S03E05-06 - The Second Mandalore arc - Important

Right then, next up is the second Mandalore arc. Thankfully the second episode isn’t dependent on the first.

The good of the first episode is that we get more Satine, and that Padme gets some good non-politics action and her strong character comes out. There’s also some good focused dialogue that reminds us where they stand in the war.

But, the bad: It’s boring as hell. Especially if you’re expecting to see Mandalorians doing their awesome thing. It’s about internal non-Death-Watch issues. Kids getting poisoned by drinking cheap drinks just isn’t an interesting plot. And in no Star Wars media should we hear the line “The schools have received adequate government funding!”

This one has to remain 4. Excludable.

The second though, is the important one. It’s not vital, because the changes it imposes on Mandalore can be worked around in other ways. But it gives us some kids who’ll eventually resist Maul’s rule, and shows us Almec’s machinations.

It’s not a great story but it’s not terrible. It’s good to see Ahsoka being a competent teacher and making wise decisions, but it doesn’t add much to her character by this point.

I might see if I can get some of the good Padme moments from the prior episode into this one, and I’ll probably trim the dialogue around the Jedi mind trick.

The other problem with this episode is that it doesn’t feature any proper Mandos being badass. But there’s no way around this.

I might upgrade this one to Vital if later episodes come to depend on it more - but preferably it wouldn’t be so key.

Onwards to the mop-up episodes from before the character model change. I reckon I’ll get through them all tonight!