Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 1 of “The Mandalorian” (2020).

After a 10 month wait, season 2 of “The Mandalorian” released last Friday to much acclaim. The series is back for an additional eight episodes in the saga, releasing a new episode every Friday.  

Set in the Star Wars cinematic universe, the show follows a mysterious masked man. He is a Mandalorian, a soldier of a bygone era whose kind was scattered across the galaxy and now works as bounty hunters while sticking to their strict code of honor.  However, after finding Baby Yoda while out on a bounty, the cold man began to show his soft side and took on a new role of a nurturer in addition to a warrior.

In the first season, he traveled around the Outer Rim making money, friends, and enemies while trying to find Baby Yoda’s kin. We met his friends: his handler, Greef Karga, and an ex rebel by the name of Cara Dune. We also met Moff Gideon, an imperial warlord and the main antagonist of the series. These characters are expected to play a major role in the second season of this show.

Season two finds the Mandalorian on Tatooine in search of another Mandalorian who was rumored to live there. Upon arriving on the planet, he meets The Marshal, an impostor who wears the armor of Boba Fett to ward off bandits. The Mandalorian, enraged by The Marshal’s sacrilegious behavior, demands that he give up his armor and turn it in.  

The Marshal agrees to give it up but on the condition that the Mandalorian help him defeat the Krayt Dragon, a large reptile monster that had plagued the land for centuries.  The Mandalorian agrees and, with the help of the sand people and some villagers, was able to kill the beast. Keeping his word, Marshal gives up his armor and watches the Mandalorian ride off into the sunset.

This episode was an amazing premier for the second season. It was riveting and I was engaged every second of it. The pacing was excellent, with not a single dull moment. However, the episode clocked in at fifty-four minutes deviating a full 15 minutes from the 39 minute average for the series so far. It was still interesting, but a little longer of a watch.   

I would also say that there was quite a bit that was not fleshed out, such as Gor Koresh, an information dealer that the Mandalorian killed. I wish that they could have done a little bit more with his character because he had such an interesting concept of being an underground informant.  

The cinematography of the episode was astounding. The VFX and motion capture made me feel as though I was really there staring down a snake 1000 times my size. The dust, smoke, and sand generation and movements were breathtaking as well.  

I also loved all of the settings, but I found the Krayt Dragon cave especially interesting. But I do feel that it was a little lazy on the part of the writers to go back to Tatooine. We have already seen Tatooine in the prior season and it made an appearance in 6 of the 9 major Star Wars movies. It would have been a lot more captivating to go to a planet that we had never seen before. The planet has been overused in the Star Wars cinematic universe and there are so many interesting planets to choose from.

The music in this series is absolutely amazing. The composer, Ludwig Göransson, did an excellent job- the music sets the scene perfectly and the main theme hooks you right in.  

I am also very intrigued by the man in the last fifteen seconds of the episode. By looking at the cast list, we can tell that the man at the end was Temuera Morrison, the actor who played the late bounty hunter Jango Fett who had himself cloned in the prequel trilogy. Jango kept one of his clones as a child who would later come to be known as Boba Fett. This means that the man we saw at the very end was Boba, alive and well. Even though we knew that he was still alive due to some novels, it is exciting nonetheless to see him confirmed to be alive in the cinematic universe. His introduction will likely be very important in the future of the series.

For old fans and newcomers alike, this episode has delivered on all fronts. The story is easy to understand but also holds another layer of detailed complexity for those more hard core fans of the show. All in all, this episode was an amazing start to the second season and I am very excited to see what they do next in the coming weeks.