Director: Deborah Chow | Distributed by: Disney+ | Rating: TV-PG | SPOILERS
The fourth episode of The Mandalorian was titled Sanctuary. It had Mando looking for a hiding place for Baby Yoda and himself. The episode saw the introduction of Gina Carrano’s character and also saw the relationship between Mando and the baby get more fleshed out.
Overall the episode was good but there were some minor things that held back the episode from being truly great. The episode was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and the episode isn’t her directorial debut, but her inexperience of the episode was definitely shown. The two obvious pieces that reflect this are.the way the episode was cut together. This episode suffered from not being tight, meaning the episode didn’t concentrate on a couple of storylines, it focused on having 5 or 6 bigger things that needed to somehow all be done inside of one episode. The 5 or 6 storylines should have been split between several episodes.
The second is the fact that the acting in the episode wasn’t so great. Gina Carrano landed a little flat sometimes, but so did Pedro Pascal’s lines. It felt like the worst takes were chosen from the dailies. The episode ended up still being really good, which says a lot for how Bryce Dallas Howard managed to still pull it all together in a very satisfying way.
There was a specific piece of CGI that doesn’t really look good at all. These giant red lights are shown and they just don’t look real. The red lights are shown through tree branches and it just doesn’t make total sense and looks very strange.
Easily the best part of the entire episode is Baby Yoda. His presence in the episode is the source of all humor and heart from the story. Mando has left his guild and brethren behind, leaving him with only the kid for company. The child has become the purpose for the Mandalorian moving forward. They now have a father-son relationship. Baby Yoda has become the heart and soul of this show. The baby ends up being a great addition to action scenes and the heart felt dramatic ones as well.
GOOD
Overall the episode was weak on acting, and had some small story problems here and there but was overall redeemed by the relationship between Baby Yoda and the Mandalorian.
