The Mandalorian: Chapter 6 (The Prisoner) Review - Return to Form
Initial Air Date: December 13th, 2019
Directed by: Rick Famuyiwa
**The episode reviews will contain no major spoilers, but be warned that I will be dropping little plot details and moments throughout the review. You have been warned.**
The Review
If a show is going to go for a concept, it needs to go all in. It has no time to waste, especially because the audience members can click off the show whenever they so desire. And while I may not necessarily completely enjoy the idea of an episodic serial, where Mando and Baby Yoda jump from planet to planet doing little side-quests, if you're going to do it, THIS is how you do it.
"The Prisoner" is the kind of Star Wars that I expected from a show like The Mandalorian. The episode sees Mando meeting up with an old comrade. You feel that same kind of tension right away simply because you know you're in a room full of people that cannot be trusted. That's what made previous episodes work so well. You can trust absolutely NO ONE.
This chapter takes that idea to the extreme. We see Mando with a group of people that he has no interest of working with. They're sent on a mission that sheds some very interesting light into the state of the galaxy after Return of the Jedi. This isn't fan service for the sake of it, like it was in last episode. Rather, the callbacks and revelation to Star Wars canon are relevant and shed light on some important aspects of the galaxy far, far away.
The supporting in this episode is interesting. At some points in the episode, they feel very Star Trek-y. By that, I mean that they feel like humans were essentially given prosthetics and told to act like aliens (or not given any prosthetics as the case may be). And that was extremely distracting. At other times, they act EXACTLY how I thought aliens in the Star Wars galaxy should.
And as soon as the main heist ensues, the show takes off. It has some of the most visceral action of anything Star Wars EVER. There are some brutal actions scenes and decisions that our hero and his accomplices have to make that left me shocked.
This episode also uses Baby Yoda in the best way possible; he is left on the ship with one of the members of the crew. The crew are suspicious of the little creature, and a very interesting game of cat-and-mouse ensues underneath all the action. Famuyiwa, an expert director, knows exactly how to intertwine the two to where they both come to a head at the exact moment.
And to top all of that off, there is a rather brilliant action that Mando takes at the end of the episode that felt extremely fitting and satisfying. Again, is this episode moving the overall narrative forward? Absolutely not. But if it's not going to, then the quality of episode needs to be at this caliber. This episode is hands-down my favorite of the 6 thus far, and my interest and excitement in the series has been reinvigorated.
"The Prisoner" is the kind of Star Wars that I expected from a show like The Mandalorian. The episode sees Mando meeting up with an old comrade. You feel that same kind of tension right away simply because you know you're in a room full of people that cannot be trusted. That's what made previous episodes work so well. You can trust absolutely NO ONE.
This chapter takes that idea to the extreme. We see Mando with a group of people that he has no interest of working with. They're sent on a mission that sheds some very interesting light into the state of the galaxy after Return of the Jedi. This isn't fan service for the sake of it, like it was in last episode. Rather, the callbacks and revelation to Star Wars canon are relevant and shed light on some important aspects of the galaxy far, far away.
The supporting in this episode is interesting. At some points in the episode, they feel very Star Trek-y. By that, I mean that they feel like humans were essentially given prosthetics and told to act like aliens (or not given any prosthetics as the case may be). And that was extremely distracting. At other times, they act EXACTLY how I thought aliens in the Star Wars galaxy should.
And as soon as the main heist ensues, the show takes off. It has some of the most visceral action of anything Star Wars EVER. There are some brutal actions scenes and decisions that our hero and his accomplices have to make that left me shocked.
This episode also uses Baby Yoda in the best way possible; he is left on the ship with one of the members of the crew. The crew are suspicious of the little creature, and a very interesting game of cat-and-mouse ensues underneath all the action. Famuyiwa, an expert director, knows exactly how to intertwine the two to where they both come to a head at the exact moment.
And to top all of that off, there is a rather brilliant action that Mando takes at the end of the episode that felt extremely fitting and satisfying. Again, is this episode moving the overall narrative forward? Absolutely not. But if it's not going to, then the quality of episode needs to be at this caliber. This episode is hands-down my favorite of the 6 thus far, and my interest and excitement in the series has been reinvigorated.
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