 Well, it's that time again, friends. A new episode of The Mandalorian is hit, so it's my job and responsibility that I've willed upon myself. To talk about it, give you a spoiler-filled breakdown. Let's begin. This episode's title, Chapter 23, The Spies. Before we start, I have to point out, I have to reiterate for new people that I haven't liked this series of The Mandalorian full stop. The previous two seasons, great, loved them. The Book of Boba Fett, shit show, terrible, awful. Gotta walk away from it, but they had Mandalorian in there. And now going into season three, it's been just a hodgepodge mixed bag of potpourri crap that I don't want. I will also say this, by far, The Spies is the best episode of The Mandalorian this season, which has seen so little. I still have plenty of issue, but let's dive into what we can expect here, what took place in this episode. We open back on Coruscant with a cityscape that looks far better than the earlier episodes of the season. I feel like most of the budget was allocated to this episode, and hopefully the next one, because everything looks so much better here. And it looks more, I wanna say realistic, even though I know it's still a green screen to high hell, but as long as you're making me believe they're in the scene, which often is the case here throughout the episode, then great job. Great job all around. We open with Coruscant. We go down to a dark alleyway where we see female Mario Lopez talking to one of those floating weird droid things and pop outcomes, Moth Gideon baby, he's back and he's more plastic than ever. He has this new dark plastic diaper reverse thing on him. It doesn't look good. It really doesn't look good. He's still great though. We then cut to where he's at, which is apparently a prequel chamber because those red laser things that were hiding Darth Maul that would go... Those are here because remember prequels? That's what Mandalorian turned into in nostalgia fest this season. I love it. I love nostalgia so much when it's so overdone. Anyway, he's in a room on a Skype call in a Zoom meeting with a bunch of other evil empire guys. Empire's not dead. It's just being rebranded maybe. It's getting rebuilt from the ground up. They're gonna do things right this time. They're gonna get that order just right. This is gonna be their new first order. They talk about Admiral Thrawn a couple times. Am I supposed to know this dude? I kinda did a double take and then I Googled him and he was animated in the images that came up on Google. So I think that he's probably from the Clone Wars spin-off or Bad Batch or whatever. I don't know what the kids are watching these days. I haven't seen any of the animated stuff and it really seems like they're pulling a lot from that universe. And I'm told the animated stuff's quite a bit better so maybe I should get off my ass and watch it by getting on my ass and turning it on the TV. Anyway, nobody knows where Thrawn is. He's presumed dead. He's AWOL. They kind of flippantly bring up the cloning technology they're working on and yes, Project Necromancer. That's just the thing they're cash throwing out. Project Necromancer. I imagine it's about Snoke and the dumb sequel stuff but they don't really press any further. There's a good amount of exposition dump here. They also are very well aware that the Mandalorians have teamed up. The different tribes, the different factions, the helmet ones and the helmet-less ones have gotten together and they're gonna retake Mandalore. We then cut to Bo Katan, flying her cool ship, little baby Grogu on her lap. Mandalorians still once again in that receptionist chair, off in the side. He's got the headset on. He's taking orders. He's taking commissions for Bo Katan. Hey, this is Din Jarin speaking. How can I help you? Bo Katan is busy taking over this franchise from me. Yeah, that's why I sit over here now kind of off-camera like a little bitch. Yep, okay, bye. Yep, oh yeah, she is the main character now if that wasn't made clear. It's her show. It's the Bo Katan show now. Din Jarin's being kind of kicked off, brushed aside. I don't know why. Maybe Pedro Pascal doesn't like playing the character. I'm sure he doesn't even show up anymore. He's just recording his voice and walking away. He doesn't need to be there. He's taking his helmet off one time, I think. For some reason, this Mandalorian tribe is just all in on keeping their dumb ass helmets on when they pee, when they shave, when they eat, when they sleep. It is ridiculous. It's so dumb. And that comes to a boiling point when these two factions touch down on a planet and they're looking at each other, squaring off, eyeing each other up, and then bo katan takes off the helmet followed by the rest of her crew. The one female that's got those like lacy, for some reason, kind of hot sexual things going on her forehead. You know who's not having