*Spoilers ahead for S3E6 ‘Guns for Hire’*

Another episode of The Mandalorian has arrived, and it’s safe to say it’s unlike any other. This looks like the kind of episode that will divide fans for a long time to come, but is that a bad thing?

Droids

The central issue of this week’s episode was droids. As a result, it raised a few questions about droid rights in the process. It’s something that’s been touched on before in Star Wars, but there’s still a lot of potential for stories like this. Could droid rights receive political support, and would they be beneficial, or would it just end with droids being replaced in their jobs by sentients?

It’s a big question, and there are other things to consider. Some droids do seem to have autonomy, such as Chopper, and bounty hunters in particular, like IG-88 do what they like. Not all droids follow orders without question, and quite a few can go against their programming given the right incentive. It’s certainly an interesting subject.

A classic droid appeared again this week, the infamous B1 battle droid. I wonder how many of them survived the Clone Wars? They were never taken prisoner, and the Empire destroyed millions after the conflict, so maybe they’re a rarity. It was great to hear Matthew Wood reprising such a classic voice, though, and I wonder if this is the first time we’ve seen B1s in live-action since Revenge of the Sith?

I wonder how many Separatist believers still tried to bring down the Republic/Empire or just get revenge after the Clone Wars? This is a good thirty years later, but obviously there are still some who wish the war had ended differently. Maybe we’ll see more.

Darksaber Dilemma

Bo-Katan has finally returned to her natural position as leader. As always, though, the Mandos were divided, and maybe that’s going to be another problem for her in the future. I think that Axe Woves will honour tradition, though, but there’s still the question of which Mandalorians (if any) were involved in Gideon’s rescue. If they’re guns for hire, will they work for anyone?

When Bo-Katan defeated the cyborg, I thought it could make her the rightful owner, but Din handing over the Darksaber like that, why didn’t he do it sooner? Was he waiting to see if Bo deserved to have it? After all, he wanted to give it her at the end of season two, so who knows. It certainly would have cheered her up.

Plazir-15

There are clearly a lot of planets that are prospering outside of the New Republic and have good reason to want to stay as far away from it as possible. It does make me wonder whether this is part of the reason for the First Order’s rise, if the NR didn’t have as much influence as the Old Republic and largely ignored the Outer Rim while rebuilding from the Imperial era, it would give them a chance to form up in secret and lessen the Republic’s ability to stop them.

As for the planet, it almost seemed to me like a parody of a utopian world, where no one works and they spend their time engaging in direct democracy and art. There seems to be something unsustainable about it, too, especially given how easy it was for one person to undermine their society, and the authorities were powerless to do anything about it.

The whole affair was quite sureal, and it did have a feel of Alice in Wonderland, too, especially in that scene at the end, which was very similar to the croquet game between Alice and the Queen of Hearts.

The BDH Way

I wonder if Bryce Dallas Howard has a love of Mon Calas and Quarrens, as they’ve featured prominently in her episodes before. Do the Mon Cala prince and Quarren captain have a bigger purpose? Maybe not, but they did have quite a big set up.

This episode was something of a cameofest, featuring Jack Black, Lizzo, and Christopher Lloyd. These are some of the biggest (and most unexpected) guest stars to show up in the series, and makes you wonder who could be next. Were they a bad choice? I don’t think so. Like most of the episode they were fun and a little over the top, but that works sometimes, and in a galaxy of thousands of worlds, there are going to be many different societies and cultures, some of them quite strange.

This wasn’t the strongest episode of the series, but it was still a lot of fun. It’s what you would expect from an entry directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and it reminded me of one of those odd TCW episodes like ‘Nomad Droids’. As the finale is likely to get darker, it’s probably a good thing to have a fun story now.

No first words from Grogu, not even for The Duchess, but any day now!

Who knows where next week will take us?

Thanks for reading!