Thoughts on ‘The Siege’

Welcome back to my breakdown series on The Mandalorian Season Two. While I’m a bit behind schedule, this time we’re looking at Chapter 12 ‘The Siege’.

Right off the top I feel the need to point out that nothing in this episode resembled a siege. Once the plot kicked in, I actually started getting some serious Rebel Assault II vibes…but levels in that game were either ‘sneak around Imperial base, hide around corners, and point-and-click to shoot Stormies’ or vehicle-based ‘shooting gallery on rails’…so not exactly the most dynamic, compelling, or realistic tone for a TV show to take.

Watching the cold open where the Titular Mandalorian tries to coach the Child to plug in some wires, I was struck by how completely frustrating it must be to converse with someone whose face is obscured; it made me realize how much I rely on being able to read someone’s lips to actually understand what they’re saying.

In the cold open there’s an electrocution gag which I know is played for laughs, but electricity is nothing to mess around with…least of all involving a small child. Can you imagine what it’d be like to have a dead Baby Yoda back in that inaccessible little cranny? It’d be like when a mouse dies under your refrigerator, but like, 100 times worse!
One reviewer I saw pointed out that TM lifts his helmet to sip from his bowl, and tried to suggest that this was due to the run-in with BoKatan last episode and some lessening of his stringent code of honor, but I will point out that in S01E04, he takes the whole thing off to eat lunch on Planet Krill. Nitpick: when he’s drinking out of the cup in this episode, he has to lift his helmet twice and didn’t appear to refill or add anything to the cup (which looked very small to start with). I feel like it would be way easier to just use a straw and not have to keep unsealing (or whatever) and lifting the helmet over and over.

There’s another part of the cold open where Cara Dune whoops up on a gang of Aqualish thieves. Considering how we’re still dealing with the same characters and all the scrapes they got into last season, I would really love it if somebody’s Plot Armor wasn’t quite so strong. I feel like there were a couple opportunities for one of those butt-chinned Walrusmen to just shoot ol’ Cara in the back, but nope. As a comparison, one of the things that makes Indiana Jones so compelling and realistic (considering his pulp-hero status) was that he never comes out of an engagement unscathed; it helps humanize him, and the complete lack of danger for our characters I felt in this episode really added to the on-rails, video game-y or theme park ride-y feel of it (In general, I wasn’t a fan of this chapter). At one point, one of the Aqualish is shooting at Cara (with one of his compatriots on her back) and the blasterfire just hits him, makes a little lick of flame, and goes away. Where are the big glowing holes? Are we supposed to believe that these bloodthirsty pirates all have their weapons on the lowest power setting? And when Cara shoots the last one, it’s the same thing! What, was he wearing some hidden beskar? I’m tired of all this PG-13 bloodless carnage – let’s see some actual blaster wounds to underscore how dangerous these pirates are and make it seem like our heroes might be in some actual danger!

Considering the condition it was in at the beginning of the episode, I found it really hard to believe the Razor Crest was able to go from duct-tape-and-chewing-gum levels of disrepair to ready-to-dogfight-TIE-fighters in what, a couple hours? An afternoon? Plenty of EU works include mentions of time in stories, but for onscreen stuff time is usually hard to pin down in Star Wars. Speaking of which, it would be great to know how much time has passed since Chapter 8.  Also it’s weird that our Nevarro town doesn’t have a hangar for repairs, just these two guys standing around the front gate. What happens if two visitors come to town?

It was great to see the town on Nevarro actually looking like a functioning town. I guess there were civilians around in Chapters 1 and 3, but then they felt more like greasy background dressing to make the Mando feel uncomfortable. Funny how the Bounty Hunter’s Guild going away makes everyone bust out some brighter-colored wardrobe pieces! I will definitely be doing some analysis of their costumes and probably adding them to the Galactic Style Guide down the line.

