The Mandalorian - Chapter 3: The Sin Review

The tables have turned, and the next chapter of the story begins with a bang!

Reviewed by Noah F. on Nov 25, 2019

Rating:

The Mandalorian is officially in full swing, the stakes have been raised and our mysterious lead character has gotten the prize he craved. At what cost? Kidzworld reviews Chapter 3: The Sin. Full spoilers ahead!

Turning in the Bounty

Mando and the "Baby Yoda" successfully escaped the Jawa infested desert planet, and now they’re on their way back to The Client to collect on the huge prize of Beskar. We get yet another adorable scene with Baby Yoda as he repeatedly tries to fiddle with the Razor Crest’s controls, constantly unscrewing a knob at the end of a lever. That surprisingly pays off later. It is refreshing how this scene doesn’t feel rushed, and you get a sense of the Mandalorian’s problem in this episode right off the bat. You get some time to imagine how intensely Mando might be thinking about this while flying through space. Does he want to turn the Baby in? Does he keep it and run? He obviously has taken a liking to it right? He takes it in.

Everything about this first scene is stretched out like time seems to when you’re alone with your thoughts. He wades through the crowds of various colorful aliens in his usual quiet and reserved self, all while the conflict builds in his mind. We still haven’t seen The Mandalorian’s face, and yet at every moment you know what he is thinking and that is all thanks to Pedro Pascal’s wonderful body language. The struggles, the triumphs, the conflict everything is clear and you cannot help but feel for him, even as you are in disbelief as he does the unthinkable and walks right into the Imperial base.

We still don't know exactly what the Empire wanted with the Baby, but it cannot be good.

A Fistful of Beskar

As promised, the prize for turning in The Child is a whole heaping helping of Mandalorian Beskar metal. He already got a little bit in Episode 1, enough to build a new shoulder plate but now he can finish the rest. The temptation is there, and this simple exchange is everything Mando knows at this point. Complete the job, get paid, but he has doubts. The whole conversation between Mando and The Client is filled with conflict and a slight tinge of regret, and you can hear it in his voice. He asks what will happen to the Child, and even though he tries to hide his caring, you can tell he is struggling between what he knows and what is right. They don't want a force sensitive child for no reason. From the Stormtroopers' dirty armor and the general unkemptness of the office space, you can tell they are struggling to hold any power they have. Hearing the Baby coo in fear as he is taken away was honestly heartbreaking, and you can't help but hate our main character in this moment. He takes the metal and leaves for the Mandalorian Enclave.

The Armorer probably hasn't seen this much Beskar in a long time.

An Upgrade and Family Arguments

Back at the Mandalorian hideout, he was met with some resistance. You can tell The Armorer is secretly happy to see this much Beskar being returned to their tribe, but the rest of the group can’t help but heckle him for taking a job from the Empire. The Jedi aren’t the only group that was extinguished by The Empire. The Mandalorians were hunted down and killed during the Emperor’s reign, and the surviving members haven’t forgiven. They don't even dare to leave their hideout more than one at a time because of the danger. The Mandalorian gets into a fight with a hulking brute of a man, the most heavily armored of the group but the Armorer stands up for him. She shoots down the big guy’s insults of calling Mando cowardly by saying nobody in their line of work could be a coward. The fight disperses, and even though the Mandalorians are a tight-knit group, they are prone to fighting just like any other family. Except this family settles their disagreements with knives (or more specifically vibroblades).

The Armorer creates a brand new, shiny suit of Beskar armor for Mando, as well as “Whistling Birds” which are basically tiny little homing missiles. All the while, another flashback sequence hits. We get a bit more to go on than the one in the first episode. It was the Clone Wars that took Mando’s parents from him, and the image of a Super Battle Droid is burned into his mind. Even though the scene's purpose was seeing firsthand the horrors of war, it was a nice touch to see a live-action Battle Droid after so long. Now with a giant, chrome target on his chest, head, arms, basically all over his body, he walks back to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild cantina for more work. Trying to distract himself from his conflicted feelings.

Series writer Jon Favreau plays the hulking Mandalorian.

The Decision

Greef Carga congratulates Mando on the bounty, tells him to relax, kick back and celebrate. Mando isn’t having any of it and asks for another job. Carga begrudgingly agrees and shows him a Mon Calamari bounty, the same species as Admiral Ackbar ("It's a Trap!"). This bounty would take him far away from the planet, which is exactly what he thought he wanted. He quietly walks back to the ship, with his mind made up to move on. When in the Razor Crest’s cockpit, he looks down at the lever The Baby had been messing with. The little knob at the end was missing. And he makes a decision. With his full set of armor acquired, he decides to go back and do what he wanted to from the beginning. I believe he relates strongly to the Baby. He also had his family taken from him, and the Empire’s crusade against the Mandalorians took the lives of many he would consider his second family. He didn’t want to see something else so vulnerable used for their gain and suffer the same fate as he did, becoming lost and alone. Not to mention the danger that the Empire possessing a force sensitive being could cause. What ensues somehow escalates the already thrilling action in this series even further.

