‘The Mandalorian’ – Season Two – ‘The Passenger’ – Review
After the epic start to The Mandalorian Season two with last week’s episode ‘The Marshal’, things pick up speed fast, and the action moves forward as Din Djarin, the Mandalorian continues his quest to return The Child to his species, and in Episode 10, ‘The Passenger’, it’s clear that no one puts baby in a corner.
Longtime Marvel Studios director Peyton Reed (Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp) drops by this time to the director’s chair and has a lot of fun with ‘The Passenger’, which finds him charting a great monster of the week style of episode, while also focusing moe into the parent themes of The Mandalorian. Here in ‘The Passenger’ we find Djarin ferrying The Frog Lady to the moon of Trask, so she can start a family with her husband….but because of the fragility of her eggs they have o travel at sub-light speeds and this leads them to hot-heated chase and a rendevous with some freaky and dangerous space spider monsters.
What was appealing about this new episode of The Mandalorian was that we get to see some growth of family duty of behalf of the Mandalorian, along with a different side to the Child. While for the past nine episodes we’ve all oohed and awwed at the Child’s cuteness, it’s mischievous nature leads the Mandalorian and his charge into danger here, and we see that the Mandalorian will have to lay down some discipline in order to keep it safe. Whether it’s the Child’s surreptitiously behaviour of eating of the Frog Lady’s eggs, or it’s rapid curiosity, we see the Mandalorian disciplining ‘his child’, and warning it of its behaviour in what is a very real-world reflection of actual parenting.
Another great part of ‘The Passenger’ is that we see director Peyton Reed and series creator Jon Favreau exploring ideas of the classic ‘monster of the week’ TV trope, and which has been a big part of the Star Wars mythos. ‘The Passenger’s’ freakishly scarring ice spiders bring up memories of the horrors of the carnivorous Wampa from The Empire Strikes Back, and there are plenty of nail-biting moments that will have you on edge. Reed brings a great use of over-whelming horror and tightly wound suspense to keep you on edge in ‘The Passenger’ and this last’s all the way to end of the episode.
‘The Passenger’ was packed full of surprises and offered up some different thrills for dedicated audiences of The Mandalorian, along with a nice commentary on parenting values. It’s a great second step for Season Two and points us in an interesting direction as we continue further down this series.
The Mandalorian streams every Friday on Disney+
Image: Walt Disney Pictures
