The Mandalorian 9: The Sheriff. All references and quotes from the Star Wars saga
In recent months we have lived with anticipation for the release of The Mandalorian 2, among the announcements of new particularly loved characters, such as Ahsoka Tano, and the expectations to see how the dynamics of the strange couple Mando - Child would evolve (aka Baby Yoda). Above all, we were curious to understand what links would be inserted in this new season to tie the adventures of the Mandalorian to the wider narrative context of Star Wars, challenging us to find the quotes of the saga.
ATTENTION: The following contains a series of important spoilers on the ninth episode of The Mandalorian
And here is what he unearthed inside The Sheriff, the new episode of The Mandalorian.
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The New Galaxy
Since the first season of The Mandalorian, we have seen how the Empire falls it was not painless, but it had a considerable impact on ordinary citizens. Obviously, it was inevitable, but the care with which The Mandalorian is made has meant that this central detail also fits into the Mandalorian's travels.It can be seen in the slums of the world in which Mando moves at the beginning of the episode, in which some graffiti show how the hatred for imperial stormtroopers is not over, but is still a vivid memory in the minds of the population .
Just as many, like Sheriff Cobb Vanth, remember with extreme precision how their life changed with the destruction of the Death Star. "The second, I mean," as Vanth specifies, referring to the explosion seen at the finale of Return of the Jedi, and which in The Sheriff is shown in a holographic broadcast.
Return to Tatooine
Let's put it however we want, but Tatooine remains one of the central planets of the Star Wars saga. On the other hand, it all started on this sunny world, since it is in its sands that Anakin Skywalker was born and raised and where the young Luke began his journey on the paths of the Force under the guidance of Obi-Wan Kenobi.Our Mandalorian therefore makes a stop on Tatooine again, after having visited it in the fifth episode of the first season, The Gunslinger. Perfect opportunity to find an old friend, Peli Motto (Ami Sedaris), the mechanic our bounty hunter has already had to deal with.
Note, in this sense, how his relationship with Peli's mechanical droids. If at their first meeting the Mandalorian was not particularly confident, but now he seems to have another vision of these mechanical beings. Consequence of his relationship with IG-88, the bounty hunter droid who sacrificed himself to protect the Child, after he was reprogrammed by Kiijl.
Thanks to Peli, Mando discovers that the alleged Mandalorian he is looking for hides in the mining outpost of Mos Pelgo. We know Mos Eisley ('you will never find a den of scum and evil worse than this place', remember Obi-Wan's words?) And Mos Espa (seen in The Phantom Menace), but Mos Pelgo is a new film location.
Previously, Mos Elgo appeared only as a playable zone in Knights of The Eternal Throne, an expansion of Star Wars: Old Republic, the MMORPG video game set in the times of the Old Republic.
I am the law
And in Mos Elgo, Din meets the alleged Mandalorian. A Mandalorian wearing armor that is immediately recognized as the one worn by Mandalore's first son seen in Star Wars: Boba Fett. Of course we immediately understand that underneath all that beskar there is not the clone, but another man: Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant).It is not the first time that Vanth has appeared inside the Star Wars Canon. The character played by Olyphant was mentioned in Aftermath, a novel that falls between The Return of the Jedi and The Awakening of the Force. In this book, Cobb was a sheriff of Tatooine, wearing Boba Fett's armor after he bought it from the Jawas, who had found it in the wreckage of Jabba the Hutt's yacht, which was destroyed in the opening scenes of Return of the Jedi nearby. del Pozzo del Sarlacc.
In The Sheriff we finally see the moment in which Cobb comes into possession of this historic armor. Above all, we discover that he knows how to use it best, since he does not draw to use all the trinkets available, such as the jetpack or the dorsal rocket launcher. Always supplied with Boba Fett's armor, this device was seen in action only in Attack of the Clones, when during the battle on Kamino with Obi-Wan it was Jango Fett who showed for the first time the functioning of the dorsal rocket launcher .
But good Cobb seems to be an expert in recovery. His speederbike, in fact, has a rather familiar look: it is made with the engine of a pod racer! Seen in The Phantom Menace during the race in which little Anakin defeats Sebulba, these lightning-fast racing vehicles are equipped with engines of immense power. An ideal choice for a speederbike, must have thought Cobb, who attached the saddle and controls to the side of one of the thrusters of a pod.
Old knowledge and strange religions
There can't be an episode of The Mandalorian without the presence of old familiar faces from the saga, and The Sheriff is no exception. From the very first moments we see already known alien races on the screen, such as the Twileks and the Zabrak, but it is seeing the porcine faces of the Gamorreans that makes us smile. A race that first appeared in Return of the Jedi, these burly aliens were the guardians of Jabba's palace, while now we see them in the role of wrestlers, with their typical axes.Also during the setting scenes during the fight, a character with an unfortunate life appears: Constable Zuvio. Initially thought to have a prominent role in The Force Awakens, Zuvio was then downsized in the final draft of the plot, appearing in some short stories and gaining the privilege of a Black Series action figure.
