Chapter 19: The Convert

This episode invests way to much stake in a side-character. It appears to be that this investment is intended to pay-off in a future episode, but it was way too much of a deviation without any immediate pay-off or obvious progression.

There is a brief interaction with the Mandalorian before a long-cut to the side character (30 minutes roughly). The Mandalorian scenes in this episode are great, but total about 10 minutes. I feel like the 30 minutes dedicated to the side character could have been further condensed or needed to get us a lot more invested in this character. It felt like an unnecessary side-quest.

We shall see how this story plays into the future, but this episode left quite a bit to be desired.

People claiming for longer episodes of The Mandalorian, but when they asked for longer episodes of the series they meant more of the Mandalorian, Din Djarin, himself not from a scientist people barely remember for season 1. Sure this might be some trigger for the season plot, but if you consider that next episode will be officially mid-season, the pacing of this season is quite slow and the only development we have seen was what happened in the end of this episode.

Unlike previous episodes of the season, the beginning and the ending were really awesome. The interactions between Din Djarin and Bo-Katan felt way better than on episode 2, not only on dialogue, but how both behaved in scene. Here we feel like Bo-Katan and Din Djarin are on the same level, both are amazing and can look after themselves.

I know that this episode has gotten a lot of heat. It does not really fit into the Mandalorian show, as we have seen it so far. This show started out as a mostly-episodic series more akin to the original Lucas-esque roots of a serial sci-fi/space opera show. Through Grogu, it built continuity within itself, which then branched into BoBF.

But here, I think, is the most important episode for cementing Mandalorian into a broader Disney-led universe. I think it is clear now that Disney is not just running a set of series/movies that are episodic. Rather, there is an aim to unify them all together. This episode is the key to doing so.

Here, we see the dystopia of Disney's post-Endor Star Wars universe. The New Republic has won. The Empire is largely defeated, but we still have to deal with all of those former imperials. I won't get into details, but this is very 1984-ish.

But, if you think about the Disney universe, it has to be. We have to have some mechanism for how the New Republic decays from its victory at Endor to Episode 7 where the First Order has risen and the Republic is in decay. This is really the first glimpse into how/why that would occur.

In broad strokes, I think it works. I am a little unsettled by it, though. One of the nice things about the old Extended Universe (now 'Legends') was that it built the history of the New Republic in a way that did not allow it (mostly) to sacrifice its ideals, at least until decades after Endor. It was as much a happy ending as you could have whilst also exploring some political realities.

I think the differences between these two storylines are partially forced by the Sequel Trilogy's recapitulation of the Empire and episode 7 largely repeating episode 4. This is unfortunate, because its poor, unimaginative, and nonsensical storyline now requires the canon content between episode 6 and 7 to explain how we got from point A to point B. Essentially, a bad storyline now requires us to learn how it comes to be, which is not very satisfying for a fan.

The other thing, is that I think the two post-Endor storylines (Disney vs EU) are products of their time. The EU was mostly written in the 90s, after the end of the Cold War. It was a more optimistic time period than we are in now. The books thus had a feeling of improvement and progress, at least until the Yuzhann Vong. Here in the Disney universe, we are seeing creative outlets contend with our current world, which is beset by extremity, distrust, and looming fears of conflict, climate change, etc. Not to mention a recent pandemic.

It feels grittier, colder, and less fun. Although I am interested in these qualities when it comes to a show like Andor (showing why the empire is bad), I am less enthused about it in the New Republic era, even though I think these episodes are doing it very well from a writing/acting/technical perspective.

Star Wars was, for a long time, supposed to be a story of hope, of good vs evil, of underdogs winning, etc. It is also a story of redemption. Seeing those concepts backslide just doesn't feel right to me, even as I enjoy this show for its quality.

I really enjoyed this episode once I'd recovered from the whiplash of the change in pace. The opening was so quick out of the gates and so fun to watch that the second part of the episode struggled as a result. I loved the world building and return to Coruscant and the setting the seeds for stories going forwards, characters motivations are still a bit of a mystery at the moment and I'm looking forward to seeing this continue to develop, especially with Bo Katan who is being written so well over the last couple of episodes. This series is defying all expectations so far and I'm excited to see what is next especially as this feels like the end of arc 1.

A former Imperial scientist struggles with life in the New Republic.

This is a solid episode with some interesting story development.

The plot spends a short time with the lead characters, but that time is spectacular and gives Din and Bo some great opportunities to be very cool.

I quite enjoyed when the plot deviated. There's only so much you can watch every week of the title character on various missions, so for me it's a welcome change of focus. It feels slightly jarring, as it comes out of the blue in the series narrative, but hopefully it is laying the foundations for good things to come. These scenes are more reminiscent of the style and tone of 'Andor' than other Star Wars shows, which works fine for me.

As ever the fan service and visual spectacle is top drawer in all aspects. I like the art design on Coruscant and the action sequences in the opening scenes are outstanding.

Omid Abtahi leads the episode well.

Update to review after finishing season - it would appear this episode only lays the foundations for a very small aspect of the overarching narrative so it feels now like an excessive detour. I still enjoyed it slightly more than the other episodes of series 3 for showing something different.

For me it's a 7.5/10, but I round upwards.