In “The Mandalorian” recap, the bounty hunter seeks refuge on a remote planet where he runs into a former rebel soldier and he soon finds out trouble has a way of finding him…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
A Mandalorian isn’t supposed to have a crisis of conscience.
More specifically Mandalorian bounty hunters aren’t supposed to get emotionally involved with whatever asset they are tasked with tracking down because that just makes things get awfully messy when it’s time to turn somebody over to the authorities.
Of course for all the ways the lead character in “The Mandalorian” scoffed at bribes from the first bounty he tackled to start the show, he still has a heart and it was impossible for him to walk away from a tiny baby Yoda knowing that the Imperial loyalists who had him track it down in the first place probably didn’t have the child’s best interests at heart.
So the Mandalorian braved a fire fight with Storm Troopers and a garrison of bounty hunters in order to save the baby and protect it from whatever nefarious plans his Client had in store for the little guy.
In the latest episode — directed by the great Bryce Dallas Howard — the Mandalorian tries to find an out of the way spot to seek refuge away from the prying eyes of the bounty hunter Guild tasked with locating him but he soon discovers that trouble has a funny way of finding him even in the most remote corner of the galaxy.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of “The Mandalorian” titled “Chapter 4: Sanctuary”…
Trouble Finds You
The episode starts in a small fishing village in an unknown corner of the galaxy where a seemingly peaceful community are uprooted by a group of Klatooinian raiders, who pillage for everything they can find while a wielding a menacing weapon that we don’t see at the time but it’s firing away with massive laser blasts. A mother clutches her child in hiding as she waits for the raiding party to pass.
Cut to the Razor-Crest where the Mandalorian and the baby Yoda are searching for an out of the way spot to lay low where bounty hunters aren’t likely to find them. The bond between the bounty hunter and baby grows stronger with every exchange and eventually Mando finds a suitable planet where they can land.
It’s a place called Sorgan — an out of the way spot with no space port or major industrial cities, which should keep them off the radar and away from the various members of the bounty hunters guild, who are undoubtedly scouring the galaxy for them by now.
Once they land, Mando tells the little guy to stay put so he can look around and see if there are any dangers. Of course, the baby Yoda doesn’t want to go anywhere that isn’t by Mando’s side so sure enough he follows along.
When he arrives at a local cantina, the Mandalorian orders a bowl of broth for the baby while he keeps a watchful eye on a soldier sitting across the café from him. He gets distracted for just a moment and she disappears but Mando decides to give chase by using his heat detector to track her steps.
He finally encounters the woman but she was ready for his attack and the two of them engage in a brawl outside the cantina. When they come to a standoff with blasters pointed at each other, baby Yoda arrives slurping down the last drop of his soup and both of them are overwhelmed by the cuteness. Ok, maybe that was just me.
Either way, they put the blasters down and decide to have a drink inside.
That’s where the soldier is introduced as Cara Dune (as played by women’s mixed martial arts pioneer Gina Carano) and she’s a former Rebel shock trooper. In a callback to “Return of the Jedi”, she explains that she helped clean up Endor when the war between the rebels and the Empire came to an end but after the Imperial warlords were wiped out, she was stuck playing peacekeeper and bodyguard to important people and that’s not the job she wanted.
So Cara struck out on her own and she ended up on this planet where she thought she was alone. She spotted Mando and knew he was a bounty hunter and Cara assumed he had a tracking fob to search for her. It’s not clear exactly what Cara did bad enough to send bounty hunters on her trail but that’s gonna be a story for another day.
In this instance, Cara and Mando come to an understanding but she found this remote planet first, which means she gets to stay.
As The Mandalorian begins packing the Razor Crest for a journey to a new planet to call home, he’s interrupted by a couple of those local villagers, who were attacked by the raiding party at the start of the episode. They’ve gathered credits from everybody in the village in hopes of hiring Mando to come protect them from the raiders. He declines at first because their payment isn’t nearly enough but when the fishermen mention that their village is remote, in the middle of nowhere, he gets an idea.
Mando takes the credits to pay Cara Dune to assist him as they jump on the boat bound for this small fishing village. He knows that if he can wipe out these raiders, he’ll be left in a remote area where the child will be save from the prying eyes of the bounty hunters guild.
Once they arrive, Mando meets a woman named Omera and her daughter Winta — they were the ones hiding in the water then the raiding party first came to the village — and she gives the bounty hunter and baby Yoda a place to stay. After Winta takes the baby out to play, Omera gives the Mandalorian some food and asks him about his helmet. He explains that he takes it off daily — but hasn’t shown his face to another soul since he was a child.
Following the flirtatious conversation, Mando and Cara Dune go searching for the raiding party but that’s when they find a shocking surprise. These raiders aren’t just a bunch of wild savages — they have somehow gotten a hold of an Imperial AT-ST walker.
Mando and Cara Dune are ready to abandon this mission and tell the villagers that their best bet is to do the same. Find a new home somewhere else on this planet where there aren’t Klatooinian raiders nearby with an AT-ST at their disposal. But the villagers refuse to leave their homes and they offer to help fight the raiders — and eventually Mando concedes to teach them.
Along with Cara Dune, the bounty hunter begins preparing the villagers for the upcoming fight as they teach them how to use blasters and spears while building blockades to slow down the raiders. They also dig deep trenches around the village in hopes that they can trick the AT-ST into stepping in one of the holes, which will topple the mechanical monster and bring it crashing down.
Once the villagers are ready for the fight, Mando and Cara Dune invade the raider camp to provoke them into following back to the village. The plan works all too well as the raiders immediately give chase while Mando and Cara Dune fight them back.
When the AT-ST arrives, it doesn’t immediately step into the trench, which leaves the villagers in grave danger. Thanks to some handy rifle work from Cara Dune, she manages to force the AT-ST to come after her, which then leads it into that boggy marsh. The walker falls into the water and Mando quickly attaches a bomb to the hull, which blows the whole thing to smithereens.
The war is won — the raiders have been defeated and their mighty monster has been destroyed.
A few weeks later, Mando and Cara Dune are still hanging around the village but no further trouble has followed them there. But the Mandalorian knows that after the dust up they had with the raiders that word will eventually get around to other towns, which could eventually lead more people there to look for them.
So Mando prepares to leave the planet but decides he’s going to leave baby Yoda behind so he can be raised by the villagers and have some semblance of a normal life. Omera tries to convince him to stay — telling Mando that he can have a normal life as well and she even reaches to pull off his helmet but he stops her. Mando isn’t made for this world but the kid can have a regular life once he’s gone.
Unfortunately his plans are crushed after a gunshot rings out in the woods near the village. Mando gives chase but finds Cara Dune standing in the woods with her blaster drawn and a dead bounty hunter laying on the ground in front of her. The bounty hunter is from the guild because he’s carrying a tracking fob that led him to the child.
Mando knows he can’t leave the baby there or he’ll risk more bounty hunters coming to get him. Cara Dune offers to have his back as he returns to his ship but Mando tells her than he’s getting back to the Razor Crest and then leaving the planet. Perhaps these two will cross paths again in the future but for now Mando has to say goodbye while the sad-eyed baby has to leave the other children from the village.
The Mandalorian now has to search for a new home where the baby will be safe and hopefully another bounty hunter won’t find them.
“The Mandalorian” returns with a brand new episode next Friday on Disney+
