The Mandalorian – Chapter 22: Guns for Hire review S3 E6
Guns for Hire was a fun little distraction episode of The Mandalorian even as it crystalized some viewers’ issues with this season. The biggest being that Mandalorian feels like a secondary character on his own show.
Most of these complaints come from viewers unfamiliar with how The CW handled the Arrowverse on Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, etc.
Still, there’s some validity to the fuss raised over Bo-Katan essentially being this season’s co-lead. With Din Djarin wrapped up his mission for the season in episode 3 by redeeming himself in the Mines of Mandalore, it has kinda felt like he’s a bit aimless now and just operating in support of Bo’s goals.
The main one is unifying the rest of the Mandalorians to re-establish Mandalore. The weird thing is the clan has just gotten access to a massive expansive piece of land on Navarro. Is it really time to focus on Mandalore now?
This new Mandalore won’t be like the old. It’s going to be for everyone — the old followers of the way like The Amor, Paz Vizsla, Din, etc. and the more progressive ones like Bo-Katan and her crew.
Bo-Katan’s old crew is now operating as mercenaries under the leadership of Axe Woves. It was surprising that Koska Reeves wasn’t running the show since Koska seemingly rolled tighter with Bo-Katan and fought beside her to aid Mando and Grogu while Axe was elsewhere. Axe’s crew is functioning as the security guard on the opulent Outer Rim city of Plazir-15.
It’s ruled by a pair of inspired bit of random casting in Lizzo as The Dutchess and Jack Black as her husband, Capt. Bombardier. Din and Bo-Katan can’t catch up to her old running mates yet as The Dutchess and The Captain have a favor they need addressed first.
Turns out Plazir-15 is basically functional as a droid-run city and the well-to-do inhabitants would be helpless if they had to fend for themselves on anything. Now the recommissioned Battle Droids are starting to go rogue and Plazir-15’s numerous bylaws actually prevent Axe’s security crew from coming inside the city limits to address the problem.
Enter Din and Bo. Din didn’t need much convincing responding “You had me at battle droids.”
While casting Lizzo and Black feels like just because stunt casting, they’re both fine in their roles making a fun impression with characters that would actually be welcome if they showed up again. The guest stars keep coming as Christopher Lloyd is Commissioner Helgait, the engineer who oversees droid usage in the city. There’s no such thing as a bad Lloyd cameo and this one is plenty fun.
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Director Bryce Dallas Howard takes this episode along the Law & Order, CSI procedural route with Din and Bo talking to a variety of sources/potential suspects looking for the clues to identify the true culprit responsible for this droid outburst. There’s a great bit where the mandalorians enter a droid-focused bar and the patrons look at them like the Mos Eisley cantina crew glared at C-3PO and R2-D2.
Din has little patience for droids, but the bartender assures him that the droids have a purpose following the Clone Wars and have no interest in an outbreak causing the rest of them to be shut down or worse. Much like the clones, the droids have found themselves with little to do in the aftermath of the Clone Wars.
In all the galaxy, I wonder if there’s a planet where a Gamesmaster like character is rounding up clones and battle droids to relive the Clone Wars on their planet? I dunno, it sounds intriguing to me.
Another stop takes the pair to a group of Ugnaughts, where Din name drops Kuiil and gets to say “I have spoken” again in another nice nod to the past. After meeting with a lab tech, our mandalorian investigators determine the culprit is Commissioner Helgait, who is a Separatist holdover. This also makes sense that all of Count Dooku’s followers didn’t suddenly disappear in the wake of The Emperor seizing control. Some would probably despise The Empire as much as the New Republic.
Helgait gets tazed by Bo-Katan and gets politely scolded by The Dutchess before being escorted to a prison. With that gig done, Din and Bo are free to do their own mission.
Axe isn’t keen on giving leadership back to Bo-Katan and they fight to determine the leader. It felt too telegraphed that Bo would win even though Axe got some good licks in. I t would have made for a nice jarring twist if Axe won forcing Bo-Katan to resort to another tactic to get their aid.
With Axe defeated, he brings up the sticky point of Bo-Katan fighting him instead of the dude who has the Darksaber and her best claim to Mandalorian leadership.
Din grasps the idea and tells the mandalorians how Bo-Katan rescued him by slaying the trap device monster that took all of his weapons and reclaimed the Darksaber for him. But according to Mandalore law, the monster gained possession of the Darksaber and Bo-Katan won it by defeating the monster in combat. So now she’s the leader of the Mandalorians again.
That was an interesting direction writer Jon Favreau decided to take this subplot. There was never any tension with Din and Bo-Katan over the Darksaber and the moment it made sense for him to hand it over, he did. Again, it’s no real issue to it beyond there seeming to be no point to Din learning how to use the Darksaber in the first place. Of course, the story isn’t over either.
The procedural storyline was fun with some interesting correlations to Clone Wars themes, but it felt like Bo-Katan getting her mandalorian squad back should have been the focus for a full episode instead of a five-minute fight.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney