X-Wings, Report In

I could immediately jump onto my soapbox about how episode six is the third in a row to largely ignore the narrative established at the start of the series. Sure enough, ‘The Prisoner’ is yet another standalone adventure, but it’s one with swashbuckling action, great characters, top tier cinematography and a GLORIOUS TRIUMVIRATE of X-WINGS, so I’ll be sure to give a bit of narrative isolation a free pass this week.

Mando meets up with an old friend acquaintance Ranzar Malk, who hires him to join a team of mercenaries who are about to embark on a rescue mission to free Twi’lek Qin from a New Republic prison. Basically, Malk’s team needs Mando’s stealthy ship Razor Crest in order to ghost onto the space-based lock-up.

He’s being used, he knows it… but… credits, credits, credits.

The band of rogues eventually find Qin – who is revealed to be the brother of team member Xi’an – and the squad betrays Mando by throwing him into the now vacant cell. After a suitably inventive escape, Mando’s manhunt begins as he manages to round up his treacherous former teammates, return the favour by locking them away, and delivers Qin to Malk.

And in a beautifully sharp final twist, it emerges that Mando has attached a previously activated New Republic distress beacon to Qin’s belt. Just as Mando leaves Malk’s facility and his former friend calls for the Razor Crest to be destroyed, X-Wings emerge from hyperspace in response to the distress signal and destroy Malk’s floating fortress.

There is so much to love about this episode. We’ve seen diverse teams, forced to work together, deliver entertaining results in the past. This group has a Guardians of the Galaxy first act vibe to it. Criminals who don’t especially like each other, working towards a common goal – at least for the first half of the episode. Instead of breaking out of the Kyln, these rogues are breaking into a Kyln.

The tension between trigger happy ex-Imperial sharpshooter Mayfeld and Mando is palpable. It builds throughout the opening scene quips and reaches a peak when the group stumbles upon a New Republic security guard on a ship that was only supposedly guarded by droids.

Once you get past the fun realisation– “hey, that security guard is played by Matt Lanter – you know, the voice of Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars“– it’s a scene that says so much about Mando’s mindset. He’s favouring diplomacy. He doesn’t want to hurt an innocent guard. Mayfeld, meanwhile, is ready to blast him into oblivion for the simple infringement of adding a complication to the job.

It hammers home the idea that Mando doesn’t fit the traditional bounty hunter mould. He might not follow the Guild code, but he sure as hell won’t betray his own. He’s really taken the anti- out of anti-hero and this was our clearest evidence of it.

He doesn’t even kill Mayfeld, Xi’an or Burg after their betrayal, instead opting for strategic detainment and even going full Daredevil to catch Mayfeld.

It made for one of my favourite visuals of the series to date. The lighting pulsates red to black to red. We see a disorientated Mayfeld at the front of the shot and Mando closing in behind, only revealed by brief glimpses as he moves between the light and dark. Daredevil stealth set against a Daredevil colour palette.

Suitably, director Rick Famuyiwa gets an 11/10 for his vision of this scene.

Totally deserving, therefore, of his cameo late on. Having Rick pilot an X-Wing, flanked by Dave Filoni and Deborah Chow is such a fun idea. Great to have X-Wings in the mix – a New Republic presence in the show – and great to have these fine folks written into canon.

And finally, a fact I never truly realised until today; Richard Ayoade sounds like a Star Wars droid, as he’s immediately recognisable as the voice of Q9-0, known as Zero. The mercenary droid piloted the Razor Crest on the mission and discovered The Child while the team was busy fighting amongst themselves on board the New Republic transport.

We all know by now that Mando hates droids. It was always likely that Zero would join IG-11 on the list of droid acquaintances scrapped by Mando – and that was before Zero started pointing a gun at The Child.

And so continues two trends; Droids being shot and mercenaries getting shot in the back while pointing a gun at The Child. I guess in absence of a through-line narrative, the trends are what we have to stitch the episodes together at the moment.

With only two episodes remaining, I’m not entirely sure that is going to change either.

Oh well…