The Mandalorian: Episode 4 Review

This review contains spoilers for The Mandalorian episode 4, “Sanctuary”. To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our Mandalorian episode 3 review, find out when The Mandalorian episode 5 comes out with our release schedule, and if you're confused about The Mandalorian's timeline, here's when it takes place in the Star Wars canon.

It was tempting to think that episodes 1 to 3 of The Mandalorian would work like a first act – an unusually blaster-packed opening crawl that sets up our helmeted anti-hero and his tiny, green package of motivations before the rest of the season takes them on the real adventure. Sanctuary, directed by Jurassic World and Black Mirror star Bryce Dallas Howard, proves that isn’t the case, and might never be. I’m absolutely OK with that.

Instead of a chase through space, or a brush with the last vestiges of the Imperial war machine, what we got in episode 4 was something that lives up to the ‘Star Wars Story’ billing of some of the more recent movies; a vignette of galactic life, touched by the war, marked by the Empire, but not integral to it. The Mandalorian’s great strength continues to be in being able to fill out the quieter gaps in our understanding of the Star Wars universe, not push the galaxy’s timeline along.

Granted, at times it might have been a little too quiet in this instance. It’s nice to see a real backwater skughole from time to time, but Sorgan’s krill-fishing village life veers toward simple and schmaltzy rather than endearingly low-key a lot of the time. Far from the tense cantinas and dirty streets we’ve become used to from the show, this planet feels a little more one-note - there are good people and there are bad people, and you can tell which is which depending on the colour of clothes they wear.

It is at least an opportunity for the show to swing from Western to Eastern in its homages - there’s nothing more samurai movie-like than watching a stoic warrior protect a peaceful village from better-armed bandits.

This is also the first time we’ve seen the show really push up against a TV budget, too. Barring that single, wonderful shot of a moonlit AT-ST perched across the water from Mando’s protectorate, the central battle of the episode is made up almost entirely of close shots of shouting people with explosions going off in the depth of field blur behind them. It feels cheaper than previous action scenes, distinctly lacking in scale and complexity compared to last week’s bounty hunter vs. Mandalorian street shootout.

Thankfully, Sanctuary delivers elsewhere. In terms of action, the fistfight set to the increasingly frenzied beeps of a bomb was a lovely way to keep the stakes in plain view at all times. If you want character development, we got a tantalising hint to Mando’s backstory, the idea that he was taken in by his warrior religion rather than born into it. And as for what we learned about the galaxy far, far away as a whole, I love the idea of the Empire just leaving its weapons of war behind when it collapsed, a final irresponsible act that still haunts its previous colonies.

Gina Carano’s ex-Rebellion shock trooper, Cara Dune is a fun addition to the mix, a murky reflection of Mando, the gifted fighter who did give it all up to live a quiet life. Again, she’s not the most complex part of the show, but Carano’s MMA background lends a thunking authenticity to the fight scenes, and a nice counterpoint to Mando’s scrappier, by-any-means-necessary fighting style. I continue to be impressed with The Mandalorian’s willingness to pick up and drop characters, too – I’m sure we’ll see Cara again at some point, but keeping the show to the two-character core is a great way to emphasise that this is a desperate escape, rather than some grand plan to beat the bad guys.

That escape lends itself perfectly to the one-and-done structure of the show, and Sanctuary might be best for revealing that that’s just how The Mandalorian’s going to be. Yes, there’s a wider story at work, but it’s less of a motivation than a cattle prod, Werner Herzog’s Imperial threat pushing Mando’s ship across the galactic map. In an era of prestige television that acts like 10-hour movies, it’s refreshingly different, almost video game-like – so far, this is basically a series of quests that reward the protagonist with high-stat armour after all. And, on that note, there was something distinctly Master Chief-y about seeing that helmet come off for the first time, but being denied a view of even the back of Mando’s head wasn’t there?

And oh my god I’ve gotten through an entire review of a Mandalorian episode without really mentioning Baby Yoda. Yes, he’s still incredible, he’s still messing with stuff in the ship, and he might even be learning that it’s not OK to swallow frogs alive. I’m also delighted to see that the show isn’t afraid to have Mando let his emotional guard down too - there was real warmth in calling Baby Yoda a “little womp rat”. The sooner this becomes a true surrogate father-son relationship, the more horribly invested we’ll become when that comes under inevitable threat (and how heart-thumpingly happy we’ll be when it all works out OK).

The Verdict

Every show needs time to find its footing in its first season, and The Mandalorian’s roughest edges - its wild shifts in tone, derivative standalone episodes, and clunky dialogue - are arguably exacerbated by the shortened episode order and weekly release schedule, and will hopefully be ironed out now that executive producers Favreau and Filoni have a season under their belts. But when the show is firing on all cylinders - as in its opening and closing run of episodes - it channels all the fun, escapism, and yes, earnest heart (or, if you prefer, occasional cheesiness) of the Original Trilogy. There’s a soft, gooey center hidden under all that Beskar armor, and it makes The Mandalorian one of the most irresistible Star Wars stories we’ve seen in years.