The second season of The Mandalorian has come to a close, and it was one to remember. We rank all the episodes, “worst” to best.
Allow me to preface this article by saying that every single episode on this season of The Mandalorian was a masterpiece within itself. It’s difficult to rank individual episodes when they all work together as one complete story.
That being said, I ranked these episodes with a few main pieces of criteria in mind. A good Mandalorian episode often features an original story with themes that connect us back to the original trilogy and its influences. These ranks are based in large part on which episodes I thought did that best.
The Mandalorian chapter 14 – Disney Plus
“Chapter 14: The Tragedy”
Robert Rodriguez was the perfect director to bring Boba Fett back to the screen. His gritty, violent style was perfect for the comeback of this grizzled fighter, who we get to see wielding a Tusken Gaffi stick against hapless Stormtroopers before donning his classic armor.
The entire episode is basically one long scene, set on a planet that feels like it could be in my own backyard. I loved the simplicity of the episode but put it at the bottom of my list because I found some of the plot turns too convenient and lazy. For example, why did Din Djarin have to put his jetpack down early in the episode and why didn’t he get it back to chase down Grogu? I get that this was the episode where Baby Yoda gets taken, but powering down Mando like this just felt contrived; there were still ways he could fail without having to do that.
Din is an incredibly resourceful fighter and we’ve already seen him use a device on his armor that calls his jetpack directly to him. It makes no sense that he wouldn’t act quickly to save his baby boy.
The reveal of the Dark Troopers was also a bit of a disappointment; it would have been nice to see them battle in some way instead of just flying.
The Boba Fett sequences made this episode, but as a stand-alone story it feels a little thin in comparison to everything else we got this season.