I don’t know how I feel about Werner Herzog’s hangout being turned into a one-room-schoolhouse. I guess it helps underscore the frontier vibe they’re clearly going for in the show, but as I’ve mentioned before, we know that most education in the GFFA is done remotely. Still cool to hear the teacher-droid mention some of the big hyperlanes. I noticed a couple of the pupils are wearing goggles in class, which is just really silly. If you’re out working on vaporators or riding a speeder on the open range, okay, fine. Sitting in class? Just seems like lazy costuming.
It was surprising to see Horatio Sanz’s fish-man return. They keep calling him Mythrol (Mithril??) which I had thought was the name of his species, which seems pretty insensitive. He definitely seemed like the proverbial fish out of water when it came to sneaking into the Imp base, which kept things from being all business with Cara and Greef. Speaking of which…

The whole sneaking into and around the base was pretty…meh. It was nice to see they actually used (and namedropped) an code cylinder, though I always figured using one involved inserting more than just the tip (har har). I disliked Fishman commenting on the lack of guardrails, as that’s always just been a feature of the galactic aesthetic, so he should be used to it; no meta-jokes needed.
On the whole, the entire middle section of this episode just felt very video game-y: a door is locked, unlock it from many stories above, need a code cylinder to open another door, running through Imperial corridors, shooting stormtroopers, turning off coolant to make something overheat, downloading holograms to move the plot forward, etc. The second act I had this weird déjà vu that I’d done this all before (but better) in the Kyle Katarn games.

The escape in the troop transport (?) was also pretty ‘meh’; to me it just felt like it was on rails and the antagonists had been Nerfed. I was very surprised to see that the craft the gang borrow for their escape had no windscreen, which seems pretty impractical. Their survival after driving it straight off the platform would have been much more believable if they’d included repulsorlifts to cushion the fall or make it ‘bounce’ and hug the ground better after falling. I noticed that both the escape craft and the pursuing speeder bikes seemed to be hovering a bit lower than expected—see the scout trooper dragging his feet to make a turn. For the record, I HATE the TIE fighters with folding wings. I could almost excuse one last season when it seemed like it was Gideon’s personal ship (more on him in a bit), but now seeing the base has several of them, I just…No.   The chase between the TIEs and the escape ship had solid cinematography, and I always like a gun turret scene, though having to aim without being able to actually see incoming ships must be awful (X-wing Alliance spoiled me). At the same time, it did feel a bit like a setup for a future ride at a Disney park.

I hope we get a scene next episode of Mando refueling his jetpack, because he’s been using it a lot this season, and it seems like jetting back to town from the secret base (weren’t they were on opposite sides of the planet in the hologram?) would pretty quickly drain the tank.

Because the previous monstrosities were so bad, I have to reiterate it every time they show up: I rejoice to see a New Republic pilot wearing the proper OT-style jumpsuit instead of the shiny nylon/velvet monstrosities of ‘Rouge One’ and Mandalorian S01E06.

At the end, there’s some foreboding stuff with ‘Moff Gideon’. Since we haven’t talked about him previously, I have to point out that his name-game is weak…Moffs have always been known by their surname, and as Gideon is a personal name (or sounds like one to us), it has the net effect of weakening him as a character. They’re trying to set him up as being intimidating, but I don’t buy it. Grand Moff Tarkin exuded power because he was played by Peter Cushing, had the special title, and his last name was something meta-intimidating out of Julius Caesar (there were two kings of ancient Rome named Tarquinius). As it is now, ‘Moff Gideon’ sounds about as impressive as ‘Governor Preacher’s Son’.

The logo on the techs working on his ship at the end is from the Imperial Department of Military Research, which dates back to the New Essential Guide to Weapons & Tech, a nice bit of continuity; I’m very glad they didn’t just make up some other new Imperial insignia.

Gideon has racks and racks of mysterious…clones? Robo-soldiers? Dark Troopers? As Kyle Katarn would’ve said, “Black armor?…not again!”

Anyway, that’s the episode. Am I nitpicking too hard or is a critical eye needed? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

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