath, Karga offers the Mandalorians a home on Nevarro, and the Armorer shows the abandoned forge beneath the streets to Bo-Katan, allowing her to remove her helmet. Bo-Katan is given a mission to walk between the tribes of Mandalore, and gather them, so they may recover their home world.
Meanwhile in space, Captain Teva discovers a wrecked Lambda Shuttle, which he discovers was carrying Moff Gideon, which appears to have been raided by Mandalorians who have liberated the prisoner. . .
High Points : A lot going on in this one, and plenty of action. It also nicely straddles the two plotlines, beginning to tie the Coruscant story back into that of the Mandalorians, with further signs that the Republic is being corrupted from within.
It was nice to see Zeb, even if he seems to be a fighter pilot now, which certainly wasn't within his duties back in Rebels.
Low Points : I think this episode really begins to highlight the hypocrisy of the Mandalorian "way". It's fine for Bo-Katan to not wear her helmet because she's now walking two paths (and possibly because she saw the Mythosaur). They've been hiding out since the fall of Mandalore, but now it's fine to just become citizens of Nevarro because they've protected it (wouldn't any number of places be more than happy to have a large group of heavily armed and armoured Mandalorians to protect it?) Their actions and rules continue to make little sense.
So what do you really think ? : I enjoyed this one a lot, I'm more interested by the Moff Gideon plotline than I am with the Mandalorians regaining their homeworld, but the action meant the episode zipped along nicely.
But that meant that to me the episode felt a lot like fluff. Look at the nice explosions and ignore that there isn't much progression with the plot.
Final Words : So three episodes to go, and I'm guessing that we're not going to get the liberation of Mandalore this season, just a building of the two sides, with the Mandalorians building into a unified force, and Moff Gideon and his allies (equipped with Beskar, so the clues it was Mandalorians that freed him will be a red herring) on the other side, and the Republic corrupt and unable to act. With it eventually leading to Republic forces allying with the Mandalorians to take down the Moff, probably next season.
But as usual, I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again, so lets see where it goes, as the speed with which this show moves through it's storyline means I may have just described the next episode alone.
Score : 9/10
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