The Mandalorian 2×5 Review: Chapter 13 – The Jedi

‘The Jedi’ was an exciting change of pace from the Quest-of-the-Week style plots we’ve had in recent episodes of The Mandalorian.

We’ve been stuck in a rut the past few weeks as the majority of each episode revolves around a one-off side quest while the main plot gets less than five minutes of screen time. But ‘The Jedi’ turned that around and, while still focusing on a one-off quest (liberating Calodan), dropped a ton of important plot information and several highly anticipated big reveals.

The biggest reveal was Ahsoka Tano, who was name dropped last back in episode 3 and has been rumored to be played by Rosario Dawson for many months.  It looks like those rumors were spot on.  Unfortunately, this confirmation comes with a lot of baggage.  I talked last week about how really crappy actions from actors can completely ruin something for you, so it’s not a surprise that people are struggling having such an iconic character played by someone with this type of history.

For those that are able to separate the art from the artist, however, her introduction scene in ‘The Jedi’ likely lived up to or even exceeded expectations.  The effects – both SFX and make-up – were masterfully done and brought justice to such a highly anticipated scene.  The absolute badassery of Ahsoka Tano is on full display for much of the entire episode as she teams up with the Mandalorian to liberate Calodan from Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth.  Jedi battles are usually very aesthetically pleasing sequences, and this was no exception.  

The set up of the episode led us to believe that Ahsoka would then train our Baby Yoda once this mission was complete.  She ends up going back on her word with this, however, and our Mandalorian takes that surprisingly well.  She is unable to train the child due to the attachment between the child and our Mando, and maybe that attachment makes her decision to backtrack on this decision a little easier to take.  He loves that kid, dammit, and he wants what’s best for him.  Right now he thinks giving him up to train as a Jedi is the best thing for him, but maybe it’s not?

Ahsoka going back on her promise also means that those of you who struggled to watch the episode due to the presence of Rosario Dawson may be in luck.  She may or may not come back later in the season, but it seems like she won’t be with our Mando and his kid next week at least.

Speaking of that kid – Baby Yoda, The Child – his name is actually Grogu!  I saw someone in a group I’m in shout excitedly ‘can we stop calling him Baby Yoda now?!’  The answer to that… is no.  Yes, he has a name and I’ll be using that in my reviews and discussion as appropriate, but ‘Baby Yoda’ has worked its way into the cultural zeitgeist of 2019-2020 and we can’t go back on that now.  I will be keeping ‘Baby Yoda Correspondent’ in my Twitter bio and referring to him as such in casual conversation and you can’t stop me.

This episode did, however, seem to throw a wrench in the long discussed clone theory.  It’s not impossible, but if he was in training to be a Jedi, he likely wasn’t entirely raised in a lab either.  His memories are fuzzy, though, so who knows? Maybe he’s a clone of Grogu and not Grogu himself?  This feels complicated.

But either way, he is his own person with his own history and it’d take several leaps to get back on track for the clone theory to work out.  It was a great theory, though! And strange stuff is still going on in that lab, so it’s not an entirely useless theory anyway.  Clones are somehow going to be a part of the ongoing plot, but just maybe not how we expected it to be.

This episode also had another throwback to Rebels when Ahsoka name drops Grand Admiral Thrawn.  I’m really glad I decided to catch up on Rebels before this season started because the tie-ins have been pretty numerous.  Less so with Clone Wars, but there’s been several throwbacks to that as well.  Thankfully it seems like these details are being explained enough that people who didn’t watch those shows should still generally be able to know what’s going on.

Twitter trended many things from both shows overnight on Twitter, including many things that did not even show up in The Mandalorian yet.  Ezra Bridger was trending, which I thought was a massive spoiler before I watched the episode, but I realize now that people are mostly speculating that the ending of the episode left an easy pathway for him to make his way into the show.  Our Mandalorian has to take The Baby Formerly Known As Baby Yoda to the planet Tython where he will send out a call for other Jedi to come to him if he chooses.  There aren’t many Jedi left, so Ezra could very well be the one to answer that call.

This is assuming Baby Grogu Yoda even wants to make that call, however.  His attachment to Mando may mean he would rather stick around with him rather than train.  Anything is possible.

Additionally, Sabine Wren also trended over night, but she didn’t show up yet either.  But she’s a Mandalorian and has a history with Ahsoka, Bo-Katan, and the Dark Saber, so there’s plenty of plot connections to bring her back in as well.  The speculation that Sasha Banks would be playing her turned out to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean that the character won’t show up at all.

We have three episodes left of the season, two of which are written by Jon Favreau, and one of which is written by Rick Famuyiwa, who wrote both The Child and The Prisoner back in season one.  I am very excited to see what these writers bring us for the next few weeks!  Long live the Adventures of Papa Mandalorian and Grogu Yoda Baby Child.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They’ve also written for Friends of Comic Con and is a 2019 Hugo Award winner for contributing fanfic on AO3. They identify as queer.

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