Category: Mandalorian, The

The “asset” proves to be a small green creature about the size of a child. When the Mandalorian discovers that IG-11’s commission involved terminating the creature, he destroys the droid and has to fight his way through other bounty hunters to secure his claim…only to discover that Jawas have raided his ship, leaving it unable to take off. With the help of Kuiil, the guide whose help he enlisted when he arrived on this planet, he strikes a bargain with the Jawas: they will return all of the parts stolen from his ship in exchange for “the Egg”…belonging to an enormous beast fully capable of dispatching even an armored Mandalorian. But just as the Mandalorian has been the “asset”‘s salvation, the tiny creature may yet prove to be his as well.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Rick Famuyiwa
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Nick Nolte (voice of Kuiil), Stephen Jackson Powers Jr. (Jawa Elder)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Mandalorian delivers the child to the small enclave of Imperial holdovers, but he is curious – and perhaps worried – about what will become of the creature. Even so much as asking is a violation of the code by which bounty hunters live. Rewarded with a fairly large quantity of Beskar steel, the Mandalorian has new armor fashioned for himself, though some of his fellow Mandalorians, tired of living in hiding, question his decision to accept work from Imperial loyalists. His concern for the child’s well being, bringing to the surface memories of his own tortured childhood on the run with his family until they could no longer shelter him, finally override his oath to the bounty hunter code, and he all but single-handedly wipes out the Imperial encampment to rescue the child. The price for the Mandalorian’s compassion: he is now not the hunter, but the hunted, and his survival depends on whether or not the other Mandalorians will cover his escape.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Deborah Chow
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Werner Herzog (The Client), Omid Abtahi (Dr. Pershing), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Emily Swallow (Armorer)

Notes: The Mandalorian scoffs at the suggestion that he could travel to the Core worlds to alert the New Republic to report the Imperial activity – he regards the reconstituted Republic as “a joke”. Given that the child is clearly a member of the same as-yet unidentified species as Yoda, it’s possible that the “necessary material” Dr. Pershing is attempting to extract for his client could be those pesky Force-enabling, fandom-enraging midichlorians that have gone unmentioned since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (That movie also contained glimpses of the only other adult member of Yoda’s species seen to date, a Jedi Master named Yaddle.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

On the run from just about every bounty hunter and Imperial remnant in the business, the Mandalorian brings the newly liberated child to the backwater planet Sorgan, an agrarian planet far from interplanetary trade lanes. At the nearest local watering hole, a customer worries him: someone who’s clearly equipped for a fight, which he promptly gives her when she tries to get the jump on him. She is an ex-Rebel named Cara Dune whose services have been less in demand since the fall of the Empire. When the locals try to hire the Mandalorian to take care of a problem they’re having with raiders, he takes the meager amount of money offered and uses it to hire Cara to help him deal with the problem. But when they discover that the raiders have a leftover (but fully functional) Imperial Walker at their disposal, the job is suddenly much more dangerous than they bargained for – and it now entails the Mandalorian using his personal arsenal to arm an entire village against an enemy with significant technological superiority.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Bryce Dallas Howard
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Julia Jones (Omera), Isla Farris (Winta), Asif Ali (Caben), Eugene Cordero (Stoke), Tiffany Thomas (Sorgan Farmer #3), Aydrea Walden (Sorgan Farmer #4), Trula Marcus (Sorgan Farmer #5), Sala Baker (Klatoonian Raider Captain), Ida Darvish (Common House Proprietor)

Notes: The furry creature that menaces the child in the opening scenes is a Loth-cat, a species native to the planet Lothal, the setting for much of the animated series Star Wars: Rebels. This is the first time a Loth-cat has been rendered as a “photo-real” (but still very recognizable) creature.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Razor Crest comes out the worse for wear in a dogfight with another bounty hunter, forcing the Mandalorian down on the planet Tatooine’s infamous Mos Eisley spaceport with barely enough Imperial credits on him to rent a hangar, let alone cover the needed repairs. The Mandalorian looks for work in the local cantina, finding only a rookie bounty hunter named Toro Calican on his first job. The problem is that he’s chosen as his first quarry a skilled assassin named Fennec Shand, not an easy target for an inexperienced hunter. With the Mandalorian’s help – and the promise that the Mandalorian can keep the money while Calican gets the reputation points for the catch – they find and capture Shand, but not before she has destroyed one of their speeder bikes, forcing the Mandalorian to go and find another means of transporting Shand back to Mos Eisley. In his absence, Shand tells Calican about the Mandalorian’s own reputation – and the fact that he’s on the run from the Guild, and therefore a far more valuable target than she is. Blind ambition inspires an unwise decision that nevertheless puts the child traveling with the Mandalorian in great danger.

