The Believer
Last week’s episode of The Mandalorian brought back one of my favorite characters, the mouthy sharpshooter named Mayfield. The character was teased in Chapter 14 and returned in all of his sharp tongued glory. In the episode, Din needs the coordinates to Moff Gideon’s ship where Grogu is being held captive. In order to get those coordinates, he needs access to an Imperial terminal. To get to the terminal, he needs Imperial credentials. That’s where Mayfield comes into the picture. As a former Imperial sniper, Mayfield can acquire the information that Din needs. Cara Dune, now a New Republic Marshall, gains the release of Mayfield from the Karthon Chop Fields where he is serving his sentence. Along with Fennec Shand and Boba Fett, the group go to a rhydonium refinery on Morak in order to access an Imperial terminal. A train caper follows when Mayfield and Din commandeer a rhydonium transport in order to get into the refinery but end up biting off more than they can chew. Do they survive? Will Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune be able to help them? You’ll have to watch the episode in order to find out.
This was an excellent episode. The train caper was fun and reminded me of every old fashioned train fight that you see in classic western films. There are also hints of Speed (1994) in the scene as the transport can’t go too fast or it will trigger the rhydonium and destroy Mayfield, Din, and anybody else in the vicinity. The episode also shows how terrible things were under the New Republic. Sure, things were improving, but the world after the fall of the Empire was still in the early recovery stages and it was ripe for picking by Imperial sympathizers and hangers on. Bill Burr’s Mayfield gives an excellent explanation of how things aren’t necessarily better under the New Republic and an old acquaintance that he runs into later in the episode reveals just how easily the Empire can return to its glory.
Director Rick Famuyiwa, who has directed two other episodes in the series so far, kept things interesting while still expanding the story as a whole. Both Mayfield and Din are given more depth, especially Mayfield, and Famuyiwa uses the camera perfectly while shooting the interactions between the main characters and others. This was a solid episode and definitely worth watching.
Spoilers Below!!!!!
Bill Burr was amazing in this episode. He went from a likeable jerk to a true hero in a matter of minutes and by the end of the episode, Mayfield became possibly more respectable than even Din or Cara Dune (Gina Carano). Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), and Cara Dune didn’t factor heavily into this episode and stayed in the background while Pedro Pascal and Burr gave two of the best acting performances in the series so far.
The pirate sequence featuring the transport hijacked by Mayfield and the Mandalorian could have easily become boring, but it managed to stay interesting, surprisingly fresh, and oddly familiar all at the same time. Once the duo entered the refinery, Burr delivered a tour de force performance as he went from cool head to nervous wreck and then lethal killer. Richard Brake did a superb job as Valin Hess, Mayfield’s former commanding officer. He triggers Mayfield’s rage and suffers the consequences. I also loved the interaction between Din and Mayfield whenever the Mando removes his helmet. Mayfield’s show of respect by turning slightly away from Din spoke volumes!
It was also pretty cool to see Slave I firing a seismic charge. It brought back memories from the space battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Jango Fett with a young Boba (Daniel Logan) in tow in Attack of the Clones. I also enjoyed the blunt threat that Din delivered to Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) at the end of the episode. It promises a huge battle between those two and I can’t wait to see it.
Thanks for checking out my review. I’ll have another for the next episode on the next Friday! Let me know in the comments how you felt about this episode and what you hope to see in future installments of the show!
Ken's Alternate Universe! 