The Mandalorian season 2, episode 4 review: The Siege

“What do I owe you?” “With the repairs, we’ll call it even.” Spoilers for The Mandalorian season 2, episode 4 follow.

After finally finding other Mandalorians to help him on his quest to find a Jedi, our titular hero is headed out into space to find the one and only Ahsoka Tano in the latest episode of Disney Plus‘ The Mandalorian season 2.

However, with his ship in dire need of repairs, he decides to head back to a safe place and into the arms of the few people he might be able to call friends, the planet of Nevarro.

Wrecked ships don’t fly

After hobbling away from the planet in the previous episode, it really seemed like this season was going to take the wrecked ship motif and just run with it for the rest of the season. Good or bad, this is simply what it felt like the choice was going to be. Luckily though, as quickly as it felt like the Razor Crest would be a limping piece of junk, there’s a reassurance this won’t be the case with Din’s decision to head back to Nevarro.

Before heading back to Nevarro though, there are some really solid character moments between Din and Baby Yoda. These moments are small, with one that possibly won’t even register with some viewers, but these two moments within the opening scenes of the episode enhance the episode greatly. A lot of the later character moments and humor fall flat, but these early scenes are great.

What are those scenes though? Well, the scene where Din is explaining in a very confusing manner to Baby Yoda as to which wire should be used to try and fix the ship, it’s a cute bonding experience that acts both as humor and a show of trust between the two. The fact that Din is even letting Baby Yoda try and help shows how much he cares and trusts the little guy, even if that trust doesn’t pay off successfully.

As for the other moment, it’s very quick and simple, but we get to see Din ever so slightly lift his helmet to eat while next Baby Yoda, which even catches Baby Yoda off-guard. It’s a nice little moment that leans into Din’s character growth.

Back to Nevarro

Once Din touches back down on Nevarro though, the Mandalorian really gets to see how much the place has changed see he was last there. That previously grungy, disgusting cesspool that was called a town on Nevarro is now thriving thanks to Greef Karga and Cara Dune’s influence upon the city. There’s peace and Cara protects the citizens as the Marshal of the town. And what’s even more surprising is that there’s a school with a full classroom. All of this is great, organic world-building that also helps emphasize how much time has past since the end of season 1 without explicitly giving a set timeframe.

But here’s the problem with landing back on Nevarro in this episode. Nearly every sincere character moment that comes after Din lands on Nevarro falls flat. The ideas are there within the script, but the directorial execution by Carl Weathers isn’t for the dramatic moments of the episode. There’s not enough time given to several moments throughout the episode that would allow the emotional beats to land with a lot of sincerity.

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This is mostly due to the pacing of the episode though. Weathers is intently focused on the action throughout the episode and, consequently, these are the best parts of the episode. However, because it’s clear that he likes those fast-paced scenes a lot more, the episode feels like it just breezes past character moments. It also doesn’t help that the humor in the back-half of the episode falls flat as most of it comes Horatio Sanz’ amphibian character who first appeared in the series premiere.

Taking down an Imperial base

Speaking of action though, the majority of this episode is focused on Din, Cara, and Karga taking down a nearby Imperial base. It’s a simple enough mission. There’s an Imperial skeleton crew running the base and it will be easy to just waltz in and blow it up. However, as with basically everything that The Mandalorian has to offer, the plan goes awry quite quickly.

Sure, they’re going up against Stormtroopers, whose aim continues to be atrocious, and they quickly overload the reactor, they discover something much more sinister going on in the facility. They find an attempt to clone Baby Yoda by the scientist that he was first delivered to back in season 1. Not a lot of time is spent on this revelation here, but it’s very clear that it’s set-up for down the road, especially given the final scene of the episode with Moff Gideon.

So, other than that reveal though, what was the impact of the assault on the base? Well, we get some great action and a great speeder chase for the climax of this episode, which is always nice to see. However, it comes at the expense of a pretty large chunk of the episode not featuring Din or Baby Yoda and their absence is noticeable. Greef and Cara are solid supporting characters, but they cannot carry a show and that’s pretty clear in this episode.

Coming off one of the best episodes of the series so far, the latest episode of The Mandalorian season 2 falls a bit flat, but contains enough fun action and set-up to be an enjoyable watch.

What did you think of The Mandalorian season 2, episode 4? Have you been enjoying The Mandalorian season 2? Let us know in the comments below!