Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore

This week’s episode starts off on Tatooine with Peli Motto, a funny character who is frequently seen in the Mandalorian, scamming a Rodian by using jawas to steal his parts and sell them back to him. Mando flies in and lands in Peli’s docking bay in his N1 starfighter and we see Grogu do a flip out of the cockpit into Peli’s hands, showing that he has grown much stronger in the force after the two years that he spent with Luke Skywalker. Mando tells her that he is looking for a memory circuit for IG-11, but Pele and the jawas try explaining to Mando just how hard it is to find those, similar to what the Anzellans said last episode. Pele says to forget about IG-11 and offers R5 to him (many people speculate that this R5 unit is the same one from ‘A New Hope’ that had a bad motivator when Luke and Uncle Owen bought him from the jawas). Pele says that R5 is very trustworthy and she will give Mando R5 for half price in the spirit of Bunta Eve (Bunta Eve is the Tatooine holiday featuring podraces, the same podrace that Anakin Skywalker won all those years ago). Mando hesitantly agrees to buy R5 for this mission and they depart through the fireworks of the Bunta Eve celebration.

Mando, Grogu, and R5 head to Mandalore in the N1 starfighter as Mando teaches the navigation system to Grogu, pointing out where he grew up (on Concordia, one of Mandalore’s moons). He points out Kalevala, the planet that they visited last episode to see Bo Katan. After descending through the storm clouds and lightning, we see Mandalore in its ravaged, inhabitable state (or so we thought). Mando sends R5 to scout out the cave on the way to Sundari, the underground city, when his signal disappears. Naturally, Mando ventures into the cave to find the cause. He gets jumped by a group of Alamites (a species that have historically lived in the wastelands outside of Mandalorian cities), and pulls out his darksaber to defend himself. We see that Din still has a ways to go before he can truly be worthy of using the darksaber since he is still clunky with the ancient weapon. After taking out the Alamites, Mando brings R5 back to the ship to run an atmosphere test, and he discovers that Mandalore is not filled with toxic air, which is why the Alamites are able to live there still. Grogu and Mando leave R5 at the ship and fly down to the bottom level of Sundari in a cool scene (it’s always cool to see Mando utilizing his jetpack).

While the two walk through the ruins of the city and the mines, Mando spots and picks up a weathered Mandalorian helmet when he is captured by a massive cyborg droid with an eye that seemed to be surrounded by some liquid thing inside the droid suit (this was pretty cool and a new kind of Star Wars creature). Mando is carried deep into the mines to the droid’s lair while in a venus fly trap type of cage, all with Grogu following closely. After being set down in the trap, Mando sees a smaller but pretty sizable droid exit the large mech with an energy staff. This cyborg thing that looked very similar to prequel character General Grievous (it is always nice to see things in the Mandalorian that are influenced by original Star Wars material) strips Mando of his weapons, including the darksaber. Grogu hops around towards the cage where Din is being held and tries to open it with the force, but he only attracts the attention of the one-eyed droid. Mando is able to utter out a command to Grogu to find Bo Katan so that she can help free him, so Grogu scurries back to the ship to do just that. Using the knowledge of navigation that Mando taught him earlier in the episode, Grogu is able to communicate with R5 where Kalevala is, and they quickly arrive there.

We see Bo Katan get news of the Mandalorian’s ship’s arrival from her droid, and she says “Lets get rid of him once and for all,” showing her initial malicious intentions and her increased frustration with Mando. Her outlook on the situation changes, though, when she sees Grogu without his adopted father in the cockpit. She checks the travel logs to find out where the ship was last: the surface of Mandalore. Bo Katan takes Grogu with her in her ship, the Gauntlet, back to Mandalore, and Katan mentions that Mandalore used to be a beautiful planet, not the baron wasteland that it is now. She emotionally walks through the underground city, calling it a ‘tomb.’ Walking through the mines, she shoots out the ceiling to reveal a group of Alamites and takes them out with ease, showing how skilled of a fighter she is, even without the darksaber, compared to Mando who, earlier, struggled to fight off the Alamites with the saber. She reaches the droid’s lair to find something being extracted from Mando, probably being his blood (although I am not sure why). Katan takes on the droid and originally struggles against it with its electric staff, but when she gets knocked down, she sees and takes the darksaber. This is where we see how the darksaber is supposed to be used, since Bo is very proficient and smooth with the ancient weapon. She takes down both the smaller version of the droid and the big cyborg version with the saber, then she frees the unresponsive Mando.

Mando wakes up by the underground city to some ‘pog soup’ when he tells Katan that Mandalore really isn’t cursed, and she basically tells him “of course it isn’t.” With Bo wanting to go back to her ship to leave the desolate wasteland, Mando refuses to leave until he bathes in the living waters. Katan says: “I honestly think that it’s adorable that you actually believe these children’s stories, but there is nothing magic about the waters.” Despite saying this, she takes Din to the living waters. She tells him that she used to play there as a child and that as a young princess, she used to recite the Mandalorian tenets in front of crowds. She mentions that her dad was the ruler of Sundari, and he died defending his people. Mando says that he would’ve liked to meet him, and says the Mandalorian saying “this is the way.” They continue walking and we can see that Bo respects Din’s patriotism, and maybe she doesn’t find him so irritating anymore. She might see him as a real Mandalorian finally, even though he does all the theatrical traditions of his faction.

Once they arrive at the springs, Bo reads the plaque on the wall that says: “The mines were once a mythosaur lair. Mandalore the Great is said to have tamed the mythical beast.” Bo scoffs at this plaque as she doesn’t believe the ‘Songs of Eons Past’ (as the Armorer would say). Din takes off his cloak and proceeds into the water while reciting his creed. Once the water reaches shoulder height, Mando gets pulled under. Without hesitation, Bo jumps in and jetpacks down all the way to the bottom to grab unconscious Mando. On the way up, Bo comes eye to eye with none other than a mythosaur, the ancient mythical Mandalorian beast. We can see how utterly shocked Bo is as the air bubbles fly out of her helmet. Once they return to the surface safely, the episode ends.

Overall, I loved this episode. The pacing of this episode was great and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The ending was amazing. Who would’ve expected to see a mythosaur? This episode, like the last, really felt like Star Wars. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have been doing an amazing job with Season 3 so far and have really been making it feel like George Lucas material. Now the question is will someone try to tame the mythosaur? If so, who? I think that there are only two possible options – Bo or Grogu. Bo would have the ambition to tame it for the claim to rule Mandalore, since riding the mythosaur has got to be a big step higher than owning the dark saber. The only way that I can see Mando riding it is if Grogu tames it with his force abilities. If Grogu is proficient in beast control (a force power that Anakin Skywaler possessed, most notably seen in episode 2 Attack of the Clones), it could clear the way for Mando to potentially get on top of the mythosaur and ride it, which would definitely create a further conflict between him and Bo Katan. It will be interesting to see what happens from this. I would give this episode a 9.5/10.