Star Wars: The Mandalorian - The Believer Review

MND "The Believer"

And so it came to pass, that "The Believer" would be the first Mandalorian episode not to feature Grogu, and there were riots in the streets... Just kidding. In Grogu's absence, Din assembles his version of the Avengers (Cara Dune, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, newly-sprung prisoner Migs Mayfeld from last season's "The Prisoner") for an arcane mission to triangulate the location of Moff Gideon's ship - in a dynamic episode alive to the political context of the galaxy at this time, through the personal lens of Mayfeld of all people.

I wasn't a big fan of Mayfeld from last season. He, like the other guest characters in "The Prisoner", had a performative toughness to them. But the characterization here is downright sympathetic. His days as a stormtrooper have haunted him, particularly as he personalizes Operation Cinder, the defeated Palpatine's devastating scorched earth campaign. He encounters an old superior officer named Valin Hess (played by Richard Brake with a real "evil Dennis Quaid" energy), and when Mayfeld can't take Hess' neofascist drivel a second longer, Mayfeld shoots first.

To hear Hess tell it, the people of the galaxy, like the exploited natives of Morak near this Imperial mining facility, will eventually welcome order with open arms. While he overestimates the citizenry's future receptiveness to the First Order, he speaks what he feels is truth from his point of view. The theme of shifting political reality in the episode is captured in its centerpiece moment, the subversive reversal where Din and Mayfeld are saved from pirates by TIE Fighter pilots swooping in like they're Han Solo. Din and Mayfeld, disguised as Imperial transport drivers, are given an excessively happy heroes' welcome at the facility, the troopers probably unused to seeing main character-worthy heroics from Imperial rank and file.

Mayfeld questions foundational aspects of Din's creed, and as events unfold, Din must remove his helmet to complete his mission. Technically he has betrayed his Creed, but that is a rigid point of view. He certainly looks uncomfortable with it, though. The man introduced with "I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold", rendered vulnerable. The episode's adherence to that classic Star Wars theme of "from a certain point of view" finds its climax at the end, when Din parrots Gideon's monologue about Grogu from Season 1 right back at him, in a righteous new context.

The action of the episode works like muscular punctuation. Things take a Mad Max-shaped turn when pirates in skiffs beset the transport. And Boba Fett gets another punch-the-air moment when he uses the sound-warping seismic charges from Attack of the Clones to take out a couple TIEs (more on this in Stray Observations).

"The Believer" is an episode of unexpected quality, or to be more specific, unexpected depth. Especially given the surprise mileage from bringing the loudmouth Mayfeld back to the show. Roll on the finale next week. 7/10.

Stray observations:

- This episode has an Office Space reference?! Mayfeld says he and Din have to fill out those TPS reports.

- We finally get to see more of the interior of Slave 1 beyond the cockpit, including the weird rotation of the body.

- Nice to see the Scarif shoretrooper design from Rogue One return on this vaguely tropical planet. The transport driver costume is a hybrid of a redesigned Jedha assault tank driver helmet from Rogue One and the Mimban mudtrooper armor from Solo.

- As aforementioned, we last saw Jango Fett deploy seismic charges against Obi-Wan in Attack of the Clones. And the boy who said "Get 'im, Dad, get 'im! Fi-yah!" has now grown into a man. This is the first time we've seen Boba's Slave 1 use the charges... except for the Geonosis scenario in Disneyland's Star Tours ride!