Category: Season 1

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