written by Dave Filoni
directed by Dave Filoni
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Jake Cannavale (Toro Calican), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand), Rio Hackford (Riot Mar), Troy Kotsur (Tusken Raider Scout #1), Steve Jay Blum (Spaceport Operator)

Notes: Time – and possibly Luke’s destruction of Jabba’s criminal empire in Return Of The Jedi – haven’t been particularly kind to Tatooine, and the Bounty Hunters’ Guild no longer even operates from there. Rusty pit droids dating back to the days of the Republic are still in common use, as are reprogrammed K-2 Imperial droids (K-2SO, seen in Rogue One, was something of a trailblazer in that respect – or maybe that model’s just easily hacked). Toro Calican thinks he’s worthy of holding down Han Solo’s old seat at the Mos Eisley Cantina (a booth where, it has to be said, there’s no evidence of Greedo getting a single shot off, maclunkey or otherwise). Tusken Raiders can apparently be negotiated with if you know their form of sign language (and have something of value to trade), and the Mandalorian acknowledges that the Tuskens are Tatooine’s indigenous life form, and not the vermin that many humanoids take them to be.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Mandalorian accepts a job from an old associate who needs another associate broken out of a maximum security New Republic prison transport – not exactly the low-profile kind of job that the Mandalorian is seeking, but the only one available to him. Worse yet, his employer hand-picks a team of thuggish mercenaries to do the job – the Mandalorian is expected only to provide the use of his ship and extra trigger fingers. But once this disjointed team is aboard the prison transport, they face more resistance than expected – along with a pilot (on a ship they were told would be staffed entirely by droids) who activates an emergency homing beacon as he is killed, summoning a New Republic X-Wing strike team to its location. And once the prisoner is sprung, the team decides that the Mandalorian is disposable.

teleplay by Christopher Yost and Rick Famuyiwa
story by Christopher Yost
directed by Rick Famuyiwa
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Mark Boone Jr. (Ran), Bill Burr (Mayfeld), Natalia Tena (Xi’an), Clancy Brown (Burg), Richard Ayoade (Zero), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Ismael Cruz Cordova (Qin), Matt Lanter (New Republic Soldier), Dave Filoni (Trooper Wolf), Rick Famuyiwa (Jib Dodger), Deborah Chow (Sash Ketter)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Greef Karga sends a message to the Mandalorian, revealing that the Imperial presence near the Guild’s home base on Nevarro has grown to an intolerable level, almost as if the planet is again under Imperial rule. Karga proposes using the child as bait to draw out the Imperials who wanted to dissect him, and then take out their leadership. The Mandalorian changes course, but not for Nevarro; first he returns to offer Cara Dune the job of backing him up. They then travel to the planet where the child was found, where the Mandalorian plans to make the same offer to Kuiil, only to discover that IG-11 is still operational – reprogrammed by Kuiil to be a servant. With Dune, Kuiil, IG-11, and Kuiil’s blurrgs aboard, the Razor Crest finally returns to Nevarro. En route to the city, the local fauna attacks, and Karga is seriously injured, but the child heals his injuries completely; this inspires Karga to take out what remains of his security detail and warn the Mandalorian that the plan was to lure him back to Nevarro, where the now sizeable Imperial regiment would kill him and take the child. The plan is altered accordingly, but it would seem that even the Imperial client who originally ordered the child’s capture is marked for death. Someone else is now calling the shots: Moff Gideon.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Deborah Chow
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Nick Nolte (voice of Kuiil), Taiki Waititi (voice of IG-11), Werner Herzog (The Client), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), Adam Pally (Bike Scout Trooper #2), Dave Reaves (Zabrak Fighter), Misty Rosas (Kuiil performance artist), Rio Hackford (IG-11 performance artist), Chris Bartlett (RA-7 Droid performance artist)

