Television

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6 ‘The Prisoner’ Review

December 13, 2019

Last week, the Mandalorian set down on a dangerous backwater planet, took a job that screamed ‘DOUBLE CROSS,’ and left Baby Yoda in a great deal of danger.

This week, we get to see him do all that again, but this time aboard various space vehicles.

Sons of Anarchy

The episode opens with the Mandalorian setting down on the space port of a man named Ran, who’s basically an intergalactic version of the guy at Waffle House who sits by himself and continues to stare at people even after they look back at him. He also has a history with the Mandalorian, hence his willingness to hire him for a job despite his old friend’s recent troubles with the guild.

The assignment is to break someone out of a New Republic prison transport manned completely by droids. The crew assigned to the job consists of every possible person the Mandalorian wouldn’t want to work with:

Mayfield, an ex-Imperial sharpshooter/douchebag.
Burg, a Devaronian with severe anger and impulse control issues.

Xi’an, a Twi’lek assassin who may or may not have had a romantic history with the Mandalorian.
Zero, a smug droid.

It’s clear from the get go that this group of tropes is going to double cross our beskar-clad protagonist–although I do have to give Mayfield credit for pointing out that he wasn’t a stormtrooper when the Mandalorian tried to throw shade at his Imperial sharpshooter ranking. That made me chuckle.

Dropping the Ball

After boarding the Razorcrest, the crew immediately begins messing with the Mandalorian’s stuff and taunting him. Their horseplay inadvertently reveals the previously concealed Baby Yoda, who Mayfield takes into his arms and debates keeping as a pet.

Just when things can’t get any creepier, Zero abruptly docks the Razorcrest with the prison transport, causing Mayfield to drop Baby Yoda and the entire viewing audience to scream. Fortunately, the little guy ends up being okay.

After regaining their bearings, the crew makes it inside the transport and makes their way toward their target’s cell. As expected, Burg does something stupid (shooting a mouse droid for fun) which brings an army of droid guards. To the crew’s surprise, the Mandalorian takes them out almost single-handedly.

Upon reaching the control room, they are surprised to find a human overseeing the ship.

The crew has no problem murdering him, which the Mandalorian is definitely not on board with. A stand off ensues, but is quickly ended when Xi’an kills the New Republic guard before the Mandalorian can stop her…but not before he’s able to send out a distress signal.

Mouse & Cat

With only 20 minutes until New Republic forces arrive, the crew quickly makes their way to cell of the prisoner they are springing, who turns out to be Xi’an’s brother, Qin. After being freed from his cell, he makes a few snide remarks about how the Mandalorian left him behind on a past job. Before things can get any more awkward, Burg shoves the Mandalorian into Quin’s old cell and locks him in (instead of just killing him).

Thankfully, the Mandalorian is a stone cold badass. After snagging a passing security droid, he rips off its arm and uses it to free him from his cell. At this point, the episode goes from “meh” to “pretty cool” as we watch the Mandalorian hunt down and incapacitate each member of his traitorous crew. The fight with Burg was by far the most brutal, but the light effects during his showdown with Mayfield made it my favorite.

The Mandalorian: Chapter 6 'The Prisoner' Review

After locking the rest of his former crew in a cell (instead of killing them), the Mandalorian sets his sights on Qin and his gigantic forehead. Qin immediately realizes he’s outmatched and offers to give himself up to the Mandalorian, but not before making a few more snide remarks.

Little Game Hunt

Back on the Razorcrest, Zero finds Greef Carga’s old transmission about The Child (probably should have deleted that voicemail) and realizes the high value target in question is Baby Yoda.

He stalks the little green guy through the ship, eventually cornering him with a clear intent to kill. Baby Yoda looks like he’s about to use The Force to defend himself, but is saved at the last minute by the Mandalorian, who blows a hole in Zero’s head.

Table Flip

The Mandalorian delivers Qin to Ran, who doesn’t seem all that concerned that the rest of his crew disappeared. After paying the Mandalorian and sending him on his way, Ran orders a gunship to shoot the Razorcrest out of the sky. Before that can happen, however, Qin notices something the Mandalorian left on him: The distress beacon from the prison ship.

A squad of X-Wings drop out of hyperspace and blow up the space port as the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda once again take off for parts unknown.

The Verdict

It’s a good thing the scenes with the Mandalorian hunting the heist crew were so good. Otherwise, this could have easily been an even weaker episode than last week’s.

Don’t get me wrong–I still think the show looks great and is a lot of fun. But it’s not a good sign that with only two episodes to go (in an eight episode season), it feels like we’re narratively treading water. At least this time we got a little information about the Mandalorian’s past, although not enough to fundamentally change what we know about him.

Also, this is the second week in a row where the characters’ future intentions were painfully obvious. I love a little scene chewing as much as the next person, but this group of scoundrels make the hyenas in The Lion King seem subtle by comparison.

Like I said before, though, it still led up to a great second half of the episode that is visually on par with anything we’ve seen from the series thus far. Hopefully the narrative returns to form next week, as well.