The Mandalorian, Season 2, episode 2, ‘The Passenger’, review: Star Wars reimagined as chilly creature feature

Who exactly is The Mandalorian for? At times, as with the end of last week’s episode, it seems laser-targeted at Star Wars obsessives – the kind of people who would immediately recognise Temuera Morrison as a de-masked Boba Fett. At others, it seems eminently accessible, nothing but a series of high-wire action set-pieces glued together with Baby Yoda GIFs. “Chapter 10: The Passenger” falls into this latter category.

Picking up shortly after the end of “Chapter 9: “The Marshal”, “The Passenger” begins with a terrific cold open, as The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and The Child/Baby Yoda are attacked by bandits. The show excels at these sort of low-stakes fight scenes, embellishing slick choreography with flashes of invention. Soon, Mando arrives back at his ship, and Amy Sedaris’s spaceport worker Peli Motto, who’s primed to give him his next mission, along with a small dump of exposition.

Motto introduces Mando to an alien – a huge-mouthed, bulbous lizard-creature, who needs help transporting herself and her unfertilised eggs to a nearby planet where her husband is waiting. Inevitably, they get waylaid on the journey, and, in a turn that evokes a scene from The Empire Strikes Back, end up marooned in an icy cave. Baby Yoda, all but sidelined last week, is both imp and narrative catalyst here, as he takes to snacking on the alien’s unfertilised eggs (which are suspended in a blue tank of fluid, making them look vaguely like they’ve been pickled).  

Because the alien passenger doesn’t speak a lick of English (or Galactic Basic, as it’s known in-universe), and The Child is, as always, mischievously mute, “The Passenger” requires the Mandalorian himself to fill the silences. It’s a departure from the character’s usual taciturnity – here, he’s positively chatty, using incongruous phrases like “chunk of change”. Unlike last week’s episode, which saw guest star Timothy Olyphant steal focus, there are no flashy supporting roles here (bar Sedaris and a brief voice cameo from Richard Ayoade, who appeared in last season’s episode “The Prisoner”). Instead, the limelight is steered onto the bizarre aliens of the Star Wars universe – by its third act, “The Passenger” is a veritable creature feature.  

Every Disney Star Wars property has had to wrestle with the same question: how do you introduce new elements that still feel consistent with the classic Star Wars aesthetic and tone? “The Passenger” pushes boundaries at both ends with some of its bestial additions – a card-playing bug creature known as “Dr Mandible” comes across as perhaps a shade too daft (although hardly more ridiculous than some of the original Star Wars’ cantina clientele), while the species that attacks Mando et al near the episode’s end could well be the creepiest creation Star Wars have ever featured. After a season premiere that felt a little too familiar, The Mandalorian’s 10th overall episode is a fast, thrilling excursion into the franchise’s seldom-plundered dark side.