Great first episode. This is how I want pre-established settings to be handled. Now, I didn’t mind the Tatooine episode in season 1, but like many people it feels to reliant on references and little nods to ANH. I’ve already seen Mos Eisley and I didn’t really need to see it again, though thankfully they didn’t spend too much time there. But the establishing shots taken straight from ANH seemed way too on the nose for me. Chapter 9, However, did exactly what I want EU material to do when they return to known places; show me what’s going on elsewhere on the same planet and explore things that we’ve only heard about before but never seen.

I’m also a fan of how the episode lengths tend to vary depending on the story. I’m generally quite annoyed at TV shows when they pad the story just to reach a 50 min. runtime, and I miss old TV shows that managed to keep things simple at 30 min. (Another thing that I like about the SW animated series). The Mandalorian so far has been a great example of just doing what’s needed, which I hope will become a future trend for streaming shows. I think this was the longest episode so far, and it almost felt like a little mini-movie. Which worked for this particular story.