Full Series Grade the Episode - 212: The Mandalore Plot

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Now that you've watched this episode again, how would you rate it?

Remember, unlike our Season 3 polls, please feel free to discuss the episode as much as you'd like in this thread. Did the episode seem any different than the first time you saw it?

Grade average (39 votes): 6.84

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8.5/10.

I immediately loved Satine and the look of Mandalore, nice touch adding the Picassos.

I am a huge Obi-Wan fan and so this probably colors how much I enjoy this episode, but it was great to get Obi-Wan out by himself, and dealing with a former flame(!) from his youth.

I am NOT a Mando historian, so overall, I thought they handled the Mandalorians quite well and nothing really disturbed me.

The suicide bomber was a pretty gritty touch for a children's cartoon show.

The Darksaber or whatever was a little much but it worked okay I thought.


Few points docked for (a) the pretty ridiculous "Satine has the earpiece but Pre Viszla never figures it out!" routine (it just went on too long), and (b) still think Obi-Wan should be able to handle the average Mando fairly easily.

Pretty awesome to see the Mandos take off into the air united.

 

8

I'm not big into the Madalore in the EU, so this episode defined the planet in my eyes.

Great Obi-Wan/Satine moments, some of the best Obi-Wan scenes in the series.

I loved Pre Vizsla, but I wish he was more involved in the following episodes.

The Darksaber was a pretty cool touch.

I liked how Satine wasn't a damsel in distress (unlike Padme ) and saved Obi-Wan from being crushed in the factory.

 

8/10

Decent episode.

I predict lots of low grades.

 

Yeah, I'm surprised this got so many high grades so far.

 

9,

Obi-Wan and Satine make an awesome and rather comical duo. Plot is fun and great start to the arc. Pre Vizsla is awesome, Death Watch, FTW and I can't wait to get more of them in season 4. Mandalore looked cool, some cool vehicles in this one. This has a cool rescue sequence at the end there. The suicide bomber was dark and almost unbelievable in a kids show right down the the splat sound. And I liked the black lightsaber, that duel was short but it was sweet.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Mandalorian expert nor familiar with these guys in the EU.

 

9- Nice Obi-Wan in action -episode and George's version of Mandalore is more interesting IMO- Boba Fett copies of EU are not very charming-

Satine was interesting extremist character- oh why they had to waste her potential in season3-crap

Pre Viszla is good bad guy and nice to see Death Watch is still canon- i always had the picture that mandalorian supercommandos are dead during the clone war because Death Watch betrayed them and jedi lead by Dooku killed them.....

After all worst cons are voiceacting- that guy who greets Obi-Wan is Matt Lanter and my brother seriously expected him to be Anakin in disguise damn that tells something.....

Darksaber was unique but bit odd since Grievous' bodyguards have staffs made out of metal that blocks the lightsaber- seen clearly in ROTS- yet now GL wants to return "nothing can block lightsaber" -logic that is too late after ROTS showed how metal can block the saber..... why they didn't let him wield vibroblade he could've boasted how it's mandalorian iron or something and cannot be cut by saber- we already see in EU how "normal sword" blocks saber and it could've had cool forceshield around the blade or something but they made it to be black lightsaber

"Fall of the Old Republic" I love that line it also supports the eu-explanations to conflicting lines about Republic's age.... so some people consider Old Republic to be different state some don't- that explains it all....

When Obi-Wan contacts Satine via that little comlink that is certainly one of the best comedic moments in TCW IMO.... "sorry to hear that..."

 

I give it an 8/10. I liked the different sects of Mandalore. I am very interested in how Palpatine strong-armed systems into doing his bidding or joining the Republic even though they wanted no part of the war or the Republic.

Because of how Mandalore is portrayed?

 

Hmmmm, I may give it an 8(I still haven't made my final decision). It's pretty good, but some things didn't make sense. I mean, why didn't the Mandos just kill the Jedi with a blaster after they disarmed in and knocked him unconscious? That, and there's this other Mando that got too easily distracted by Satine throwing a rock at his protected head. It's distracting, but I'd expect a well-trained soldier to have a little more discipline and kill the potentially more dangerous target first before shooting at the duchess.

As for what I like about this episode, I think everybody has already said it.

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure about the trope of "stick the hero in a completely 'unescapable' trap" (I mean, it's right out of Austin Powers), but I was assuming they wanted it to look like some industrial accident gone horribly wrong.

Really, they should have killed him at the factory and dumped him at some seedy underbelly of Mandalore City or whatever it's called.


The banter between Kenobi & Satine was great, much more of a "Han & Leia" feel.

 

10/10

I admit, I'm biased because of how jaded I was by the last Republic Commando novel. After that, even an episode like Corruption would have earned a thumbs up from me, simply for portraying the Mandalorians plausibly.

As it happened, The Mandalore Plot was a good episode in its own right. Satine and Pre Vizsla were the first proper Mandalorian characters since 2002 I could genuinely get behind. The relationship between Satine and Obi-Wan was one of the highlights. Character didn't take a back seat to spectacle and the "cool factor", but the episode provided plenty of the latter in the form of the Death Watch commandos - clad in magnificently uniform armour resembling Jango Fett's - taking to the air and engaging in a skirmish with a Jedi.

The overall theme of ultranationalists trying to brutalise the mainstream into supporting their reactionary views was... interesting, to say the least.

The episode also raised my expectations for Mandalorian stories, so naturally, Corruption does not win my approval, partially because of how good this episode was.

 

Like Children of the Force, I'm surprised to see so many negative reviews! I understand anger over Mandalore's retcon but in the grand scheme of things it didn't turn out that badly! I gave the episode a 10, but now I'm wishing I had given it a 9 after remembering the "slow moving machine of death/suspense" moment.

