It wasn't the best episode in terms of directing. It had a few moments that had noticeable flaws and could have been done better (or at least that was my impression), but that's a minor thing for the rest of it. Because it was the best episode in terms of fanservice and Star Wars vibe since Return of the Jedi in 1983. No other trilogy or episode of "The Mandalorian" has the same concentration of Force in it as the episode entitled "The Jedi". It is also as long as S2E1 or not much shorter. Not that the storyline with Ahsoka Tano was extremely complex or demanding, but it wouldn't be cool if one of the most important episodes was around 30 minutes long. This is a standard we are used to since George Lucas released "A New Hope" - a simple and schematic plot that effectively combines well-known and liked patterns known in the cinema for decades, but has an attractive plot background. Lasers, aliens, princesses, honor, mystical elements, knights, etc.
Exactly, knights. Although it's a Star Wars series, we practically did not have Jedi or threads associated with them. The leader of our hero sometimes mentioned wizards, Grogu charmed with his hands a few times, the main enemy of our hero has Dark Saber and that's it. The creators of the series tried to use these known and liked elements as rarely as possible, until the last episode, which was a high concentration of Force, lightsabers and other elements inherent in the Jedi Order. As I have mentioned several times, I do not know Ahsoka Tano and most of the Expanded Universe. My knowledge of the "Star Wars" universe is mainly limited to three movie trilogies, old games and literally a few episodes of different series. It happened once by accident that I watched one of the episodes of "Rebels", "The Clone Wars", "Resistance" at some friend's place, but because of my ignorance of them, I was never able to tell them apart. Oh, familiar characters, alien races, glowing Jedi swords. I heard about Ahsoka mainly from my two friends, Karol and Mariusz. From talking to them, I knew she was Anakin Skywalker's apprentice, she fights with two swords, and I had minimal knowledge of her character and personality thanks to the YouTube links they sent me. Previously, I associated it only with pictures and dozens of comments from the English part of the Internet, when I was still actively interested in "Star Wars" and wanted to explore as much information as possible about the characters, history of this world, styles of sword fighting, etc. Generally useless knowledge, which will not be useful outside of talking to other fans or in some cases in our lives, but that's our quality of people - we like to explore fantastic worlds that are attractive to us. I had high expectations for this episode - I wanted to see a lot of good scenes with her participation, a lot of new information, the development of SW lore and of course the fights. I was not disappointed in any of the above cases. In fact, at one point I was seriously surprised. Even my girlfriend with whom I watched this episode started following all the action, not just the cute baby fragments. However, I will talk about it later.
The episode starts with a cool action where our Jedi knight massacres some survivors of the Empire (at least that's what Ahsoka tells me who he's looking for here). As in "Star Wars", knights can easily massacre single units. She creeps quickly and silently, then kills them with his sword. A few hours later, our bounty hunter arrives on the planet, gets a very difficult quest with a high reward, and starts looking for it. In a fairly short time he meets her and a fight ensues. It looks more or less as I imagined it several times in the last two weeks - it massacres our hero without any problems, does not do much about his tricks, which impress mainly on much weaker opponents. It is true that Beskaru cannot be cut with Lightsaber, but the Jedi are not stormtroopers and other, not very intelligent soldiers who cannot target body parts not protected by this mineral. They talk to each other, test Baba Yoda's abilities, we finally get to know his name (by the way, he moves cute when you mention it). During the conversation, some fan speculations regarding the sense of mentioning the Midichlorians and the role of Grog were confirmed - microscopic life forms are perceived from the side of science, and Baba Yoda's qualities are important to the Empire. We also get references to the Clone Wars, the massacre in the Jedi temple. We haven't got an explanation of what Ahsoka did in the new trilogy, but that doesn't bother me due to the multitude of good things we got in episode five. The Jedi did not ultimately adopt the little creature, but it did provide vital advice for the Mandalorian. I bet there is an action-packed episode ahead when Moff Gideon and his troops arrive on this planet. I also hope to see Ahsoka in him again, who has a feeling that they are in danger or something like that. It would be nice if Moff was followed by the Mandalorians we met on this water planet.
The final fight was spectacular - Ahsoka fights with a representative of the Empire. She probably used a fighting style that I did not recognize due to my ignorance of the universe, but knowing the life and diligence of creators in such matters, fans are definitely now discussing it, comparing screens and delighting on internet forums. Regarding the element of surprise I mentioned a few paragraphs above, I was surprised to mention the High Emperor Thrawn. So far, I have heard about him mainly in the context of the Expanded Universe, and I am glad that for the first time (if I'm wrong, correct me please) we heard about him in the main storyline of SW. I don't know him, I've only heard of him in conversations between fans of this world or in lectures by various YouTubers about lore SW. It's nice that the Mandalorian got a spear made of pure Beskar in his assortment, and I'm curious what it will do for him in the next episodes.
And we only have three episodes left. Probably at least one of them will be a filler, but if he keeps the level of episodes from this season, I will not complain. How did you like it? Did you recognize Ahsoka's style? Did you see any elements of the fanservice that escaped my attention? I am eager to read. Let the force be with you.
