‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 Episode 5: “The Pirate” A pirate’s life (not) for me

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Another week, another episode of The Mandalorian on Disney+. The gang did not disappoint either, as this episode might be exactly what this season needed to achieve the same caliber as the other seasons. We got an episode that not only shows the Mandalorians as a group of badasses blasting away bad guys but also teases what the last four episodes have been leading up to.

Ahoy mateys!

This latest adventure opens on the planet of Nevarro, where we see High Magistrate Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) in the middle of what seems to be an important meeting. However, we are quickly interrupted when a corsair ship belonging to pirates shows up directly overhead. Karga then proceeds to call the pirate captain, Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie), where he is then reminded about the pirates he encountered in the first episode of the season. After a cheeky “who shot first” reference, Karga creates a distress signal and gives it to a droid for him to deliver to New Republic Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) in hope of gaining assistance to deal with the pirate threat.

The message makes its way to Teva while he is enjoying himself in a New Republic bar sitting next to a face that Star Wars: Rebels fans will enjoy seeing again, Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum). Although Zeb doesn’t get to say much, it’s a relief to know that the character is still kicking after all this time.

Teva goes to Coruscant to try and get New Republic High Command to help the people of Nevarro and starts talking to Colonel Tuttle (played by the always lovely Tim Meadows), about what they can do to help. Right when they start talking, Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian), the backstabber from episode three, walks in and joins in on their conversation. Kane, having spent time with Moff Gideon, knows of the planet well. Although Teva tries to get Tuttle to send forces to Nevarro to help, Kane budges in and convinces Tuttle to do nothing for the struggling planet.

After the Pirates bomb their homes and the city of Nevarro clears out, we follow Teva as he goes to the Children of the Watch’s secret base to try and find another way to help Nevarro. Of course, the Mandalorians aren’t too welcoming when they get visitors, and some of them threaten to kill Teva. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) then steps forward and starts talking to Teva one-on-one. He is then convinced to help the people of Nevarro. Although some members of the Watch want to kill Teva to keep their location a secret, Mando decides that they should let him go in order to return the favor he granted him many episodes ago.

Once Teva leaves, the Mandalorians have a meeting in their cave where they decide whether or not to help Nevarro. Mando gives a speech to try and persuade the clan to come and he makes some good points. Paz Vizla (Tait Fletcher) then takes the floor to give his speech. He raises a good question: “why?” The last time the Mandalorians and the people of Nevarro fought was in season one, where they fought over Din and Grogu. He then proceeds to tell them all how they are warriors, and if they save Nevarro, then they might be offered shelter and safety among their citizens.

When the group decides to help, Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) takes command as leader of the charge, again showing the audience just how good of a commander she can be. The army of Mandalorians gear up and are ready to head out and fight.

We cut to Nevarro, where we see the pirates doing typical pirate things like drinking and breaking public property. Suddenly Mando zooms by in the N-1 and starts taking shots at the pirate captain’s ship. The captain sends the fighter ships out to take care of Mando, but that is exactly what Mando wanted. As Mando is taking care of the fighters, Bo-Katan drops off the rest of the clan in the middle of the city and she turns around to assist Mando.

The Mandalorians that Bo dropped in take care of business swiftly and mess up the pirates left and right. Quickly, however, the pirates begin to overwhelm and outnumber the Mandalorians until Paz Vizla comes in with his trusty minigun in hand and starts shredding the pirates. Everyone gets in on all the action — even The Armorer (Emily Swallow), who takes out an entire tower filled with pirates with only her forging hammers.

Of course, the group of Mandalorians come out on top, and in return for their assistance in saving their town, Karga offers them a lot of land that they can use as their home. While everyone is celebrating, Paz Vizla tells Bo-Katan that The Armorer would like to speak with her, and he ends up taking Bo-Katan to her. They end up talking about the forge and their home world of Mandalore. Before The Armorer could explain what is really going on, she asks Bo-Katan to remove her helmet, which she does. The Armorer then tells her about how she believes that Bo-Katan could bring together all of the different exiled groups of Mandalorians and together they could retake the planet. Bo-Katan then walks out without her helmet on and shocks the rest of the Mandalorians. The Armorer then explains before sending her on what is probably the most important mission of her life.

Instead of ending the episode happily, we cut to Teva’s X-Wing flying through space as he stumbles upon a destroyed Imperial shuttle. After calling it in and reporting it, he is then informed that the shuttle was the one that was supposedly taking Moff Gideon to trial, explaining why he is now missing. After Teva sends a drone into the shuttle to check out what happened, he realizes that the damage has some beskar alloy on it, which makes him think that maybe the Mandalorians were the ones who freed Moff Gideon.