'The Mandalorian, Season Two' – Episode 15: 'The Believer'

Today was meant to be my review of Bernard Cornwell's 'The Last Kingdom' but I'm having trouble ordering my thoughts there so you might have to wait a little longer for that. In the meantime, lets just say I loved it, because I did. That did leave a 'blog post sized gap' in today but then I woke up this morning, realised that today is 'new episode of The Mandalorian' day and got watching soon afterwards. Pretty good timing really :o)

After last week's episode, I didn't want to hang around getting into whatever happened next. There's a little green Grogu in peril and I need to see people rushing to his rescue, dammit! 'The Believer' gives us some of that (which is fair enough as there's still one more episode to go) but gives us a lot more at the same time. Not the episode you're expecting then but very much the episode you didn't realise that you needed, until you watch it.

There will be mild spoilers, just so you know ;o)

Djin Darin has most of his crew together but before they can go off on a 'big rescue', they really need to work out where Moff Gideon is first... I mean, it would help, wouldn't it? They need one more person to hack into the Imperial network, and locate Moff Gideon's ship, but can he be trusted? And will doing the right thing prove to be the death of them all?

We all know by now that 'The Mandalorian' has an endearing habit of either bringing in characters from earlier episodes or characters from the expanded universe; either hinting at that wider universe or just to tie off a loose end or two. This time round, it's the turn of Migs Mayfield (you know, the guy on the prison ship in Season 1) to take a bow and wind up a character arc that you didn't even know was a thing until we see him breaking up scrapped TIE-Fighters on a prison planet. By the end of the episode though... Bill Burr was just amazing at taking us through Mayfield's journey. I love a show that has the nerve to take a peripheral character and make him suddenly carry an episode pretty much all by himself; and Burr just nails it. It's really good character development and great TV that keeps you guessing through some very tense moments.

Promoting Mayfield to centre stage is also a bold move by the show in that it acknowledges that there's only so much tale left to be told in terms of Grogu. There's clearly only enough for the season finale, and that's fine, so why not take some time and make what's essentially a side mission into a whole episode's worth of story? And it works, it really does.

That's enough about Mayfield, the rest of the episode is great as well; mostly because of the creepiest Imperial Officer ever (and he is, he needs to appear in a prequel to something, anything) but also because we've got Dune and Shand having an impromptu sniper contest as well as Fett just being awesome in armour that looks suspiciously clean compared to last week. Looking smart there Fett! ;o) And if that wasn't enough, we get a seismic charge scene! Possibly the best thing about 'Attack of the Clones' is back and sounding just as awesome as it did back then.

And what a way to end this episode and set things up for the next... Djin Darin recycling Moff Gideon's speech and throwing it back at him. If that isn't foreboding enough for you, is that Gideon looking worried or really angry? Either way, it's looking good for next week...

'The Mandalorian' is really stepping up a gear now and it's at just the right time. The wait for the finale starts... now.