it? The helmet people, they are pissed. Machine Gun Kelly, the big dude, he even balls his fist. He's like, ooh, I'm mad. You not like me when I am angry and they're about to throw hands. But they keep their tempers checked. They keep it cool. They simmer. And that's because they're distracted by the armory lady. Ka-ting, ka-ting. Slamming her stupid utensils together that she always has, her wrench and crowbar or whatever, her golden, her golden tools. Ka-ting, ka-ting. She's like mom and she says, it is time for dinner. Let us eat and make camp. And speaking of camp, it was fine when this chick had the bizarre voice when it was just Din Jarin and her and one other guy in the distance. It might have been Machine Gun Kelly back in season one. There was really only a couple of them. They were very in the shadows. I was cool with the voice because it was a mysterious. It was kind of fantastical. It was fun. But now there is a whole bunch of Mandalorians and they're all like, hey, I'm Steve. And the other one's like, hi, I'm Alyssa. I'm new here. Kind of old. I know to get started, you got the little younglings, the foundlings. I'm Mark. I've been a Mando for 18 years now. It's been a run. It's been a ride. And then the lady, the armory lady. I have been a Mandalorian for a fortnight. I have seen the seven suns rise in the east. I have seen the crashing of volcanoes in the west. I have seen it all. Ting, ting. I know a fortnight's not very long, but it sounded cool when I said it. So let's brush past it. If you've been watching the season, you may recall IG-11 made his glorious return. Really, it was just the chassis and different pieces, hither and dither, which means over here and over there, I think, in stupid language. He's back, baby! Again, except for he's still a chassis, except for this time he's mechanized. You can control him. Woot, woot, woot, woot. There was a fetch quest a few episodes back where Mandalorian's like, I need this robot. He's the only robot I trust. I gotta have this robot. Or I can't go to the planet because I don't trust any other robots but this one. And if that means scouring the heavens and earth to find the memory card that needs to go into his head to make the damn thing work, I will do it. Because this is the robot. Oh yeah, I'll take this one with. He takes from the sketchy mechanic lady and then they go there and it turns out the robot was absolutely useless anyways. What a bizarre side story fetch quest that didn't happen. Anyway, we now have IG-11 back now known as IG-12. What? He's IG-12 now. And Grogu pilots it. What the fuck? What the heck? Yeah, Grogu is now piloting this. He's got a little spot that he sits in. He's got his little controls. And God, I can't wait for this to fly off the shelves at Christmas time. You know there's gonna be a mechanized Grogu that you can walk along the floor and he's got two buttons he can push that say yes and no. No, no, yes, yes. And Grogu, he presses those buttons and he presses Din Djarin's buttons by using those. Yes, yes, no, no, it's quite cute. It's quite fun. After a charming little scene, we're back to the dumbasses. The Mandalorians having a nice meal, nice little bed and breakfast set up outside at night. Bo-Katan gets up to rally the troops telling them, hey, we have a suicide mission to go on. I need some of you to come with me, at least two volunteers, if not the entire tribe. It's a little quiet at first before Din puts up his hand. He's like, I will go and so will the little one. And then Grogu's like, oh, thanks, dick. Now Grogu's fine. He's like, yeah, cool, we'll go, cool beans. For some reason, Grogu now is basically the baby from Dinosaur, that old TV show. Where we go, not the mama, not the mama. I'm the baby. That's Grogu to me. That's now what Grogu is. After Dinjarin says, I will go, we individually listen to each Mandalorian say that, slowly standing up, I will go. Hey, it's me again. Yeah, I'm gonna jump in. It's been a while since I've gone in a good old fashioned raid. Mark me down, put me down. Hi, Jenny, long time Mando, first time Mando. Yeah, I wanna go. You have my axe and my sword. I volunteer for tribute. And this just goes on until the break of dawn. We cut to a shot where the ships are flying over Mandalore and we get another classic base drop. These Mandalorians drop out of the ship, pshhh, pshhh, pshhh, free falling. And then, pshhh, they do just a little tap, a little light tap on the booster and somehow don't break their legs when they impact onto the planet's floor. Cool scene, looks good. Everything about this looks very good. That is until the Mandalorian pirate ship enters the fray. This thing is stupid. And these Mandalorian hobos are even more ridiculous. There's a couple of them, they're like, hey, hey guys, we've been here the whole time. Bo, Katan, what took so long? Bra, we've been here for a