Full Series Grade the Episodes 4.01-4.02: "Heroes of Mandalore" (Spoilers Allowed)

Still She never cared about what her sister was about.

 

You mean while she was brainwashed by Death Watch? I wouldn't blame her for that.

 

Oh But I very much do. She was not brainwashed by death watch. She was Death Watch. She was the second in command and I think she very well knew that Vizlsa wanted her sister dead.

 

I'd have to rewatch those episodes involving the Mandalorians; because I'd swear that while she went along with what Death Watch represented; she never meant to put her sister in danger. Of course it wasn't revealed that Satine was her sister until that last episode.

 

I also don't think Bo-Katan wanted what Satine wanted. She wanted peace, yes, but she wanted her people to be true to their tradtions as well.

 

Death Watch murdered innocent Mandalorians just to solely undermine Satine’s rule. They didn’t do it because they wanted peace. The system was peaceful already, thanks to Satine’s efforts. They did it because they wanted the opposite of it. They were selfish sociopaths obsessed with a violent tradition and sought to legitimize their ways by pretty much destroying a functional, prospering and benevolent government, actions which eventually led to Republic invasion. The fact that one of them is now being portrayed as the “rightful ruler” is comedic, in a bad way.

(Also her moment of “clarity” was she just saying “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, because Bo-Katan had a racist bias against Maul. She was never once shown regretting her ways or even having a semblance of an honest redemption arc)

 

She didn't have to come to Kenobi's defense after the fact. I think there was more of a redeeming aspect to it. I also think Kenobi could sense it too when he came to the revelation that Satine and Bo-Katan were related.

 

She defended Kenobi because she wanted him to go back to the Republic to ask for help. When Kenobi said that it would lead to a Republic invasion of Mandalore, she was like “at least Maul dies.” She was never shown to actually care for her people, she only cared about revenge.

Rebels could’ve given her a (proper) redemption storyline, or at least make her earn that saber and the trust of her people the way Sabine did. Instead she just shows up out of nowhere, her past atrocities never mentioned, is treated out of the blue like a rightful leader, and gets rewarded with what should have been more naturally Sabine’s story conclusion. It's just really bad writing. And I'm saying this as someone who enjoyed Bo-Katan way more than I enjoyed Sabine.

 

A generous 7/10

The main thing that annoyed me was the ease with which Sabine reconfigured the Giant Plot Device to attack stormtrooper armour. The idea, unless I have this wrong, is that Mando armour is special scifi magic armour, while stormtrooper armour is cheap mass produced plastic rubbish, but all it takes to reconfigure the impossible-to-understand technology is having the idea of turning it against stormtroopers, plus 4 or 5 button presses. Sooooo Mando armour and imperial armour can't be all that different, or the machine itself isn't working on any principle unique to secret Mandalorian super-metallurgy. So how clever is Sabine and how stupid is literally everyone else?

 

It was her machine. Perhaps it only responded to her input for modifications or something. We'll probably never know, but I don't thinks it's unbelievable that the creator of this weapon was required in order to perfect it.

 

That's not really the point, it's the ease which the machine itself could be reconfigured to attack anyone's armour, as if it attacks the concept of body armour, rather than, as was suggested, attacking the super imperviousness of mando super-armour. This suggests that the machine is working on a principle that doesn't only apply to mando metal, but applies to all materials (or at least materials common to both kinds of armour), in which case, why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

And now of course the Rebellion has a method of killing all stormtroopers on sight, except that they don't.

I get that this is Star Wars and we shouldn't expect Hard SF (otherwise just having faster than light technology negates the need for a Death Star, etc), but MacGuffins/devices like the Duchess should support the internal logic of the story they're in at the very least.

 

Beskar'gram is a complex alloy that only master Mandalorian smiths can craft, and the method to making it is not widely known. It probably took an equally complex machine that only someone who was familiar with both the armour and weapons could create for a countermeasure.

Stormtrooper armour looks like cheap plastic. I assume that the simplicity of Imperial armour vs the complexity of Mandalorian armour made it easy to reconfigure the device to work against Saxon and the Stormtroopers.

