#how much time would it have taken for a brief exchange with the Ugnaughts:

[airyairyaucontraire]

there's such a weird, dumb reset-button vibe to a lot of what's been going on in The Mandalorian

like such a lot of time and effort has gone into effectively just restoring Bo-Katan to the position she was in the last time we saw her in Rebels, with little reason, honestly, to think she's capable of doing better this time (a, I am not convinced she understands what she did wrong or has a plan for what she'll do differently, b, maybe just maybe she could grasp the idea that she can do good work for Mandalorians without being the leader? because leadership is actually not her strong point!)

her life has just been presented to us in cycles of "gets a great opportunity, loses everything, gets a great opportunity, loses everything"

(we still don't even know how she lost the Darksaber in between Rebels and The Mandalorian, who took it off her)

so this reset doesn't feel like progress, it just feels like another round of the loop she's stuck in

and what about Din? Back when he was taking over episodes of Boba's show, we saw a big change in his attitude to droids. He spoke to them politely. He addressed them as "friend," thanked them when they were helpful, and seemed to get comfortable working together with Peli's workshop droids (especially the cute little one that looks like a cross between a chicken and a View-Master). In episode 1 of the current season he's keen to revive IG-11 (although that idea got dropped irritatingly quickly) and when he works with R4-forgothisnumberalready, although he's slightly rude telling him not to be a baby about going into the mine, his attitude doesn't seem contemptuous or hateful

but in "Guns For Hire" he's straight back to being droids' number one hater

now there are two main ways you could explain this that would make sense

one: they're doing an investigation and Din is intentionally doing a good cop-bad cop routine. Bo-Katan doesn't seem to know that's what he's doing, although if you take this reading it means he's trying to set her up to succeed by looking like the reasonable one who it's relatively safe to talk to

my gosh, just a brief conversation in an elevator along the lines of "So good cop-bad cop?" "Okay, you're bad cop," "Wizard" would have set the scene and showed that they understood each other and Din's weirdly aggressive behaviour and Bo-Katan's exasperation with him were a deliberate act to get what they wanted. And it would have been funny. And it's cute when Din says "wizard."

And the "Din is trying to set Bo-Katan up to succeed" theme would be reinforced by the final scene where... he just gives her the Darksaber on a technicality which would still be boring and unsatisfying, but at least we'd understand that's a Thematic Thing for him, and that he'll willingly look bad (or like a loser) to make her look good (because the person he most fervently trusts and respects believes in her so by gum he'll believe in her)

two: Din is no longer biased against all droids because of his childhood trauma involving them, because he's had enough positive experiences with them lately to reconsider, but he hasn't moved as far as "I will treat any droid decently and won't assume it's an enemy," he's simply reorganised his way of thinking into "okay droids" (helpful, not a threat, even potentially friends) and battle droids (fuck 'em, still hate 'em). This attitude bleeds over to droids he'd normally consider okay as soon as he does perceive them as a threat because there's still a lot of deep-down underlying fear, explaining how aggressively he threatens the droid bartender.

But we would never know because people in this show aren't allowed to have conversations about how they feel or what they're thinking.

#the mandalorian #mando critical #how much time would it have taken for a brief exchange with the Ugnaughts: #'this looks like a very well-equipped workshop - would you have a memory circuit for an IG droid?'