This review contains full spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 3, episode 5, available to watch on Disney+ now.
The threads finally come together in Episode 5 of The Mandalorian Season 3, which connects the pirates on Nevarro, the dysfunction in the New Republic, and the dream of reclaiming Mandalore. Many of the plots in The Pirate are heavily implied and Jon Favreau’s dialogue is a bit repetitive at times, but there are also a few big surprises that bode well.
The episode begins with Greef Karga’s town planning meeting, which is interrupted by the inevitable return of Captain Gorian Shard. It’s certainly understandable that Greef didn’t want to rely on some distant bureaucracy, but it’s disappointing that a man who’s been a pirate, a leader of a bounty hunters’ guild, and worked for an Imperial remnant didn’t have a plan for a major threat that went beyond begging the New Republic for help by sending a droid with a Princess Leia-style message. Yes, its overseer has been pulled away, but even the most competent human cannot hold off a capital ship. New trains sound great, but you’ll want to invest resources in protecting them first given how dangerous life on the Outer Rim is. There’s a reason you can’t have nice things there unless you’re part of a huge crime syndicate or other power blocs people don’t want to mess with.
Greef’s distress call is relayed to Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), who is hanging out with Star Wars Rebels’ Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum) at a New Republic base and making his live-action debut. The rugged Lestat looks great and it’s wonderful that the extremely talented voice actor gets to reprise the role. He’s probably reserved to join other Ghost crewmates in Ahsoka, but it’s a shame we’re not getting him and Teva to Nevarro immediately with whatever other ex-Rebels they can muster. Instead, the Mandalorian continues to lack a sense of urgency, and Teva flies to Coruscant to seek help through the proper channels.
Given the bureaucratic mess that the New Republic has become, this is going as well as expected. “Captain, this isn’t a rebellion anymore,” Colonel Tuttle (Tim Meadows) tells Teva. The rowdy do-gooders may have won the war against the Galactic Empire, but they are losing the peace. Shard mentions that the New Republic can’t even protect the Mid Rim from the pirate nation, further proof that The Mandalorian follows the First Order origin story from Dave Filoni’s Star Wars Resistance. The dialogue is fairly blunt in the scene on Coruscant, and is repetitive as Teva repeatedly connects the dots between the Imperial remnants, Moff Gideon, and the pirates. Yes, he’s trying to hold his own against an indifferent bureaucrat, but it feels like Favreau is working a little too hard preparing viewers for what seem to be fairly obvious plot points.
A bombed civilian population should be terrifying, but the scenario is played out for laughs instead.
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Even worse for Teva, Tuttle takes the advice of Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian), who need only give him an easy way out to avoid intervention by reminding him that Nevarro won’t sign the charter that would make the planet the new responsibility of the republic. Meadows does a great job bringing a bit of humor to his despair at Teva, particularly his slightly smirking “uh-oh” as Kane strategically introduces that fact. That means Teva has to look elsewhere for help.
Peli Motto presented R5-D4’s experience in the Rebellion as a selling point for Din Djarin, but apparently it’s also a bit of a liability as the droid was willing to reveal its current whereabouts, no matter how secret it should be. The suspense over whether the Mandalorians will intervene feels forced, punctuated with over-the-top mumbling and swagger from Paz Vizsla (Jon Favreau), who obviously wanted to help Din after making enormous strides by saving Paz’s son in the last episode deserved goodwill. However, it’s hilarious that the Children of the Watch use the Armourer’s Hammer as a talking stick.
As big a menace as these pirates are supposed to be, it’s hard to take them seriously when Shard looks like Swamp Thing and the crew’s carouse on Nevarro seems cut straight from Pirates of the Caribbean while they stumble around drunk and harass the few people stay in town. When Din says he likes the 10-to-1 odds, his boast is pretty obviously justified. A bombed civilian population should be horrifying, but the scenario is played out for laughs instead, from the gaping Anzellans to the Kowakian ape lizards helpfully pointing the Mandalorians in the right direction.
This takes the tension out of the great battle that follows, in which the Mandalorians dominate the pirate forces on land and in the air. There’s a bit of the Season 2 episode “The Tragedy” in the escalating weapons used in ground combat, but “The Pirate” lacks the intense and overwhelming pressure that comes with having such a small group command a seemingly unlimited number repelled by stormtroopers.
Shard keeps fighting, even when his Mr. Smee-esque ally points out how bad things look, adding further credence to the idea that he’s working for someone else and his failure would meet a worse fate than being blown up to become. It’s a pretty funny thing that he steers the ship with a console that resembles the rudder of a pirate ship. While most of the fight lacks drama, his ship’s sinking is beautifully animated, the percussion of Joseph Shirley’s score blending perfectly with the explosions. Music is always a highlight of The Mandalorian, and it’s used particularly well in this episode in the scene with the Armorer and Bo-Katan in Nevarro’s broken forge, haunting and building with the subtle chimes that resemble the spirit of hammers.
This is a victory round for the Mandalorians, as even the Armorer can brag about their smithing tools as weapons. It also represents the final piece Bo-Katan puts together to truly earn the loyalty of the Children of the Watch. After the doubts the Armorer expressed about Bo-Katan seeing the mythosaur in the last episode, it’s a bit odd how she seems to be taking the princess’ claim seriously now. Perhaps the proof that she is the predicted leader comes only from her tactics, giving the Mandalorians yet another major victory and the reward of a new home much less monster-infested.
But Bo-Katan’s quest to reunite the Mandalorians will hit a major snag given the revelation at the end of The Pirate about what happened to Moff Gideon. Was he kidnapped by Mandalorians who want him to answer for the Great Purge of Mandalore, or by those who would follow him for wielding the darksaber? Presumably his defeat would undermine his claim to relics, but the significant presence of Imperial remains around Mandalore may indicate that Gideon’s forces and a group of Mandalorians are now working together and have their own goals for the planet.