‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2, Episode 1 Recap And Review: ‘The Marshal’ Goes Full Wild West With Dragons

The Mandalorian is back in a very big way. The show’s longest, most lavishly blockbuster episode kicks off Season 2 with a bang. And a Krayt Dragon.

We’ve seen some aliens and monsters on this show before, but the Season 2 premiere’s beast was bigger and beastlier than anything else in Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back’s exogorth “space slug.” Thanks to the wonders of modern CGI, The Mandalorian’s monster was quite a lot better looking than that the giant worm that almost ate Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewie and C-3PO.

I watched this episode twice already and loved it both times. ‘The Marshal’ is another side-story episode. Rather than pick back up where we left off—with Moff Gideon emerging from his downed TIE Fighter with the help of the Darksaber—Friday’s episode took us on an adventure on Tatooine, where Mando is told he’ll find another Mandalorian who can help guide him to a Culvert where his people will be able to further help in his quest to find the Jedi.

He gleans this information off a shady one-eyed character named Gor Koresh (John Leguizamo), some sort of crime boss with knowledge of Mandalorians. It turns out he’s in the business of hunting Mandalorians down and killing them for their precious Beskar steel. After trying to get Mando to gamble his armor away, Koresh pulls his blaster out, kills one of the two Gamorreans fighting in the ring and turns the weapon on Mando. Several of his goons do the same.

Baby Yoda, sitting in his hover-cradle, quickly presses the button to close the lid. He knows things are about to get messy. It’s adorable.

Things do get messy. Koresh tells Mando that if he gives him the armor he’ll let him walk out alive. Mando tells him that if he gives him the information he’s after he won’t kill Koresh. “I thought you weren’t a gambling man,” Koresh replies. “I’m not,” Mando says, and fires off his “whistling birds.” The first goons are down and out, but others—the surviving Gamorrean, the Twi’lek doorman and some other fighter—rush in. Koresh, meanwhile, rushes out.

Naturally, Mando makes quick work of his opponents and catches up to the cyclops who he ropes in with his grapple and hangs upside down from a lamp post. Koresh pleads for his life and Mando promises that “you won’t die by my hand.” So Koresh tells him that there’s a Mandalorian on Tatooine. Mando says he’s spent a lot of time there and has never seen one of his people on the planet, but Koresh insists.

Then Mando walks away, leaving Koresh hanging. He shoots the light out casting Koresh into darkness. Fearsome, red-eyed creatures, previously kept away by the light, move in swiftly, growling. Koresh screams his last.

From here out we find ourselves on Tatooine. Mando lands in Mos Eisley where he briefly reunites with Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) who tells her mechanic droids to piss off until Mando says it’s fine, they can work on his ship. “Oh so you like droids now?” she quips. And it’s true. Ever since IG-11 won Mando’s affection and respect in the Season 1 finale—before his tragic demise.

MORE FROM FORBESCheck Out This ‘Mandalorian’ Season 1 Recap Before You Watch Season 2By Erik Kain

Peli Motto helps Mando find the city he’s looking for: Mos Pelgo. It’s not on the maps and was apparently wiped out by bandits.

This is not the case, or at least not quite. We learn that Mos Pelgo has a storied past. It’s been raided by Sand People (Tusken Raiders) and was, at one point, taken over by the Mining Collective, its citizens enslaved until they were rescued by Cobb Vanth.

Vanth is the titular character of the episode: The Marshal. When we first see him he’s wearing Boba Fett’s old armor:

There’s a moment when you think, “Holy crap that’s Boba Fett,” but you’re disabused of this notion rather quickly. He’s clearly dressed differently than Fett ever was, for one thing. But it was the voice that’s the dead giveaway. I knew right away it was Timothy Olyphant.

Could they have cast a better marshal in this role? I don’t think so. Olyphant played U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in the excellent show Justified (which you should watch if you haven’t yet). He also played Seth Bullock in HBO’s Deadwood. He’s a sheriff in that show, but Bullock was a marshal in Montana prior to moving to Deadwood.

