‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3, Episode 6 Review: So Many Cameos

The Mandalorian takes a rather bizarre detour in this week’s episode, “Guns For Hire,” and amps up the cameos. The show has always used cameos from famous or well-known actors star wars characters, but this episode really goes beyond that and not in a good way.

I liked some things about Chapter 22, but it mostly felt like an excuse to push Jack Black, Lizzo, and Christopher Lloyd into an episode together. For reasons. In addition to these three, we get Ugnaughts who fondly remind us of the early days of the series, when Kuill helped Mando in his gruff way. “I spoke,” Mando said to those droid mechanics at one point, which made me smile.

We also find the people of Bo-Katan: Ax Woves (Simon Kassianides) and Koska Reeves (Mercedes Varnado alias Sasha Banks). They work for the characters of Jack Black and Lizzo – Captain Bombardier and the Duchess – who are essentially royalty from the democratically run planet Plazir-15. Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) wants to enlist the Mandalorians to her cause, but she and Mando (Pedro Pascal) must first solve a mystery for their hosts.

It involves rogue battle droids that have been turned back into worker droids but have started behaving erratically and violently. Since Captain Bombardier was once an Imperial (but went through the seemingly ubiquitous rehabilitation program), his government is not allowed to have an army or even armed guards, so they rely on outside help from privateers and , in this case, our Mandalorian adventurers.

They investigate the case while Baby Yoda hangs out with the Duchess (who later knights him in one of the many bizarre moments in this bizarre episode). In the end, they discover that the head of security, Commissioner Helgait (Christopher Lloyd) is behind the bad deal. He’s a Count Dooku-era separatist, we learn, and he’s not happy with this little utopia where droids do all the work and no one knows how to take care of themselves. (By the way, you can add the Battle Droids to the list of cameos).

Their work done, Bo-Katan and Mando go to the Mandalorians where Ax tells her that she is no longer in charge. She lost the Darksaber – and besides, he tasted power and would like to keep it. So she challenges him and defeats him but he laughs at her and tells her that she should challenge Mando for the Darksaber. Mando, however, has other plans. Just like the rest of us, he thinks Bo-Katan once won him the Darksaber when she defeated the alien/droid hybrid on Mandalore and saved Mando’s life. She retrieved the Darksaber and used it in this fight and now it’s hers. Everyone agrees and he hands it over. Bo-Katan is effectively restored to her rightful place as leader of the Mandalorian people.

It just took a totally pointless side quest to get there.

I don’t hate “monsters of the week” or side quest episodes, but this season they feel more out of place than usual. For one thing, this whole season has felt weirdly aimless and that comes so late in a season that’s only eight episodes long and is almost over! If it had happened sooner it would have been much better, but right now it feels like a weird diversion so late in the game.

I’m really not a fan of the Jack Black/Lizzo cameos either. Lloyd was fine. He’s basically perfect in every cameo he does, but that’s because he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. star wars isn’t Marvel, but it sure is lately. It looked less like a star wars episode that a hybrid of star trek And Thor: Ragnarok—minus the stimulating moral lessons of the former and the laughter and action of the latter. I don’t really understand what the point of all this was. I’m sorry, but I guess I’d really prefer smaller, lesser-known actors in Star Wars. The occasional big name has always been there from the start – Alec Guinness, for example – but it’s starting to feel a bit too silly when we cram episodes with so many celebrities.

Would this work as a cartoon? Certainly. In a season with 16 or 20 episodes, you can spend all the time you like on bottle episodes, hijackings, silly cameo-fetching quests, and whatever else you like. But we only have eight episodes in Season 3 and that felt like a waste (not to mention a waste of Bryce Dallas Howard’s directing talent).

I don’t wanna be super depressed The Mandalorian but honestly, I don’t feel it much this season. It doesn’t look like the same show as before. It also feels. . . Disney-trusted. The spaghetti western vibe of space is all but gone (even with lines like “He doesn’t like aliens”) and the show’s story moves forward in leaps and bounds. I love Bo-Katan, but it’s more like his show these days than Mando and Grogu’s, and I’m not sure it really works. maybe so The Mandalorian actually ended with season 2 and we had a new show called Bo Katan Or Mandalore or something, I wouldn’t be so bothered. Maybe The Mandalorians kinda aliens against Extraterrestrial.

I don’t know. It’s really weird for me.

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Scattered thoughts:

• They really telegraphed the villain this episode, didn’t they? Helgait? His name sounds like HELL GATE! Plus, he shakes his fist against the clouds and yells at the kids to get off his lawn, basically.
• Absolutely no discussion of the ethics of using droid labor and what it means for this society when we come to the end of this episode. It’s like a star trek episode minus everything star trek so good.
• What was the purpose of the intro scene with forbidden lovers Quarren and Mon Calamari? Just to show that Ax and his people are mercenaries? It felt like it would go somewhere later in the episode, but it was just. . . doesn’t. Very strange.
• Knighting Grogu was really silly. Maybe that was meant to be silly? It made no sense. He did nothing to deserve it. She should have knighted Bo-Katan and Mando. I understand this might be a hint that Grogu will become a Jedi Knight/Mandalorian hybrid or something, but still. I didn’t like this scene. (Not as bad as Jaime dubbing Brienne, though, and what followed).
• They really increased the number of aliens in this show. . . may be too much. I love having cool aliens, but they’re everywhere now and they stop feeling so cool or interesting when they’re all over the place.

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