Chapter 9 of The Mandalorian is a good episode, but it's a poor way to open the season, and of the two season premieres we've had so far, Chapter 1 was the superior effort. It was written and directed by Jon Favreau, but it felt more like one of those smaller, middle of the season episodes rather than a season opener. I don't know if that's because I was expecting something bigger for the first episode of the season, or if Favreau intentionally gave us this smaller episode in order to prepare us for what's to come. Either way, it wasn't quite what I was expecting for an opening episode.
I have absolutely no knowledge of Cobb Vanth, aside from the fact that his first appearance was in Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, a novel from 2015, but I read that book once in early 2016, after I got it in hardcover for my birthday, and he was such an unmemorable character to me in that book that I don't remember a thing about him. I haven't read the rest of the Aftermath Trilogy, which is his only other appearance until now, so I don't know what happened to him until he told his story to Mando when they meet in this episode. He was an okay character in this episode, but I really didn't care that much about him, because there was really no reason for me to care about him.
However, and I can't stress this enough, the plot of the episode was pretty cool. I mean, yeah, we end up back on Tatooine for an episode again, but this is probably the most we've seen of the Sand People on screen. They show up in A New Hope, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but their appearances there are mainly just brief cameos before Luke or Anakin go off to do something else and so, outside of the Legends continuity we really don't know that much about the Tusken Raiders (alternate name for the Sand People) unless they appear in The Clone Wars or Rebels, which I haven't seen all of yet. So I thought that was really cool that we actually got to know them a little bit better here. I also loved that we got to see an actual Krayt Dragon for the first time on screen. One that's alive anyway since we saw the skeleton of one in A New Hope. Again, one probably showed up in one of the more recent animated shows, but I don't know since I haven't seen every season of any of them so far.
Once again I was blown away by how Mando handled the situation on Tatooine. He was ready to kick Cobb's ass over the salvaged Mandalorian armor that Cobb wore, and then the Krayt Dragon showed up and that was it, Mando was ready to work with Cobb to kill it. Which speaks to Mando's growth as a character, since last season there was no way he'd be willing to work with anyone for fear of someone discovering that he had Baby Yoda (the Child). This time, with the imminent threat against Baby Yoda taking care of seemingly with the defeat of Moff Gideon in Chapter 8, he's less concerned with hiding the Child or leaving him on the ship than he was during season 1. So that was cool.
So at the end of the episode as Mando and Baby Yoda ride back to their ship on the speeder bike, a figure stands on a cliff, watching them. The guy turns around and it's Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones and was the voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi since the 2004 DVD releases. People have been saying online that Morrison's playing Boba Fett, but since we only saw that brief glimpse of him in this episode, we don't know for sure. It would make sense since the Mandalorian armor that Vanth was wearing in this episode was Fett's armor, but it could just as easily be Captain Rex, one of the clone troopers from the animated shows, that Morrison is playing this season. It would tie into all the rumours of Rosario Dawson playing the live action version of Ahsoka Tano, and since Rex is a clone of Jango Fett, it would make sense for Morrison to play him in that sense too. It's just a theory I have and chances are pretty good that he is playing Boba Fett. I guess we'll find out in next week's episode.
Two little Easter Eggs were in this episode. The first was the return of Amy Sedaris's character, Peli Motto, the docking bay master from season 1, with her Pit Droid crew, which bear a strong resemblance to Ody Mandrell's pit crew during the podrace scene in The Phantom Menace. The second is another one from The Phantom Menace. Vanth is driving a speeder bike that's run from a single podracer engine pod. The engine looks exactly like one of the engines from Anakin's podracer in Episode I. I don't know if that was just something they had on hand, or if it was a new version built for this episode, but it was pretty cool to see. I'm sure there's probably some in universe reason for it too.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Despite it being a smaller episode, it was also a very good episode. There was lots to sink my teeth into with the Sand People and Mando's relationship with them, Vanth and how he got Boba Fett's armor, and who Temuera Morrison is playing, whether it's Boba Fett or Rex. I didn't have anything to say about the cold opening, just because it was just the scene from the season 2 teaser where a fight breaks out between Mando and some thugs and Baby Yoda closes his sphere, so nothing I wasn't expecting going into this episode. I'm going to give Chapter 9 of The Mandalorian 9/10 stars just because I thought Chapter 1, the pilot episode of the series was a better opening episode than this one is while this one just felt like a filler episode.
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