Suffice to say, Olyphant has played a few marshals. It’s fun to see him in this role, especially given how Wild West The Mandalorian goes. It’s always been a Western, but this episode takes it up a notch or ten.

Mando meets the marshal dressed in full Mandalorian gear. But when he sits down, the marshal takes his helmet off and you can (somehow) see the shock register on Mando’s “face.” Shock turns to anger pretty quickly. He tells Vanth to give him the armor or else. A normal person might be afraid at this point, but Vanth is anything but. He doesn’t flinch.

“Oh we’re doing this?” he says, his hand going to his hip where his blaster is holstered.

That’s when he points out The Child. The little guy is hanging out over by yonder spittoon, just exploring. “We gonna do this in front of the kid?” he asks.

“He’s see worse,” Mando replies. They’re both cool as cucumbers, but if it had come right down to it, Vanth would be toast.

Fortunately, the standoff is averted when the ground starts shaking. Vanth heads outside and Mando follows.

Something is coming. Something big. It rumbles through town, pushing through the sand just under the surface. The small town shakes. Things fall over. Then we see a lone bantha just chilling near the edge of town and we know, the poor woolly guy isn’t long for this world.

Moments later a huge creature emerges from the sand, its massive jaws agape, and swallows the bantha whole. The beast is so vast it can swallow a bantha whole—and banthas aren’t small by any means.

This new threat, we learn, is a Krayt Dragon. It’s been terrorizing Mos Pelgo for as long as anyone can remember. Vanth has an idea.

He tells Mando that he’s been able to protect his town and his people with the help of the armor, but he can’t take out the dragon. If Mando will help him kill the beast, he’ll happily hand over his armor without a fight. Everybody wins. Naturally, Mando agrees.

What follows is quite the rollicking adventure and by far the most magnificent CGI creature in Star Wars history.

Mando and Vanth head off to its lair—an abandoned Sarlacc pit. “Sarlacc pits are never abandoned,” Mando says. Turns out the Krayt Dragon killed the Sarlacc and took his pit. Holy crap.

On their way to the lair they encounter Tusken Raiders and their weird, uh, dogs. These are actually called Massifs, and they seem really threatening at first until Mando starts talking to them in a weird guttural language. They warm to him immediately and one comes up to have its head scratched. Ferocious to cute in five seconds.

Vanth is obviously confused, but confusion turns into hostility when the Sand People emerge. Mando, we discover, speaks Tusken fluently, and he eases tensions and tells Vanth that the Tuskens want the Krayt Dragon dead also, and are willing to help. The Marshal isn’t thrilled with the idea, but realizes they’re going to need all the help they can get.

They camp with the Sand People that night and Vanth and one of their hosts almost come to blows when he won’t drink their weird spore juice. Mando stops the fight and tells them all to behave.

It turns out that even between the two of them and the Tusken Raiders, they still don’t have enough firepower to take on the Krayt Dragon. It’s simply too massive. They’re going to need help, and Mando offers the services of the Mos Pelgo citizenry.

Vanth says they won’t like that but agrees to try to convince them. So they head back to Mos Pelgo and do just that. The townsfolk aren’t happy about it, but everyone realizes that it’s necessary. The Krayt Dragon could swallow their entire town for breakfast. They’re lucky to still be alive. Besides, this is a chance to make peace with the Tusken Raiders.

Tensions are high when the Sand People show up and start helping to load explosives on their banthas. When one accidentally drops an explosive canister, one of the Mos Pelgo men starts yelling at him. This time it’s Vanth who steps in to keep the peace. “It was an accident,” he tells him.

They head back to the dragon’s lair and coax it out of the pit. They have a whole set up. Giant ballistae that actually make sense for this type of grounded dragon. Not like the stupid, ridiculous ballistae in the final season of Game Of Thrones that could take out flying dragons with startling accuracy. God, just thinking about it makes me want to punch something.

Besides, the Krayt Dragon is just way cooler than the dragons in Game of Thrones. It certainly doesn’t go down without a fight.

