The folks at Disney+ and Jon Favreau have poured $100 million into a show that's truly about nothing. There's no season-long plot, no serious character development, and six episodes in, we still have no emotional stakes or any sign that these issues will be resolved. The show has been all about a walking action figure and his meme creating "Baby Yoda," doomed to get jobs that pay enough to fly to the next episode's location, team up with a celebrity cameo, get betrayed by fellow bounty hunters, save "Baby Yoda," and head out to the next location.
"Chapter 6: The Prisoner" opens up with Mando, AKA The Mandalorian meeting up with an old friend, who will pay him to break a prisoner out of a New Republic ship. It's a potentially promising concept, even if there's no backstory for the Mandalorian accepting this latest quest. The Mandalorian has been painted as a guy walking in the grey area, and seeing him going up against the series good guys could have given needed depth to Pedro Pascal's mysterious character, but "The Mandalorian," doesn't do much with the idea.
'The Mandalorian' latest episode is just a carbon copy of prior episodes
That's the gist of things, and the remainder of the episode is a copy of the previous episodes story beats.
This week's celebrity cameo is Bill Burr. Burr is a funny comedian and could have added some fun to the episode, but the episode's writing did not give him much to work with. Mayfield, ends up just insulting his Mandalorian ally. Burr's snarky delivery makes him a little more appealing to the Mandalorian than previous encounters with friends and enemies.
Burr's Mayfield is the leader of a ragtag team of bounty hunters, including Devaronian, Twi'lek and a droid. Each character gets a short introduction, but the remainder of their screen time is them acting out their character's stereotype and then double-crossing the Mandalorian, and eventually getting put in their place.
Action sequences help 'The Mandalorian' just a little bit
The action sequences stand out a bit above the average plot, but still are not a serious improvement. There's hardly any physicality in the hand-to-hand fights, and the droids the team fights are hardly a serious threat. Once the team doublecrosses the Mandalorian, Mando begins hunting down the team in a horror type vibe. The team ends up getting split up across the ship, giving the action some teeth, even though the sequences never look as flashy as the series’ reported price tag would suggest it could.
Aside from Mando, there's also "Baby Yoda," sometimes. He's usually out of sight on the Mandalorian's ship for the majority of the episode, The bounty hunters eventually find the thing and it seems we are supposed to imply that they want to kidnap it or kill it.
Near the end of the episode, one of the bounty hunters tries to kill "Baby Yoda."
The previous three episodes of "The Mandalorian" have not given us any new advancements, there's been zero plot developments since Mando escaped with "Baby Yoda," in Episode 3. We are hoping the remaining two episodes will give fans some catharsis to this exhausting meandering journey across the galaxy.