 

I have no problem with the first part, other than the quality of the ideas, it's internally consistent.

I have problems with the idea of the device, supposedly very complex and specific to a single, improbable task, being reconfigurable to work against what looks like an entirely different substance. If there's a machine that can do that, why isn't it in common use, and why does the Empire clothe its troops in omnidirectional death ray magnets?

Metals and polymers are different things that react to different physics in different ways, simplicity of design is only a consideration if the device is somehow philosophically attuned to the concept of body armour, or as if body armour is an elemental aspect of nature that always behaves in a certain way. It's perhaps too stupid a concept for me to adequately explain.

 

I gave it 9.

The character building of Sabine continues to exile and, a wise guess, there are probably future plans for her.

 

It's a moot point to mention it now, but for before we knew about her background I held out a modicum of hope that Satine was actually related to Bo-Katan. It certainly would've given a venue to expand on Bo-Katan's story.

 

Yes, stop sharing opinions and explaining yourselves, people!

 

I really liked it, but I'm a big Sabine fan. It had me on the edge of my seat and I liked how it gave us a greater look into Mandalorian culture. I wasn't as crazy about Ezra in this episode TBH but it's okay enough.

9/10

 

Overall I give it a 7.5/10. Docked points for them *still* not seeming to know what they want Ezra to be as character, and for some very shaky dialogue at parts.

 

Same. Can they only develop one Ghost Crew character at a time? Perhaps that is a rule we were unaware of, and it would explain our disappointment. Overall 7. Misplaced humor (via Ezra), plot convenience o'plenty. Enjoyed seeing the interaction of different groups of Mandalorians with each other.

 

2/10

+Kanan and Hera moment
+Ezra’s ”I don’t want to be a Mandalorian”
+Bo-Katan getting the darksaber
+Beskar reference
+Ezra’s interaction with Sabine
+/-Bo-Katan acted in character at least part of the time
-Too much Sabine. Waaaaay too much Sabine
-Everyone thinking Sabine is great
-Ezra not knowing how to use a jetpack and being used solely for comedic affect
-The rebels winning again
-The weapon having the stupid name of “Duchess”
-Sabine only having to push a few buttons to change the Duchess’ functions
-Tiber Saxon, yet another idiotic, incompetent bad guy
-The rebels destroying another Star Destroyer
-Flying Jedi

 

This was her character arc.

 

A pretty decent season opener, but not as strong as the ones for season 2 and 3. I liked that we got another storyline about the mandalorians that more or less wrapped up the Sabine story arc, the plot was nice & there was some solid action (the hovertank chase especially). I liked that we got to know more of Sabine's past (including the superweapon she created, the "Duchess"), meet her father and that Bo-Katan showed up again (though it's a bit odd seeing her as a "good guy" considering that she is a former Death Watch terrorist). I liked the Kanan/Hera scene and Kanan himself had some good moments, as did Ezra even with his awkwardness.

It wasn't perfect as the writing was little disappointing, the running gag of Ezra's jetpack issues was a little overdone, some things felt kinda dumb and/or farfetched (such as Sabine reprogramming the weapon to target imperial armor instead of mando armor in just a couple of seconds & the incompetence of Saxon) but worst of all, the dramatic scene of the superweapon deadly effect was ruined by Sabine's mother Ursa and brother Tristan having survived unscathed; that was really cheap. Also, the mandalorians stubborn pride and adherence to tradition when refusing to change armor even for this one time when they know the weapon renders their armor death traps was a little annoying. I also thought it was a bit odd that no one of the good guys died or was injured in the final battle and I missed any real tension.

But overall, even with the silly moments, disappointing stuff (such as the cop-out of the mother and brother's survival), the at times lame dialogue and the kinda weak writing it was good enough and enjoyable and had a lot of stuff to like, though I expected the finale of the mandalorian arc to have more "oomph" as this felt kind of simple and bland (also, I thought they sometimes put the mandos on a pedestal and maybe went a little overboard with portraying them as superheroes a few times). Still, even though it could have been much better it was not a bad episode.

7/10 on the poll (6/10 on a rewatch).