Notes: Death Troopers were established in Rogue One (2016), and appeared again in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels; they accompany only high-ranking officials such as Director Krennic or, in this case, Moff Gideon. Gideon’s TIE Fighter, though it looks much like a standard-issue Imperial fighter, demonstrates a previously unseen ability to fold up its wings and land; also seen for the first time in live action is an Imperial Troop Transporter, a vehicle that was introduced to the Star Wars universe not by a film or animated appearance, but by Kenner’s toy line from the original movie. (Naturally, Hasbro, Kenner’s successors to the Star Wars toy license, rolled out a new Imperial Troop Transport after its appearance in The Mandalorian. Odds are pretty good that they’re working on Gideon’s TIE Fighter too.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Returning from Mos Pelgo, the Mandalorian gets a sharp reminder that the Child is still a hot commodity among other bounty hunters, and though they both survive the encounter, it leaves the Mandalorian on foot for the long trek back to Mos Eisley. When he arrives, Peli Motto has more work lined up for him, though he’s annoyed to find that it’s basically a taxi run for the Razor Crest. The passenger is a frog-like woman carrying the last of her eggs back to her home planet to be fertilized. But the Child sees the container of eggs as one big snack bowl – and the New Republic X-Wings that pull up alongside the Razor Crest see it as a possible security risk as they sweep the galaxy for remnants of the Empire.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Peyton Reed
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Misty Rosas (Frog Lady performance artist), Richard Ayoade (Zero), Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Captain Carson Teva), Dave Filoni (Trapper Wolf), Dee Bradley Baker (Frog Lady voice performer)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Razor Crest arrives as the frog woman’s home world of Trask, but due to the damage it took on the ice planet, its landing at the local spaceport is less than elegant, and much of what the Mandalorian earns from ferrying the frog woman home will have to be spent on repairs. As a water planet, Trask also has healthy populations of Mon Calamari and Quarren, and while treating the Child to lunch, the Mandalorian resumes his search for others of his kind. A Quarren offers to take the Mandalorian to a Mandalorian covert on Trask, but the journey can only be made by sea – and naturally, it’s a trap, but one that is thwarted by other Mandalorians. When the leader of his rescuers removes her helmet, it offends him, until she explains that the ancient Mandalorian custom of never removing one’s helmet is considered a throwback observed only by a particularly zealous religious order of Mandalorians. The female Mandalorian, Bo Katan, is leading a few of her kind in an effort to overcome Imperial interference on Mandalore itself, and she seeks help in preventing an Imperial ship carrying weapons from taking off. But for all of Bo Katan’s claims that he’s a zealot, the Mandalorian discovers that she is just as driven to locate something of hers that was taken by a particular Imperial officer.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Bryce Dallas Howard
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto), Misty Rosas (Frog Lady performance artist), Mercedes Varnado (Koska Reeves), Katee Sackhoff (Bo-Katan Kryze), Simon Kassianides (Axe Woves), Titus Welliver (Imperial Captain), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), John Cameron (Frog Man performance artist), Norwood Cheek (Mon Calamari Server), Kevin Dorff (Deck Officer), Alexander Wraith (Freighter Pilot), Philip Alexander (Security Officer)

Notes: Bo-Katan – voiced by Battlestar Galactica veteran Katee Sackhoff and played by her in live action for the first time here – was last seen, Darksaber in hand, in the Star Wars: Rebels episode Heroes Of Mandalore Part 2 (2017). She gives the Mandalorian a lead on where to find Ahsoka Tano, also last seen in Rebels (albeit in its final episode).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Unable to remain in hyperspace due to the less-than-reliable repairs to the Razor Crest, the Mandalorian is forced to postpone his mission and limp to Nevarro, where he hopes Greef Karga is feeling generous enough to foot the Crest’s repair bill. He finds Nevarro a changed planet: the Child is left at a school full of children, while Karga and Cara Dune (now Karga’s marshal) enlist the Mandalorian’s help to dismantle a presumably abandoned Imperial base on the other side of the planet. They succeed in setting the base’s reactor to overload, but as they try to make their way out of the base, they stumble upon a lab – and evidence that its experiments will require the recapture of the Child. The base turns out to be anything but abandoned…and the Empire remains anything but defeated.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Carl Weathers
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Horatio Sanz (Mythrol), Omid Abtahi (Dr. Pershing), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), Ryan Powers (Alien Worker), Daniel Negrete (School Kid), Morgan Benoit (Imperial Security Officer), Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Captain Carson Teva), Katy O’Brian (Comms Officer), Kathryn Elise Drexler (Teacher Droid voice), Chris Bartlett (Teacher Droid performer)

