AVAST ME SPOILERS!
One of the reasons this response is a little late in your inbox this week is that Pam and I went to Arizona to visit her parents and generally enjoy some low humidity living. While we were there, we had tacos and enchiladas with our friends Heather and Kenyon and their five year-old son Henry.
Henry wore an iconic sequined Stars Wars t-shirt. When we asked him which character was his favorite in The Mandalorian his answer was pretty definitively Paz Vizsla.
Henry, I think they made episode just for you. I hope you loved it.
In “The Pirate,” the fifth episode of The Mandalorian’s third season, the various elements of the overarching story - Moff Gideon’s whereabouts, the nomadic Covert, the mythosaur sighting, Nevarro, the New Republic and yes, indeed Pirate King Gorian Shard - come together.
What brings them all together? A battle of course! Hey, this series is called Star Wars for a reason, and while “wars don’t make one great,” they certainly make for some rousing television and movies. Pirates attack the innocent civilians of Nevarro. High Magistrate Greef Carga reaches out to the New Republic for aid, which leads to revealing series of complications, and not very much actual help. The help that does arrive is - from a story perspective - much more valuable to a show called The Mandalorian: Mandalorians! In an old-fashioned and very, very Star Wars-y battle, the good guys arrive, save the day, and are rewarded for their valor.
The key scene in this episode, though, didn’t involve a single Mandalorian or pirate. It’s when stalwart New Republic pilot Captain Carson Teva zips in his X-Wing all the way to Coruscant to follow up on this distress call. There, he finds himself embroiled in a question that is purely technical - Nevarro hasn’t, as the Trade Federation might put it, signed the treaty.
In the scene that follows, between Teva, Elia Kane (fresh from her sinister turn in “The Convert,”) and Colonel Tuttle (the always great Tim Meadows!), Kane suggests that non-member worlds may learn the dangers of not joining the New Republic if they receive no aid at all - a rather Imperial point of view, as Teva notes. Tuttle, a requisitions officer, seems agnostic, neither punitive nor righteous. Instead he seems overwhelmed and under-interested. He does want to help, but, but, but… pirates are a local problem, he’s got a line of unfulfilled requests already. He can’t see what Teva sees, something larger at play, because his desk is overflowing the data tapes. The question of who is suffering is not his first concern. He’s searching for the correct rule to apply. Nowhere do we see outrage on behalf of the citizens in danger.
I wrote about the conundrum of the New Republic in my response to “The Convert,” and the fuzzy picture comes further into focus in this episode. The New Republic continues to be represented by genial faces and sheepishly friendly do-gooders. They seem apologetic, they seem earnest, but also ineffectual. Something about the path to hell being paved with good intentions comes to mind. (This doesn’t apply to Teva himself, who represents the best of the New Republic here and in previous appearances. Hopefully he’ll inspire the best in his new government.)
Perhaps some of you will remember the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl. In it, the main character treats with Captain Barbossa, played by Geoffrey Rush, according to the Pirate’s Code, relying on it to protect them in negotiations. Captain Barbossa famously and hilariously remarks that the ‘Pirates Code’ is more like guidelines than actual rules.
His point: don’t mistake the letter of the law for the spirit of the law.
It can feel, sometimes, as if we become so focused on what is legal than we lose sight of what’s right. That’s how you create a system that, to paraphrase Bryan Stevenson, works better for the rich and guilty than the poor and innocent. It’s why we have a system in the US that seems allergic to holding a President accountable but is more than capable of jailing less powerful people for failing to make bail. That’s all, strictly-speaking, legal. But is it right?
As I wrote this, the first indictment against a former President of the US was brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Lots of hay is being made about how this is the first time it’s ever happened - but do you know why Presidents are never indicted or charged? It’s not because there is a legal barrier to doing so. In fact, the United States’s supposed core value is that no person is above the law, that all are created equal. But the general and accepted practice of the Department of Justice is not to bring charges against a sitting President because it’s their opinion that it would be disruptive to the office holder and therrefore the country. It’s not a law, it’s a guideline, that has become treated as if it has the force of law. This guideline is not for former Presidents, but somehow the ethos has extended beyond the life of the office. It’s the perfect example of the sometimes hazy line between what’s a norm, what is legal, and what is just.
The New Republic’s central command are portrayed are rule-followers who have lost sight of their purpose: to run a better, safer, more representative galaxy. The Mandalorians, on the other hand, decide that helping Nevarro is the honorable way to behave. They save Nevarro because they feel as if they should, not because they are obligated to. Sure, there’s the implication that intervening could have some material good - a new home - but that’s not why Paz Vizsla says they should fight. He says they should fight because they are Mandalorians. It’s in that moment that being a Mandalorian means being a hero, not just wearing a mask. And isn’t that a key theme in Star Wars? How can we be heroes in our lives?
To be fair, the Mandalorians are a small, agile group of soldiers and the New Republic is an unwieldy Galactic government, so comparing their ability to pivot isn’t really fair in real terms. Still, this episode seems to be drawing a contrast between the inertia of Coruscant and the passion of the Covert. The New Republic is so bound up by the letter of the law it cannot exert the spirit of the law. It’s rules are, ironically, preventing it from doing good.
The Mandalorian goes deeper into the question of rule-following in a key scene with Bo-Katan and The Armorer. The Armorer realizes that Bo-Katan walking The Way with the Covert is not actually going to bring about the best result for the people of Mandalore. Bo-Katan has seen the mythosaur and has been a part of mainstream Mandalorian society in a way the The Watch has not. Instead of a rigid insistence that Bo-Katan keep her helmet on and follow the rules of The Watch, the Armorer asks Bo to walk in “both worlds” in order to bring their people together and retake their homeworld. The Armorer, who represents the most devout of the Watch, allows herself to put orthodoxy aside in favor of a better future for all, even those who don’t live the way she does.
It’s been very fun to watch this season unfold differently from the last two. Instead of being proof-of-concept for Star Wars television like Season One or a quest to bring one child to the Jedi like Season Two, this is a season that connects to the wider Star Wars landscape and the larger Filoni-verse (by which I mean The Clone Wars and especially Rebels). It feels like the show is working backwards from a big finish - the battle to retake Mandalore, and the final tag at the end of the episode adds an extra wrinkle. What if there are Mandalorians on the side of Moff Gideon, who himself once held the Darksaber? Will the battle for Mandalore be between Mandalorians and the Imperial Remnant, or between Mandalorians themselves?
Before I go, I can’t skip past the honking huge cameo that I rewound and watched a few times with a big smile on my face! Zeb Orrelios of Rebels makes a live-action debut (sort of live action, I mean, as live-action as a more life-like animation can be)!
To see this guy…
become this guy…
Was. quite. a. thing.
With Ahsoka on the horizon and hyperspace whales in the first episode of this season, Zeb portends great things ahead, especially for fans of Rebels. One wonders if the Big Crossover teased down the line is a confrontation between The New Republic and Thrawn that will bring the cast of The Mandalorian and the live-action cast of Rebels together?
It’s exciting to wonder!
This is where the fun begins!
in my head, Hera screamed, "Garazeb Orellios!!!" seconds after the Teva/Zeb scene ended for the viewers.