During interrogation of Gor Koresh, the Abyssin tries to convince the Mandalorian of the goodness of his information by swearing on Gotra. A curious choice, considering that in the Star Wars Canon this name is associated with Droid Gotra, a sect that fights for the rights of the droids, mentioned in several Star Wars books.
The arrival on Tatooine del Mando does not he could certainly refrain from showing us Jawa, bantha and Tusken, who will play a central role in the episode. But there are other characters returning to the scene, such as R5-D4, the defective droid that the Jawas tried to sell to Owen Lars in A New Hope, now one of Peli's mechanical assistants. If you pay attention, when R5-D4 approaches its mistress and the Mandalorian you can see the sign of the burn of the motivator that exploded during the purchase by Owen and Luke, which prompted Lars to buy R2-D2 instead. , on the advice of C3-P0.
However, the krayt dragon is of particular interest, an animal until now seen in the cinema only as a skeleton. The remains crossed by R2-D2 and C3-P0 during their wandering in the desert in A New Hope belong to one of these colossal reptiles.
The cry of the krayt dragon is the sound it made, also in A New Hope Hope, Obi-Wan to scare the sandpods who had captured Luke. On the other hand, between krayt and Tusken we discover that there is a certain familiarity, since both are creatures of the desert.
Until this episode of The Mandalorian, a skeleton of the Krayt Dragon had been seen in the cinema, leaving the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic show one of these reptiles alive. What is shown in The Sheriff, however, makes the vision of the video game wrong, given the immense proportions of the animal, capable of swallowing even a Sarlacc, one of the most lethal and gigantic beings of Star Wars.
The Return of the Mandalorian
For Star Wars lovers, there was only one Mandalorian before Din Djarin: Boba Fett. First appearing in The Empire Strikes Back, this bounty hunter has been the representative of this warrior culture for decades. Having become Han Solo's nemesis, Boba Fett met a less-than-heroic end in Return of the Jedi, when he ended up in the mouth of the Sarlacc in a daring way, facing what seemed to be his death.Nel was an expanded universe, Boba Fett was recovered, having become, despite the brief appearance, one of the most loved characters. From books to comics to video games, explanations were given of how the voracious sand monster had survived, and the appearance of his armor in The Sheriff seems to corroborate some theories.
But the final confirmation may be the appearance by Temuera Morrison, actor who gave the face of Boba's genetic blueprint, Jango Fett. As we learned in Attack of the Clones, Boba is a clone of bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was used as a genetic blueprint to create the Republic clone army. As a reward, Jango asked for a clone to raise as a son: Boba, to be precise.
The lonely figure we see at the end of The Sheriff could be Boba, intent on recovering his precious armor. We could also theorize that it is one of the Clones who survived the end of the Clone War, like Rex, but the most accredited theory at the moment is that of the return on the scene of dear, old Boba. And maybe we will also see his famous spaceship, the Slave I.
The Mandalorian: The Sheriff
After having discovered the various references to the Star Wars saga contained in The Sheriff, there is no may exempt from making some considerations on the episode. As the beginning of the season, the writers have to pay tribute to having grasped the spirit of the series, that is a mix between the typical atmosphere of Star Wars and the western, a genre that had already shown its presence in the previous season.A feature that is evident in several scenes, such as the sequence of the arrival of the Mando at Mos Pelgo, which follows the typical setting of many western films, when the stranger enters the border villages, riding slowly along the only way and all the inhabitants look at him suspiciously. From this point of view, the tavern is the Starwarsian version of the saloon, in which the sheriff suddenly appears as Cobb does.
Favreau clearly relies on the western narrative in this episode, capturing narrative aspects such as the contrast between natives and colonizers and the forced need to stand together against a greater foe, in this case a Krayt dragon.
Speaking of the dragon, the feeling is to find yourself in front of a version on steroids of one of the graboid from Tremors (or a Dune Sandworm pup). Even the choice to frame the passage of the creature by lingering on the faces of the characters taken from below, recalls some of the stylistic choices of Ron Underwood's film.
On the occasion of the clash with the gigantic reptile, Favreau delights the spectators with a dynamic battle in which we see, for a moment, two Mandalorians at work, complete with acrobatic flight. A dynamism that partially manages to make us forget some rather extreme scenes, such as the Mando that is swallowed by the krayt, only to be the protagonist of a heroic ending that has the aftertaste of excessive epic. Within the plot, this juncture may be functional to the reintroduction of the character of Boba Fett, but it remains an excessive claim to the suspension of the viewers' disbelief.
But as always, the narrative context of The Mandalorian is the characterization of the character are more than enough to make us look forward to the next episode.
This is the Way.
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