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Stormtroopers ran rampant through the newest adventure on The Mandalorian.

This week’s episode, “The Siege,” kicked things off with one of the most wonderful gifts I could have asked for: the return of Carl Weathers. Greef Karga, the aged bounty hunter played by Weathers, might be my favorite character on the show, so getting to spend another episode with him, and the near-equally-excellent Cara Dune, was an exciting prospect. Unbelievably, this episode succeeded; “The Siege” is easily the best episode of season two, so far. There were great action sequences, some unexpected plot twists, and many, many, many familiar faces. 

In many ways, this episode almost seemed like a greatest hits reel of The Mandalorian’s characters and settings. There were appearances from Greef Karga, Cara Dune, that blue fish-person from the pilot, Dr. Pershing via hologram, and even the great Moff Gideon himself. After an uneven first batch of episodes, it is certainly nice to get some familiarity back into the show. The plot is also the most straightforward of the season so far: Mando’s ship still needs repairs, so he lands on Nevarro where he can get it fixed at no cost. Once he lands, he is approached by Greef and Cara, who need his help taking out an imperial base thought to be abandoned. It is a basic plot, but where “The Siege” really shines is with its characters. Even if not too much is going on, it is so enjoyable to see the original team together again, fighting stormtroopers and blowing things up.

As the episode begins, viewers find out that Nevarro has turned itself around; the destruction of imperial presence has led to marketplaces and schools reopening. Greef is the de facto mayor of the planet, with Cara as his law-enforcing marshal. It is nice to see this destroyed city finally prosper, and the optimistic introduction sets the tone of what seems to be a rather light episode; naturally, it is far from that.

When Mando and the group arrive at the imperial base, they quickly realize it is not abandoned. There are stormtroopers and officers all over, and the heroes need to move fast if they want to blow it up and escape alive. They sneak in, flipping a switch that will lead the base to being flooded with lava. They are on their way out when Mando discovers that something is very wrong. He finds a truly disturbing hologram from Dr. Pershing, describing experiments conducted on young children that seemed to go awry. That is when the light bulb goes off: The building is not a base; it is a lab.

All the characters shoot their way out of the building, escaping with nobody being hurt. Mando says goodbye to his friends and flies away on his newly repaired ship. It is a simple episode, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, it is nice to just spend some time with old friends for a while. If I had to choose my least favorite portion of “The Siege,” it would be the inclusion of Mythrol, the blue-faced alien Mando froze into carbonite way back in Chapter One. He joins Mando, Greef, and Cara on their adventure for seemingly no other reason than comic relief. Unfortunately, he is not very good at comic relief either; after the first couple of times, his “I don’t want to be here!” joke starts to fall flat. Perhaps he will become important later, but I do not want to hold my breath. Thankfully, on the other end of the scale is the Baby Yoda escapades of this episode, and I do not think it is an overstatement when I say that this was his finest hour. In one half-hour sitting, we get to see him do work on the ship, go to school, steal cookies from a child, and even get shocked by wires (he turns out okay). He even gets to drink soup again! Unlike “The Marshall,” Baby Yoda’s moments here are both cute and natural to the story. It feels more organic, and not randomly thrown in to please fans.

I am happy that it seems like season two is finally getting itself back on track. I look forward to Episode Five: An epic The Mandalorian / The Clone Wars crossover event, which brings me to my final question– what in the world was up with Moff Gideon? His appearance at the end of the episode was a surprise, but I genuinely had no idea what it meant. Were those robots in the room with him? Empty armor? Soldiers? Hopefully that will be revealed soon, but until then, I will wait patiently.

Final Grade:

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

4 out of 5 Stars

OTHER NOTES

• According to the end credits, Carl Weathers directed this episode as well. Good job, Carl.
• I think my favorite part of this episode was that final conversation between Cara and the rebel soldier. Finding out that she was from Alderaan was a punch to the gut, and it adds a completely new level of depth to her character.
• Another minor complaint I have is that the chase scene in the Imperial shuttle went on for just a little bit too long. Disney could have easily cut two minutes off.
• I thought it was just a little odd that Mando just flew away at the end; I expected a bigger, more grand way of him saying goodbye.