Considering the popularity of Season 1, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau had a lot of expectations to live up to when creating Season 2 of The Mandalorian. However, the Disney+ series most certainly delivered, releasing some of the best Star Wars content yet.
The series’ second season focused on Mando searching for a Jedi so that Grogu can train with them, but things got complicated pretty quickly. With another year to wait before we get season 3, let’s rank every episode of The Mandalorian Season 2 from the worst to best.
8. The Passenger
In this episode, Mando takes an alien woman and her eggs from Tatooine in exchange for information on Mandalorians. Yep, that’s pretty much it.
Let’s be honest, if there was one episode of this season that you could get away with skipping, it would be this one. It’s not even that bad, but it just feels unnecessary. I’ll admit, the ice spider portion of the episode was pretty cool, but it just feels kind of weird to have an episode that you could skip and not feel like you missed anything. It’s still a solid episode, it just doesn’t really add anything to the series.
7. The Marshal
The season 2 opener starts off with Mando on a hunt for other Mandalorians. On Tatooine, he meets Cobb Vanth, who appears wearing Boba Fett’s Mandalorian armor. The two team up to save a deserted town from a Krayt Dragon.
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It’s a fun and entertaining start to the season, and I feel like you can tell from watching that the quality of the episodes has risen since season 1. It truly serves as a precedent for how epic the rest of the season will be. The only reason it isn’t higher on the list is that the rest of the season is simply on a different level. However, this episode was certainly a satisfying beginning to a great season.
6. The Siege
“The Siege” brought the action of The Mandalorian back to the planet Navarro, where fan-favorite characters such as Greef Carga and Cara Dune reside. It was nice to see them again, but it was even better to watch them get together again to plan a siege on an Imperial base. Seeing this team together back in action was enjoyable.
While this may have been another “side quest” episode that saw Mando doing another job in exchange for something he needed, it was certainly a step up from the season opener. This episode suffers the same fate as number 7 on this list – there are just too many good episodes to justify ranking this any higher. However, there’s no denying that this was still a fun episode to watch, which is why it has earned the spot of number 6.
5. The Believer
In order to find and rescue Grogu, Mando and Cara seek the help of Mayfield, an ex-imperial officer who first made an appearance in season 1. This action-packed quest to locate Moff Gideon’s cruiser is thrilling, with some of the best fight scenes in the show. One of the coolest moments in the series is when Mayfield kills everyone in the room to protect Mando’s identity (when he takes his helmet off). Another incredible moment was when Boba Fett dropped the seismic charge at the end of the episode, a scene that just about any devoted Star Wars fan appreciates.
It honestly pains me to rank this at 5, because it is a really well-made episode. Seeing Bill Burr again was great, and the episode does a great job at broadening and redeeming his character. However, once again, the next four episodes are just on a completely different level of quality, so I really can’t rank this episode any higher.
4. The Heiress
At this point in the list, the following episodes are all so amazing to the point where they are interchangeable – you could pretty much argue any of them to be the top of the list.
In Chapter 11, we see Mando is rescued by Bo Katan. This loyal Mandalorian has a mutual hatred for Moff Gideon and a desire to retrieve the dark saber from him. After stealing weapons from a freighter belonging to the Empire, Bo Katan tells Mando to seek Jedi Ahsoka Tano for help with Grogu.
In anticipation for The Mandalorian Season 2, many fans were excited that The Clone Wars animated series’ characters were making their live-action debut. It first happened in this episode when Katee Sackhoff brought Bo-Katan Kryze to life. This was overall really cool to see the world of Star Wars start to blend; it also helps that the episode provided fantastic action scenes such as the starship assault. In general, this a really solid episode, which is why it has earned number 4 on the list.
3. The Jedi
In Chapter 13, Ahsoka Tano makes her live-action debut, portrayed by Rosario Dawson. With Ahsoka being a protagonist in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, fans were thrilled to see her in The Mandalorian, and Rosario Dawson’s stellar performance did not disappoint.
The episode itself has some of the best action the series has to offer; here, Disney did a much better job with the lightsaber choreography than in the Sequel Trilogy. It was also really interesting to see how Mando and Ahsoka, who are meant to be sworn enemies, team up and figure out what to do with Grogu. To put it simply, this episode was extremely well-done, which is why it has earned a spot in the top 3.
2. The Tragedy
Mando takes Grogu to the seeing stone in order to help him connect to other Jedi, but he finds himself in a series of confrontations with Boba Fett and the Empire. While just about everything goes downhill when Grogu is taken by Moff Gideon at the end of the episode, Boba Fett eventually teams up with Mando, leaving fans in suspense.
This is undoubtedly the most exhilarating episode to watch in the series. This obviously stems from the fact that Boba Fett had been introduced into the show, a fan favorite who had barely seen any screen time up to this point. Just seeing Boba Fett would have been great in itself, but the fact that we got to see him in action only makes this episode better. In just 30 minutes, Filoni and Favreau delivered some of the most thrilling action scenes in Star Wars, with my personal favorite being when Boba Fett shoots down the imperial ships. Honestly, the only flaw with this episode is the fact that it isn’t longer.
1. The Rescue
The final episode of Season 2 could have gone many different ways, but it overall did a great job at wrapping up everything from the first two seasons. The team makes it to Moff Gideon’s ship to save Grogu, and Mando defeats Moff Gideon in a stirring Beskar vs. Dark Saber duel. When the Dark Troopers start to cause problems, however, a mysterious, hooded figure with a green lightsaber makes an appearance. This figure reveals himself to be the one and only Luke Skywalker, and he arrives to take Grogu, effectively concluding the series.
Was CGI Luke a little awkward? Yes. But there is absolutely no denying that the sequence where Luke tears up the Dark Troopers wasn’t perfection. With Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack playing as you watch Luke wield his classic green lightsaber, it truly feels like you are watching something straight out of the original trilogy.
I’m pretty certain that there’s not a single bad episode on this entire list. Filoni and Favreau outdid themselves with this season, and I truly hope that Disney gives them a bigger role in directing anything to do with Star Wars.
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