It’s Wednesday morning, which means it’s time for The Mandalorian, and specifically Season 3, Chapter 18. I know last week I said the wrong chapter number. This is Chapter 18, “The Mines of Mandalore.”
It’s a much longer episode, 44 minutes, and I was excited for a little more. It still didn’t feel like 44 minutes.
The first thing that jumps out is that we’re getting really great Grogu time. He’s evolving into such a cool character, and you forget he spent time with Luke. All through the episode he’s using some of that knowledge, not all of it but some, and I kept going, oh right, he hung out with Luke for a minute.
Grogu Has a Personality Now
I like how expressive he’s becoming, and I don’t just mean his expressions. It’s the things he does. When he’s scared he behaves a certain way, or he gets closer to Din. He’s got so much personality, and I think we’re finally seeing it at its peak.
Last week I called him nuanced, and I think that’s a really apt description, because there are so many little things they do with him. When he’s flying down with Bo-Katan later, you see his ears flapping. When he’s concerned, his eyes get real big and he kind of backs off. His mouth tells a whole bunch of different stories.
And they use the chair very smartly. When he gets scared he backs the chair up, so the chair gets to be part of his personality. He’s a puppet, but at the same time they’re making him so realistic, and I really like that.
Peli Motto Never Met a Deal She Didn’t Like
The episode starts by revisiting Peli Motto on Tatooine, and that’s Amy Sedaris. Mando clearly needs something, so he stops by, and she’s in the middle of conning some Rodian. I think it’s funny that the Jawas are in on it with her, because remember, her ex is a Jawa. You know what they say, once you go… okay, yeah, I got nothing.
When they first show up, the little bay opens and sure enough Grogu jumps out with a little flip, right into Peli’s arms. She’s like, who taught you how to do that?
Mando is looking for the memory circuit for the IG unit, the one that tried to kill him, the one that also protected them and became a nurse for a little bit. The reason is he wants to go to the mines of Mandalore to swim in the thing, and he wants a droid to test the air. As far as he knows, Mandalore is cursed. Mandalore has been poisoned, totally salted. They razed the ground, salted it, and left nothing. It could be radiation, it could be all kinds of stuff. So he wants a droid to test it out, and the only droid he trusts right now is IG.
Peli takes the opportunity, because she’s never found a deal she didn’t like, and she ends up selling him R5. Dude, R5 is the biggest wuss ever. He’s literally falling apart at the seams, and Mando’s calling her out on it. But they put the navigator’s tube back in and took Grogu’s dome off, so the pod works for an astromech again the way we’re used to seeing. Now he’s got a co-pilot, and somebody who can check the atmosphere.
What I really love is that all of that was the cold open. As he’s leaving, you get that really great shot we’ve seen in all the trailers, where he and Grogu are looking at the fireworks, because it’s Boonta Eve on Tatooine. It’s essentially their version of a solstice of some sort. Christmas is Life Day, remember. And as we always like to say, it’s Life Day somewhere, so happy Life Day.
Mando Teaches Him Like Any Mandalorian Would
I love how much teaching Mando’s doing, and he’s doing it just like any Mandalorian parent would.
In any universe, Grogu might be seen as some type of creature with a deficiency, a disability if you will. He’s got trouble reaching high spots, he’s really tiny, and if he went through life with nothing else, he’d need some sort of assistance. Not this guy. Mando’s like, yeah, no, I’m just going to teach you exactly how you’re going to be.
So they’re flying, heading back to Mandalore, and he’s explaining that Mandalorians have to understand how to read maps, because then you’ll never be lost. It’s funny, the star chart is literally a little circle with three little dots on it. This is where we’re going, this is where I was born, and that’s where we went to go see Bo-Katan. A little tidbit dropped and they run.
A Planet That Looks Like It’s Made of Glass
They get down to the planet and the first thing they run into is these weird troll-like creatures. Bo-Katan names them later, and we come to find out they used to live on the outskirts of the cities. They’re almost like a barbarian monster thing. Mando and Grogu get jumped, and Mando has to protect them and do his thing.
Eventually they find a way down and in, and they get to this one little cliff precipice where you look out over the subterranean city. There’s more than just the broken pieces.
That’s the other thing that’s really devastating. The place literally looks like it’s made of glass. They blasted this thing from orbit and wrecked the whole planet, more than just the buildings. Everything got so hot that it shattered. The land looks like it was hit so hard it exploded up in the heat and became this glass sculpture. It reminds me of some of the old representations of Krypton from Superman, all those jaggedy stones and shards.
The Thing in the Cave
While they’re down below, there’s some sort of mechanical trap. I’m not sure what it really is. My co-host’s read was that they were trapping all the Mandalorians who ended up down there and melting the beskar off of them. I have to say, I didn’t think that, but now I do, because that makes total sense.
Din gets snatched. He gets grabbed by this giant mech spider droid thing and put in a little cage that holds him perfectly, so he’s got nowhere to move. He gets dragged back to this creature’s lair, and you see all these Mandalorian helmets and that’s about it. Then it puts him on what looks like a spit, and it looks like it’s going to bleed him, and then melt him down or do something else.
Din tells Grogu to run, to find Bo-Katan. So what does he do? He hightails it out of there. It’s this tense moment, and then this cute little guy is doing amazing. He jumps into his little pod and zooms away, and there are creatures trying to get him and he’s freaking out, but he keeps going. He gets underneath where they came down, shoots straight up, heads back to the ship, and points right where he wants to go. He tells the droid in whatever his little language is, and sure enough the droid takes him to Bo-Katan.