Notes: Mythrol has clearly never watched a single Star Wars movie in his life, since he’s surprised to find no guard rails around the reactor controls. Some of the cadaverous creatures in the Imperial lab bear a slight resemblance to Supreme Leader Snoke, which raises the possibility that the Child will be captured in the future, leading to the rise of Snoke in the sequel trilogy.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Finally following Bo-Katan’s lead on the whereabouts of a Jedi named Ahsoka Tano, the Mandalorian lands the Razor Crest and begins searching for Ahsoka. When he visits a fortified city, the Mandalorian is asked to help with a problem – namely, killing a Jedi who seems to have a grudge against the local magistrate. With the Child in tow, the Mandalorian sets out and finds Ahsoka, who reveals the Child’s name to him as well as his origins. But Ahsoka senses that a strong attachment has developed between the two, and that attachment makes the Child ill-suited for training in the Force, according to the Jedi code. Ahsoka does want the Mandalorian’s help, though – she has a question to ask of the local magistrate, who has enlisted an entire army to prevent Ahsoka from getting close enough to demand an answer.

written by Dave Filoni
directed by Dave Filoni
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Michael Biehn (Lang), Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano), Diana Lee Inosanto (Morgan Elsbeth), James Croak (Prisoner), Dylan Alvarado (Village Boy), Mai Brunelle (Village Girl), Wing Tao Chao (Governor Wing), Clark Schierle (Villager)

Notes: Grogu – the Child – was a youngling during the waning days of the Old Republic, trained in the ways of the Force, but was taken from the Jedi Temple by an unknown party prior to Anakin Skywalker’s slaughter of the younglings. Grogu is the only other member of Yoda’s species to have been encountered by Ahsoka, which would imply that Jedi Master Yaddle (Star Wars Episode I, 1999) died before Ahsoka joined the Jedi order as Anakin’s padawan (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, 2008). The fact that Ahsoka is still looking for Thrawn may be related to the search for Ezra Bridger (upon which she was seen embarking in the series finale of Star Wars: Rebels). This is the first appearance of Ahsoka in live action, but not the last, as a live action spinoff was announced near the end of The Mandalorian’s second season.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

As instructed by Ahsoka, the Mandalorian takes Grogu to the seeing stone remaining in the ruins of a Jedi temple, where his connection to the Force may attract other Jedi who can train him. As Grogu communes with the Force, however, a ship lands nearby. The Mandalorian investigates, meeting a man claiming to be Boba Fett, and demanding the armor recovered by the Mandalorian on Tatooine, which he says belonged to him and his father before him. Fett has also enlisted the help of bounty hunter Fennec Shand, whose life he saved on Tatooine, and pledges both of their help in protecting Grogu in exchange for the armor. But the arrival of squadrons of Imperial stormtroopers prevents any further negotiations. Fett and Shand make good on their promise to protect Grogu, but Moff Gideon, commanding an Imperial cruiser overhead, sends Darktroopers to retrieve Grogu, and destroys the Razor Crest with a single well-placed shot to prevent the Mandalorian from following him. Since Grogu is still not safe, Fett and Shand still plan to honor their pledge to help the Mandalorian retrieve him.

written by Jon Favreau
directed by Robert Rodriguez
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Temuera Morrison (Boba Fett), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Gabriel Ebert (Gunnery Officer), Katy O’Brian (Comms Officer)

Notes: Boba Fett offers no explanation as to how he survived the Sarlacc on the planet Tatooine (Return Of The Jedi, 1983), so fans attached to the explanations in prior novels and comics can rest easy because nothing here explicitly contradicts those tellings of events. Another piece of legacy Star Wars media that remains intact is the LucasArts video game Star Wars: Dark Forces, which originated the Darktroopers in 1995 and inspired a series of audio dramas a few years later. Fennec Shand first appeared in season one’s The Gunslinger.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The Mandalorian enlists Cara Dune’s help to spring Mayfeld from a New Republic penal work camp, as Mayfeld’s knowledge of Imperial clearance codes is recent enough that he may be able to help find Moff Gideon’s cruiser. Cara Dune, Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are in on the operation as well, but it involves getting Mayfeld into a heavily guarded Imperial mining facility…and then being ready to move at a moment’s notice in case Mayfeld and the Mandalorian have to shoot their way out rather than making a quieter exit from the base. But once Mayfeld spots the Imperial officer who made him want to leave the Empire, the chances of a quieter exit – and of escaping intact – drop dangerously.

written by Rick Famuyiwa
directed by Rick Famuyiwa
music by Ludwig Goransson

Cast: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Bill Burr (Mayfeld), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Temuera Morrison (Boba Fett), Ming-Na Wen (Fennec Shand), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon), Donald Mills (Security Droid), Gabriel Ebert (Gunnery Officer), Miguel A. Lopez (Juggernaut Pilot), Barry Lowin (Shoretrooper), Katy O’Brian (Comms Officer), Richard Brake (Valin Hess), Taeho de Vitto (Village Kid)

LogBook entry by Earl Green