The latest chapter of The Mandalorian brought us back to a familiar place. It was full of plenty of fan service but here are three big moments.
If you are a Star Wars fans, everything about The Mandalorian Chapter 5 evokes emotions from the first time you ever watched A New Hope.
You can’t help but pause when hear the line from an operator on the incoming planet.
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I even had to rewind to make sure I heard correctly.
“Mos Eisley Tower.”
As soon as the operator said those words, I knew we were in for a fun adventure in the episode dubbed The Gunslinger. Here are three big moments that happened within that 30-plus-minute episode.
Tatooine
It’s home!
The Gunslinger brings us back to where it all started for Star Wars. While the Mandalorian is in a space dogfight, he suffers damage to his ship and is in need of repairs. He heads to the closest planet, which just happens to be Tatooine.
It had everything we remember from that dusty planet with pit droids, Mos Eisley cantina, a cocky scoundrel with his feet up on a table, Tusken Raiders and so much more.
What’s fun about bringing us back to Tatooine is that it’s a planet that Star Wars fans are very familiar with, but managed to use it in a different way. There were obviously a bazillion call backs of Star Wars moments over the years, including a high ground reference, but it never felt forced. Just fun.
It the kind of thing that if you had never seen any of the Star Wars movies, you wouldn’t have even realized some of these were past Star Wars references as Dave Filoni (the writer of the episode) worked them in seamlessly.
Nevarro
When the Mandalorian and Toro Calican catch up to Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), she mentioned a planet Nevarro, which we haven’t heard about yet.
It turns out this is the planet the Bounty Hunter Guild was on and the same one where the Mandalorian creates a huge mess after rescuing Baby Yoda.
This scene is important because it shows that the galaxy at large has seemingly heard about Mando’s run-in with the guild at the planet. While we knew other bounty hunters where looking for him, it could have still seemed like it was still just the tight-knit group of the guild that were on the hunt for Mando and the baby.
Nope. Others around the galaxy have heard. Many probably don’t care enough to do anything about it until it suits them.
In the case of Fennec, she used it as a way to manipulate the young, aspiring bounty hunter to sets his sights on someone other than herself.
It worked too well.
Though it makes you wonder if the story of the Mandalorian is working its way through the galaxy, there is going to come a point where he will have to stop running because there will be nowhere left to hide.
That moment may come three episodes from now in the season finale.
The last scene
I was a little sad when Fennec Shand was seemingly killed, I was hoping for more from Ming-Na Wen. I kept expecting her to get up when they showed her laying on the ground.
Then, the final scene occurred when Mando and Baby Yoda were off on their next adventure.
All we saw were a pair of boots with what sounded like spurs walking along the Tatooine dessert. The boots with the cape flapping behind them stopped at Fennec Shand. That’s when the episode ended.
This could mean a few things. First, perhaps this unknown character will save Fennec. Maybe she’s not dead just terribly wounded and still has a chance to live.
However, more likely is that this mysterious person is on the trail of the Mandalorian and has followed it this far seeing the destruction Mando has caused in his wake. While other bounty hunters have come close to Mando, this one could be working slowly and methodically, tracking where Mando has been to understand where he is going.
I also wondered if this character was actually The Gunslinger mentioned in the title of the episode and just maybe it didn’t refer to the Mandalorian.
While the episode didn’t drive the plot forward so much, it did provide a lot of fun and also some new questions.
Stream The Mandalorian Chapter 5 on Disney+.