fortnight. He also uses the fortnight. What gives? All right, what gives, lady? And then Bo, Katan goes on another monologue. She has three, I believe, in this episode alone, talking about how she had to give up everything to free everyone, but then the empire was evil. Of course, it turns out they don't keep their word. And then they tried to kill all the Mandalorians, some of them hidden caves. Others survived by shooting into the water, where there's crocodile, alligator, shark things that eat them, others were kidnapped by giant dragons. It's a long story. It's a long, messy story. Then the most egregious scene happens where Din Djarin sidles up next to her at night. It's just those two. And he's basically like, hey, I'm a simp for you now. I am cuckolding to you now. You have my dark saber. You have my love. You have my utmost admiration. I will die for you. I will live for you, whatever you want. And you are my master now. And it was pathetic. And that was basically the torch being passed. This is now your show. And then he just kind of fades away. This leads to a pretty ridiculous scene where they're playing space pirate chess, the Mandalorian equivalent of chess. There's some conversation about what moves you can make, what moves you can risk. And then a fight breaks loose between machine gun Kelly and pretty boy Mando. There's a big scuffle on the ship, a big kerfluffle on the ship. And eventually it stopped, but not by Din, but not by Bo, but by Grogu with his robot mech thing. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And then he break dances and it gets all cool. That doesn't happen, but it should have. This then leads to a second ridiculous scene where the pirate ship is on cruise control set for what is absolutely a dinosaur exploding out of the ground. This T-Rex thing blows through and they're just like, stay the course. Let's just drive right at it. Turns out that wasn't a good idea. All the Mandalorians fly off this thing and other way they're jetpacking around and that dinosaur's just done with them. We don't even talk about it. They walk into a cave. No one says anything about how the ship was just destroyed and how that was kind of a crazy thing that just happened. But there's really no time for conversation because they're ambushed again. This time by some new storm troopers with crazy fancy armor that apparently was forged right here, right here on their home planet. Which as is revealed, Moth Gideon has taken command of for its rich resources and its pools that if you don't watch your step, you drop right to the bottom. I don't know why that's a pro to him, but it is. Din Djarin, he found that out firsthand. Couple episodes back. Moth Gideon says all this in one of his own monologues. He then talks about his armor and how cool and sexy it is. He has a name for it. I refuse to say the name because I forgot. I'm not gonna look it up. It's dumb. It's clearly there just for the cannon, for merchandise and whatnot. They trap Din Djarin with some electric rope things. And he's like, ah, I don't like it. I don't want it. And the rest of the mandos are trapped behind blaster doors. This gives Bo Katan the perfect opportunity to use that dark saber, cut a hole in the wall, where they can all get out. Everyone except for machine gun Kelly. He's like, let's go. And he starts fighting all of them. While he's going out in the blaze of bond Jovey Glory, someone else enters the fight. The Red Robes. Those cool dudes in the throne room fight that had weapons that went through people's bodies conveniently. Unfortunately for machine gun Kelly, their weapons worked. They were functioning. They didn't have ray deflectors on them. So boom, he's taken out in a couple of swift hits. Doesn't really land a blow on these guys. They're too good now. They're too pro. Fortunately, the others got away. Din Djarin's captured. And in one of the most harsh endings I've seen in quite some time, machine gun Kelly drops to his knees and boom, the episode's over. There's not even a big orchestral moment happening. It's just, oh, boom, episode's done. Kirby Enthusiasm's song comes on. Darn, darn, darn. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Mandalorian. And that covers sadly the best episode of the season. Things start to come together after a herky jerky this way, that push and pull, tug and slap and suck and fuck. It all comes together. It all connects to this kind of disaster. But at least a watchable one. I still have no love for this season. I thought it was an absolute mess. And I don't really have an excitement for the future of the show. I think we're only one episode away from finishing. So obviously we're gonna finish it here next week. Thanks for watching the video. Let me know your thoughts on this episode. Comment below. Like the video if you had some fun. 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