The Eight Best Episodes of The Mandalorian Where Mando Leaves Stuff Lying Around and People Try to Take It
The Mandalorian is a fun show. It is well made and enjoyable to watch, truly a remarkable, memorable addition to the Star Wars canon. Here is my list, in no particular order, of the eight best episodes of The Mandalorian in which the main character, Mando, leaves his stuff lying around for people to take, and then people try to take it.
Chapter 1: The Mandalorian
Mando is transporting a bounty (Horatio Sanz!) back to his client and lets the bounty wander around Mando’s ship unguarded. The bounty wanders around his ship and opens Mando’s weapons cabinet. You think he’s about to take all the stuff, but Mando catches him. This sets up some misleading expectations for later on. Then Mando leaves his ship totally unguarded in Jawa territory on Tatooine, with apparently no locks or security devices.
Chapter 2: The Child
Jawas strip Mando’s ship for parts and steal all Mando’s stuff. When he returns to the ship he is very disappointed with them.
Chapter 3: The Sin
Mando leaves The Child with The Client. Initially we’re led to believe this is consistent with his duties as a bounty hunter; however, we later understand that The Child is a “foundling,” and thus Mando has a religious duty to protect him. While his religious and professional duties conflict here, it’s clear that religion wins the day, as Mando only moments later finds himself compelled to retrieve The Child lest harm befall it at the hands of The Client, and all his Mandalorian buddies come help him out. It’s sort of a Gawain and the Green Knight deal.
Chapter 4: Sanctuary
Mando tries to hide out on in a rural community on a remote planet. He’s tempted to stay there with The Child for the long term after fighting a few bullies for them in a super cool Seven Samurai homage deal. While he’s considering it for a moment, a rival bounty hunter sniper nearly assassinates The Child. Realizing the danger they’d be in by staying, Mando leaves. So in the end, nobody takes his stuff; but it is an episode about the constant danger of people taking his stuff. He doesn’t want people taking his stuff.
Chapter 5: The Gunslinger
Mando collaborates with another bounty hunter to capture a dangerous assassin named Fennec Shand. She destroys one of their speeder bikes, and apparently three people can’t fit on a speeder bike, even though they are all very thin, so Mando leaves Shand with the other dude. The other dude kills Shand so that he can try to collect a different bounty - on MANDO. NOT COOL.
Chapter 6: The Prisoner
Mando joins a crew for a heist; the crew needs his ship. On the journey over, one of the rival crew members opens Mando’s weapons cabinet - which is never locked, see Chapter 1 - and Mando has to stop them from stealing his stuff. Then later on - surprise twist - the rest of the crew abandons Mando in a prison cell, like that’s going to stop him. So he takes their lives. Sort of. Some of them he puts in their own prison cell, because one of them is played by Bill Burr and another is implied to be Mando’s ex-girlfriend, and Jon Favreau needs those things to come back in Season 3.
Chapter 7: The Reckoning
Mando recruits Kuiil to help him attack The Client, who appears to have a private army of ex-Empire soldiers. Kuiil provides a very long monologue about how he reprogrammed a droid, which is so plainly irrelevant to the plot that it should serve as a warning to Mando that the writers just needed to build pathos for Kuiil before he dies. When they arrive on the planet where the Client lives, Mando parks the ship and leaves it unguarded again. After walking a long way from the ship, he changes his mind and sends Kuiil back to the ship on a very slow cow-like creature that Kuiil seems very attached to, notwithstanding that speeder bikes are right there. The Client’s buddies kill Kuiil while he tries to make the cow run faster.
Chapter 8: Redemption
Recall that in Chapter 3: The Sin, The Client and The Guild attacked Mando for trying the steal back The Child (a “foundling” in Mandalorian credo, we’re now told), and a bunch of other Mandalorians came to his rescue, in so doing exposing that they had a secret hideout on the planet. In Chapter 8: Redemption, Mando learns that after he escaped and abandoned the other Mandalorians, they were all attacked and their hideout and stuff got taken.
Cool cool cool, good show.