Cool aliens new and familiar wander the marketplace.

A Daring Rescue Mission

Mando rescuing the Baby is bar-none one of the best action scenes in the saga, in a series that has already had some great ones. From the dimly lit base, the low camera that gets right in the thick of it, to the absolutely unforgiving resolve of our “hero” as he mows down Stormtrooper after Stormtrooper is a sight to behold, and makes me glad that director Deborah Chow is going to be the main force behind the Obi-Wan series down the road. There is some wonderful camera work in this episode, and it is unforgiving, especially in a series that is often considered family-friendly first. Rogue One experimented with the idea of a darker, grittier take on Star Wars, but The Mandalorian doubles down, doesn’t hold back and is better for it. Once Mando reaches where the Baby is being kept, he finds the doctor that he first met in Episode 1. Even then, he seemed like he wanted anything but for the Baby to be hurt. The doctor coils in fear, because he thought the armored bounty hunter was back to harm, not help the Child. Mando spares the doctor and leaves with the Child in tow. He has another run-in with a few more troopers, but nothing the Whistling Birds can’t handle.

These seem pretty useful.

The Tables Have Turned

As the Mandalorian leaves the scene with the baby in tow, it was not long after that the entire Bounty Hunter’s Guild got a new bounty. In an instant, Mando becomes the most wanted man in the city, and maybe the whole planet. The hunter, now the hunted makes his way towards his ship but is ambushed by Greef and dozens of bounty hunters. Greef urges Mando to give up the Child, but of course, is refused. Mando can hold his own in a firefight, but so can all of these seasoned killers. One versus many, Mando dives into a nearby speeder for cover, blasting and roasting until his wrist-mounted flamethrower runs out of fuel. It seemed hopeless, but remember, family sticks together. From behind the buildings, one after another the Mandalorian clan comes to his aid, jetpacks and blasters flaming in one of the most glorious rescues the series has ever seen. After years of simply reading about Mandalorians fighting, seeing an entire group of them come to the aid of one of their own made the fan in me giddy. “This is the Way.”

They buy Mando enough time to get to the Razor Crest, but Greef escaped the chaos and was waiting. After a tense standoff, Greef gets blasted and falls, with no more obstacles standing in the way of escape. The Razor Crests engines roared, and Mando takes to the skies. It is revealed that Greef was not killed after all, as the blaster bolt conveniently struck the brick of Beskar he had tucked away in his jacket pocket. Before he breaks the atmosphere, a jetpacking Mandalorian sends his regards outside the Razor Crest’s window to which Mando exclaims “I gotta get one of those” as he looks longingly toward the other Mandalorian's jetpack. Potential foreshadowing? Hopefully, as it certainly would have helped him several times up to this point. And he is going to need all the help he can get as he and the Baby breeze through space, now wanted fugitives from the Imperial Remnant and Greef. He rightfully returns the lever end to the Baby's tiny, three-fingered hand.The future is unclear for the first time since the end of the first episode, where we learned what his bounty was. Where will he go? Who will he meet? I can’t wait to find out.

I screamed in excitement at my TV when this moment happened.

Final Thoughts

“The Sin” cements “The Mandalorian” as a new staple of Star Wars for me. The series could end here and I would be totally satisfied, but I am glad it isn't.The character moments are stronger than ever, with Pedro Pascal’s performance being a standout without many words. The action escalates to unseen heights, and the future of the series is paved and both the lives of our heroes and their journeys will never be the same. Mando has all but given up the life he had grown used to. I’m sure there will still be bounties to hunt, but not under the banner of Greef’s Guild. This episode was greatly enjoyable as a longtime Star Wars fan, and especially as a fan of the Expanded Universe stories of novels, games and comics before Disney took over the name. Not just seeing the Mandos in action (as thrilling as that was) but also because we were able to see the great potential of this setting shine. There are endless possibilities for this universe, far beyond that of Jedi, Rebellions and evil Empires.

The smaller, more personal story here is proving to be my favorite of the Disney produced titles to hit the screen, and if it can keep this up, it might even rest among the best sci-fi shows of all time. Hopefully, in the next episode, we get to meet Gina Carano's character Cara Dune, as she has been absent from the cast thus far even though she was a fairly big part of the marketing and posters. But, so was IG-11 and he was blasted in the first episode. Star Wars is full of unlikely duos, but I think it has officially found one of its favorites.