The Mandalorian season 1, episode 7 review – Chapter Seven: The Reckoning

“The kid will never be safe until the Imp is dead.” Spoilers for The Mandalorian season 1, episode 7 follow.

After receiving a message from Greef Karga regarding the child, the Mandalorian is given a new proposition. He can either be on the run and in exile forever or he can return to Nevarro and kill the Imperial who has set his sights on the child.

Deciding to return, but lacking in trust, the Mandalorian recruits two people he’s met during his time with the child, Cara Dune and the Ugnaught named Kuiil.

Return to the guild

After several episodes of being on the run, it was time for the Mandalorian to face his pursuers head-on. In classic western tropes, he’s offered a deal to wipe the slate clean. This sets off a chain of events that have been building since the first episode of the season. Every episode has offered insight as to where the season has been heading, and it all culminates in this episode. It’s not the best episode of the season, but it’s one of the best.

There’s a lot of excellent tension built in this episode simply based on the lack of trust the Mandalorian has for Greef Karga. This is understandable as, the last time that they saw each other, they tried to kill each other. Even though they now seem to be on the same side, there’s still a lot of tension throughout, even after Karga is not able to go through with his relatively predictable plan of killing the Mandalorian. This predictable note comes after one of the most surprising things about the episode, which is the scene where the group is attacked by giant, poisonous winged creatures. This scene was genuinely shocking and carried over the horror aspects from the previous episode well. It’s also worldbuilding in such a way that feels very organic and doesn’t rely on exposition to take away the shock of the scene.

The most surprising thing about this episode, however, is when Moff Gideon arrives onto the scene and has his Death Trooper obliterate the Client and his stormtroopers to attempt to take out the Mandaloiran, Cara Dune, and Karga. It shouldn’t be all that shocking to see Imperials not care about their underlings, but there has never really been an up close and personal example of that beyond Darth Vader choking people. His appearance at the end of the episode really throws a wrench into every bit of planning the crew had done, and it set up the stakes incredibly well for the season finale.

Set-up and pay-off

One of the biggest criticisms of The Mandalorian so far has been the idea that the past three episodes have been “filler”. That criticism doesn’t really hold much weight when there’s no full context to the story being told as of yet though. However, telling a story such as The Mandalorian is something very new to Star Wars, and there’s a certain expectation for storytelling within this franchise that the series isn’t following. It’s allowing the audience to spend entire episodes with side characters in order for the audience to begin to care for them, which shows in this episode.

By establishing both Cara Dune and Kuiil in earlier episodes of the scenes, there’s an immediate sense of familiarity that comes with the Mandalorian building his crew. Because we’ve already spent time with these characters and have gotten to know them, there doesn’t need to exposition explaining who they are. That doesn’t stop the episode from having exposition regarding the rebuilding of IG-11 and going through explicit detail on droid physical therapy, but hey, at least it was more entertaining than most exposition.

This episode is a great example of why proper set-ups of characters need to exist within the framework of shows like this. It’s great to meet supporting characters, in what were essentially side missions, that have now become integral to the plot of this episode (and probably the series as a whole).

His powers grow

As for baby Yoda, he is the focal point of this episode but again, plays a smaller role than in some other installments. However, when he needs to show up, he shows up hard. His powers are growing, and he’s becoming more protective of his father figure, as well. He still has a couple of cute moments in this episode, but they are relegated to just those moments.

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First off, baby Yoda is able to Force choke Cara Dune, while she and the Mandalorian are arm wrestling. Thinking that his father is in trouble, he only thinks that he’s helping him. Other than the fact that he’s a bit protective, this act shows how powerful he’s becoming. Very few Force-users are shown to Force choke others, but baby Yoda does so because of his power of belief. The Force has almost always been about the power of belief, and baby Yoda exemplifies that in this episode with one other thing he does.

For the first time in Star Wars canon, a character is shown to be able to Force heal and that character is baby Yoda. It’s a genuinely surprising moment given that he was already shown to have a new Force ability, but it also doesn’t come out of left field. He attempted to do so all the way back in episode two when the Mandalorian was injured. It’s an excellent little piece of set-up that has some great pay-off.

The Mandalorian uses its penultimate episode of the season as a pay-off to the character set-up it has done throughout the season while also excellently setting up the season finale and the battle with Moff Gideon.