Bo-Katan Cuts Up Fools
Bo-Katan is ready to tell Mando off. Her droid tells her they’ve got an unexpected visitor, she sees the ship landing, and she goes out there like, I told you I don’t want anything to do with you. Then, boop, Grogu pops his head up. Where is he? What happened to him?
So they go. She’s got to fight some stuff off, the little troll guys, but she’s Bo-Katan and she’s awesome. She finds the mech dude, defeats that thing, and saves Din.
When she’s saving him she finds his stuff, and there’s the Darksaber, and she has to use it. When he was fighting the trolls with it, it wasn’t natural for him at all. You can still tell he hasn’t learned how to use it, and it’s fighting him. Bo-Katan picks it up and she is cutting up fools, hardcore. You’re like, man, she’s amazing.
My co-host asked if that means she gets to rule Mandalore now. No. She has to win it in ritual combat. It’s a whole thing.
Din wakes up, and she tells him he’s been teaching the kid well. He was able to lead her there. He’s a good little navigator. I love that Bo-Katan refers to Din as Grogu’s dad. She says, your kid came and got me. It’s funny, Mandalorians are a race of foster parents. They really are. If they find you, they bring you in, and you’re now part of their culture. It’s very neat to see how that culture would’ve been.
She Used to Rule
Din still wants to go, and Bo-Katan commits. She knows exactly where it’s at. Apparently when you’re part of the royal family you get to go visit places.
My co-host knew her family was very big, but didn’t realize that when she said “I used to rule,” she was actually a princess. She’s referencing events from the animated series. Her character was introduced in The Clone Wars and appeared in Rebels too, voiced by Katee Sackhoff, and there was a time when she was briefly the actual head of Mandalore.
It was interesting to hear that much more. You see stuff in the old animated series, but you don’t get into much of the depth of her history. Hearing more about it, and seeing those references go a little deeper in quote-unquote canon live action, is really neat.
The Best Use of the Volume Yet
This whole underground segment is beautifully shot. Some people are going to say you can totally tell it’s the volume. I don’t know, man. These things look gorgeous.
To me it’s the best use of the volume I’ve seen yet in terms of giving us a sense of scale. It feels like the scene from Episode VII when we first meet Rey and she’s inside the guts of that big giant Star Destroyer, and they back up as she comes down and it’s huge. This feels that big. People want to criticize because Andor was shot on practical sets, but I believe there are moments like this that hold up really well and really reinforce why that technology is being used.
My co-host asked the right question. Can we tell it’s the volume, or can we tell because our brains know it exists? Great call. I think that’s the case. If we didn’t know it existed, we’d just think it was cool.
There’s one shot, and blink and you’ll miss it. For a split second you’re down low looking up, and I think we’re supposed to be in Grogu’s POV, because we’re looking up at Bo-Katan as she’s walking and you see the ceiling above her. That’s done on the volume. I noticed how good it looked, and that made me think of the volume. But if I didn’t know that tidbit, I would’ve just been amazed by the shot, because it looks good and it looks genuine. She looks as married into it as you could possibly be. I love that moment entirely.
The Living Thing Under the Water
She leads him down below, and they arrive at this water, and there’s a plaque. She says, you’re going to get the full tour experience, and she reads him what’s on it. It sets up a moment that you feel is going to be an emotional one as he steps into the water.
You find out Bo-Katan apparently swore the Creed as well, because that’s a thing Mandalorians did. It was a ceremony, probably an armor-earning ceremony or something along those lines. So she’s not unfamiliar with the Creed. She’s just not one of the people who takes it fanatically. My co-host put it this way: we have different sects of religion, and it’s the same thing when it comes to the Mandalorians. I agree with that absolutely.
He steps in, and he suddenly gets sucked under. She puts her helmet on and dives in, and you’re like, how many times has she got to save him? It took her maybe less than a minute to jump in after him and he’s nowhere to be seen. She’s going for a while. She uses a rocket, she goes deep, and she eventually finds him toward the bottom, grabs him, and starts heading up.
On the way up she passes this ridgy, cliff-face-looking thing, and an eye opens. When it moves, you see the giant horns of the mythosaur. It’s a live one. According to legend, Mandalore the Great fought a mythosaur in that area, which is why it’s the blessed lake, water, whatever the heck.
It’s intense, and you’re like, whoa. And then that’s it, man. It’s over. Again, it didn’t feel like 44 minutes.
What Mandalore Used to Be
My co-host wishes we’d seen what Mandalore looked like before the Empire came, and we’d been talking about it earlier, that it feels like a combination of Alderaan and Coruscant. It seems like they lived inside the planet, in the subterranean city, but left the exterior somewhat alone. It still looked beautiful. There were still mountains and forests. Rebels actually showed some of the history and the past of Mandalore, and you get a better idea of it there.
The Verdict
The Mandalorian Chapter 18, “The Mines of Mandalore,” lands at an 8.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
I went first last week, so my co-host went first on this one and came in at eight five, because they’re giving such character to Grogu, and because as a fan it was a chance to learn more about Mandalore. I’ll agree with that. I’ll go eight and a half. That’s a fair assessment for this episode.
It was a good episode, I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I’m looking forward to next week.
Tell me what you thought of the episode, or anything Star Wars, Grogu or Mandalorian related. We’re always looking to expand the conversation with the Know-It-All Nation. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