The plan is to coax it far enough out of its lair to set off a bunch of explosives they’ve buried in the ground. The belly is the only point weak enough to do any real damage, the Sand People tell Mando. Turns out, not even a massive belly explosion does the trick.

The Krayt Dragon doesn’t breathe fire, but it does spray deadly acid out of its gargantuan mouth. As the Sand People and citizens taunt the beast to bring it out from its lair using whatever ordinance they have—blasters, grenades, etc.—it starts spraying, taking out a bunch of fighters in the process. When the blast goes off, the monster disappears underground, but it’s not dead. Far from it.

Moments later it emerges at the top of the mountain above its lair, roaring and spraying acid down on its enemies. Mando and Vanth jetpack up to get a closer look. But shooting the creature with blasters only annoys it, and they retreat just in time to avoid being swallowed whole.

Nothing’s working, and all seems lost. But Mando comes up with a plan. He has to get the Krayt Dragon to eat him and a bantha loaded up with explosives. Once he’s swallowed, the creature disappears underground. When it reemerges, Mando shocks the creature (with what almost looks like Sith lightning) and flies out of his mouth backwards. He aims his blaster and shoots the explosives on the bantha.

Boom.

The Krayt Dragon is slayed and there is much rejoicing. In their deal with Mos Pelgo, the Tuskens laid claim to the Krayt Dragon and its ichor. This includes the Krayt Dragon Pearl—a massive stone that looks just like a real (and really big) pearl. Apparently they role around in the Krayt Dragon’s stomach to help them digest food. They’re worth a small fortune.

Mando takes some of the meat from the beast and says his farewells. Vanth tells him that he hopes their paths cross again someday. I hope so, too.

The final scene is the “big reveal.” We see a bald hermit of sorts standing in the desert watching Mando speed away. This is Temuera Morrison, the actor who played Jango Fett in the prequel films. He’s credited as Boba Fett in The Mandalorian (at least according to IMDB), which would mean Fett survived the Sarlacc pit somehow and has been living in secret ever since. He’s given up his Beskar steel and his life as a Mandalorian along with it. There’s mystery there and I’m sure we’ll learn more as the show unfolds.

Verdict

I loved this episode. Then again, I’m a fan of how this show blends procedural and serial storytelling. It reminds me of The X-Files a bit. Some episodes are “monster of the week” style single adventures where Mando and Baby Yoda help out a village or a criminal or hunt someone down. Others follow the larger plot, with Moff Gideon and his search for the Child.

A lot of people were probably expecting the Season 2 premiere (written and directed by Jon Favreau) to be more of the latter, but it was the former instead. We didn’t learn anything new about Moff Gideon or the big picture stuff, and spent the whole time on Tatooine slaying dragons instead. I have no complaints. Olyphant’s character was great. Tough, charming with an interesting backstory (his character was already established in the Star Wars universe and the show mostly sticks to the same story).

The Krayt Dragon was simply stunning. The special effects on display here rival anything in the movies. Indeed, I’d say that everything from the CGI to the practical effects to the costuming rivals whatever we’ve seen in the movies.

‘The Marshal’ also manages to walk the tightwire between new and nostalgia quite well, blending new ideas with callbacks to the past. Clearly, heading (once again) to Tatooine is going to be nostalgic, but we go to Mos Pelgo instead of Mos Eisley for the bulk of the story. We encounter Sand People in a wholly new way, as allies instead of enemies (or victims to a raging emo Jedi). The Krayt Dragon was completely unexpected and awesome and the entire episode from start to finish was exciting, funny and fun. When Baby Yoda emerges from his hiding spot in the spittoon I laughed out loud. It was really long for this show, clocking in at 54 minutes (with credits) but it never dragged, with a great mix of action and character building.

I’m looking forward to finding out more about Moff Gideon and the Darksaber and all of that, but I’m in no hurry. With The Mandalorian, as with life, it’s more about the journey than the destination.

What did you think of ‘The Marshal?’ Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.