After last week’s extra-long episode with an extensive trip to Coruscant, this week’s running time is almost half, and this time it’s back to the capital of the republic. However: This flying visit is much more relevant than our meeting with Dr. Pershing last week. We learn (finally) how Grogu survived Order 66 in the Jedi Temple.
This is made possible by a flashback caused by Grogu’s striking work of the Mandalorian weaponsmith. He remembers the moment of Order 66, when the Emperor ordered the clone troopers to wipe out all Jedi. This moment is featured in detail in the pilot episode of the animated series, Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Now we are witnessing a Jedi vs. Clones battle, and the Jedi are particularly concerned about protecting the Padawan Grogu. Grogu is shoved into an elevator where he awaits rescue – a nice parallel to the season 2 finale, when the elevator took Luke Skywalker to the rescue. But here it is someone else, and it is actually Jedi master Kelleran Beq, who is primarily responsible for the training of the young men in the Jedi temple. He was previously only known as the presenter of the children’s show “Jedi Temple Challenge”. And second surprise, Beq is played by Ahmed Best, best known from The Phantom Menace and the rest of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. He played none other than Jar Jar Binks in those films and also voiced the character in the animated series The Clone Wars. So this is Best’s first appearance in Star Wars since 2014.
With Beq’s help, Grogu manages to leave Coruscant, aided by the Naboo Royal Guard, who also leave a Naboo ship to the fugitives. Interesting in this context, which clone unit is attacking the Naboo ship: It is the 501st Clone Battalion – the very legion that was led by Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex during the Clone Wars. This battalion was later reorganized into the 501st Legion under the Empire and served Darth Vader as “Vader’s Fist”. Let’s see what connection this will have later. In any case, another piece of the mosaic is added to the still rather diffuse picture of Order 66 – the incident was also seen from a different perspective in “Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi”. Let’s see if we ever get to see the full story of Order 66 again, maybe in an Anakin Skywalker movie – you never know.
The escape from Coruscant is certainly the highlight of the episode, which is otherwise quite entertaining and in the best “The Mandalorian” manner. There are still some Easter Eggs, a little adventure and lots of Grogu and Mando screentime. For example, we see the Mandalorian training battle circles, previously only seen on the Moon of D’Xun in the Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords video game. Grogu practices with wrist dart launchers, which we got to know as Jango Fett’s favorite weapon, for example, and which we know from the online video game “Star Wars: The Old Republic”. While rescuing the kidnapped Mandalorian child, Bo-Katan talks about her training at the peak of Kyrimorut on Mandalore — a Legends location so far that showrunner Jon Favreau casually brings into canon. Finally, there’s a reminder of Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Jar Jar’s journey through Naboo’s underwater world in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace when they’re being chased by a fish that’s being eaten by an even bigger fish. Qui-Gon’s memorable “there’s always a bigger fish” line should have come to mind for any Star Wars fan during the final scene.
In the end, after the outlier in episode 3, there’s solid “The Mandalorian” fare again, as most Star Wars fans should wish for.