Other than that I thought the episode was pretty outstanding, after all it kicks off my favorite trilogy of episodes so far in the series! Satine is easily the best character to come out of TCW. She is everything good about Padme without the annoying-ness that somehow got tacked on in the series while at the same time being her own character as the completely pacifistic, traditional ruler. Obi-Wan was also portrayed exceptionally well, which makes me wish he was the center of attention more often. Just because he isn't the super action figure seller like Anakin or the hero relatable to teenage girls like Ahsoka doesn't mean he isn't an awsome character!

Overall, the episode had a few bumps along the road but was excellent overall IMO.

 

9/10. This arc still ranks as my favourite over the entire course of the show. The Death Watch resurgence was handled well, and the New Mandalorians actions were vague enough to not ruffle too many feathers of mine regarding EU Mandalorians.

Almec was a shifty bugger from the moment I saw him, and it was neat seeing that the Death Watch Commando was almost able to take down an entire ship single handedly.

I simply enjoyed this episode for actually trying to be subtle for a change.

 

9/10

+concordia
+++++++SATINE
+++++VIZSLA
+++DEATH WATCH
+design of sundari
+ the suicide scene was nice in a gritty way
+the banter between satin and obi-wan, loved it, better than obi-wan and anakin banter by a long shot

overall, great episode, but definitely overshadowed by its brilliant successor

 

Does it go lower than 1. This episode was a joke. Satine is Amadila 2.0 with the annoyance factor turned up to 11. How many 'elected' queens who are pacifists do we need in the series? Obi Wan in love? Oh give me a break. That's a common female writer trope other EU and it's tiresome. His admission later that he would have left the Jedi order for her made me want to vomit, let alone was completely out of character given his berating of Anakin in the movies.

The Death Watch may as well have had key-stone cop hats as effective as they were. Alas poor Canderous Ordo, we knew thee well.

 

How many? We have none at the moment- Corruption turned this only real pacifist to hypocrite jerk- Padmé is only naive and stupid- not pacifist she is more like superwarrior nowadays....

Obi-Wan is jedi but that's doesn't make him asexual in any way- romance just adds more to Obi-Wan's character but that's my opinion ...and i'm not female....

Berating? Watch movies again Obi-Wan is not condemning Anakin- just warning him- because he knows what he is talking about- i see this completely logic with Obi-Wan's attitude towards Anakin.... In ROTS he guesses father of Padmé's child and is not angry at all he is hardly berating Anakin.... besides he also says anakin not to loose his saber and loses his saber all the time- similar thing- teachers tend to want that their students are better and don't make same mistakes as they did....

 

Surprising lack of controversy this time around about the Mandos, maybe it's because it's been hashed and rehashed in several LACWAC threads.

I'm discounting the high numbers of 1/10 and 2/10 in this because other than the above poster, no one is defending their low scores.

 

To be honest I don't see why there needs to be controversy anymore. When the TCW Mandalorian situation was first revealed at the 2009 SDCC I was up in arms about it, but at this point all the inconsistencies have been pretty much dealt with. With a little imagination it's really nothing more than an addition to the Mando saga rather than a retcon.

I wish I could say that about a couple other TCW "inconsistencies"...

 

Too bad Obi-Wan didn't think to warn of him "letting loose his lightsaber."


Just saying.

 

I agree. What happened back in 2009 was a big overreaction.

 

I don't care about Mando history, this episode was just terribly boring along with the rest of the arc.

I remember I quit watching the show after these episodes aired.

1/10

 

Yes, Padme is superwarrior, nowadays, another inconsistency of character. However in TPM she said "I won't condone action that will lead us to war." She wouldn't even defend her planet from invasion. She was willing to do just sit there and die until she was talked into leaving. Then suddenly, dunt dun ta da, she's back to storm the palace with everyone conviently having grapling devices for scaling the palace walls, and even blasters hidden in her thrown. Contrived. So, they needed to redo Queen Amidala, so they put in Dutchess Satine, who wears the same elaborate outfits and basically talks the same way. Then, just happens to have also had a secret love affair with a Jedi. How quaint.

Just wait, they'll do with Ahsoka too. It's becoming As the Force Turns.

 

^Well i cannot deny that there wouldn't be any lack of imagination or re-used ideas- possibly history of GFFA repeating itself but compared to The Old Republic for example this was imaginative way they use same ideas and Satine felt like new character to me- one thing that she was not a young girl like Padmé and also a blonde and had a blue outfit -

Being against the war is not that unique- there is many rulers who want to avoid the war in real world, but Satine was extremist compared to Padmé- 1000 years of peace makes pacifism easy choice in the republic- so natural that Satine followed republic's example, so i think there is enough in-universe reasons to explain similarities between Padmé and Satine and it doesn't bother me- but yeah jedi and politician is too usual romance- hopefully they won't make Lux Bonteri senator of any kind....

 

At this point, it's like Padme has multiple personalities. At times, it seems like she opposes anything to do with the war just because she's obsessively pacifistic. It's like she doesn't even consider what's going on, she just wants peace, even if there's no peace to be had. She doesn't want war, even though it's already upon her. It starts to come off as if she just doesn't want to win, like she's trying to undermine the Republic war effort.

Other times, Rambo Amidala dives into combat, shooting everything in sight.

 

There was a pejorative thrown around during the American Civil War to describe politicians like TCW's Padme: Copperhead.

That's always been a part of her character. A good writer would have kept this aspect of her character and fleshed out her other aspects.

Unfortunately, there simply hasn't been much in the way of good writing when it comes to Padme in TCW.