Episode Six of the Mandalorian came out this past Friday, and honestly, it was quite an entertaining watch. Despite a few misgivings and gripes I had with it, overall it remained a steadfast inclusion in the Mando's galactic misadventures. Let's get right into it!
Big celebrity names were attached onto this adventure, namely Bill Burr, who plays the duplicitous mercenary contractor Mayfield, and Clancy Brown, who plays a hulking red alien called Kurg. Together, along with a female Twi'lek assassin, they form an eccentric gang of bounty hunting adventurers that Mando joins in a quest to rescue an organization's informant from New Republic custody. Halfway into the episode however, the mercenaries betray Mando and shove him into a prison cell, while their droid unit on board the Razor Crest (Mando's ship) begins hunting Baby Yoda.
Overall, the episode bears a starry cast and solid plot. It's nothing groundbreaking like the first three episodes, but it's certainly an improvement from Episode Four's village raid battle. Consequently, it seems to faithfully engage in the formula of the Mandalorian going on small-scale missions to finance his escapades as he tries to escape the Bounty Guild's clutches. It's not exactly what I expected, in truth. More or less, I believed the Mandalorian would've been hunting down the source of Baby Yoda (The Child's) bounty, that being the Imperial Remnant officer seen in the show's beginning. Instead, a more Western-style adventure is displayed, with the Mandalorian taking up insignificant operations across the cosmos, such as defending a backwater farming community from barbaric raiders or helping an arrogant bounty hunter claim a score on a former terrorist. You'd think Mando would wisen up to possible betrayals after his Tatooinian encounter, but that's merely a nitpick at best.
The most glaring disappointment I had with the episode is lack of background information regarding the mysterious, caped character we saw at Episode Five's end. Many theorists have speculated on what the exact identity of this stranger was, from obvious choices such as Boba Fett to more outlandish, niche characters such as Cad Bane. The show seemed to lay the groundwork for an interesting antagonist to become the centerpiece of Mando's story and hunt him relentlessly, an arc which could've began in Episode Six. Considering there's only eight episodes this season, that means there's only two possible intervals left in which our mystery killer can intervene in Mando's story, whether positive or negative for Mando's story. Nevertheless, with this style of Western, disconnected episodes not contributing to an overarching storyline, it's likely this shadowy villain won't have a major role to play until Season Two is released, whenever far into the future that would be.
Overall, Episode Six is a solid inclusion in the Mando's story arc, but doesn't deliver on a few crucial plotpoints. 7/10