Well it’s been a roller coaster few weeks for Disney+’s first big series hasn’t it? After an incredible first few episodes the show began throwing stand alone episodes our way, they were very ‘monster of the week’ which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. So with only two episodes remaining and Jon Favreau back at the wheel, the hope was that we’d be back on course to hopefully stick the landing of this bad boy in style. With the feeling of a big two-parter, chapter 7 manages to put any worries to rest with a fantastic penultimate episode.

You know the drill by now, major spoilers ahead! You have been warned.

“I look like a what in this helmet?”

I’ll apologise in advance for how unstructured this review may be as I just fan-boy out over every minute of this half an hour bundle of joy. The episode begins with a message from everybody’s favourite outer space Apollo Creed – Greef Karga who is here tell Mando that he’s changed his ways and wants to work together with the Bouny Hunter to take down the man who originally hired him to capture/kill the child… Pfft okay mate! Mando decides the best course of action is to not arrive alone so begins to build a team. It’s a good job then that the show has provided us with an incredible cast of side characters which our hero will now gather up for one last ride. It was at this point, only five minutes in, that I realised that I was in for a treat!

He first goes back to find the former Shocktrooper – Cara Dune who if you’ve read my chapter 4 review, you’ll know I’m a big fan of so needless to say I was hyped. I just knew that they’d have to then find a reason to include Nick Nolte’s Kuiil and that reason ended up being the need for somebody to watch the child. I’m not going to lie, I was a little worried that they may have recruited the babysitting mechanic from chapter 5 but thankfully they went to Kuiil. As if I couldn’t be any more happy, it turns out that Kuiil is not alone and since Mando’s departure has fixed and reprogrammed the bounty droid from Chapter 1 which was wonderfully voiced by Taika Waititi . My dream team was complete and we were off and running for what would surely be an exciting thrill ride.

Team Mando… ASSEMBLE!

Events do not slow down from here, once Team Mando meets up with the treacherous Greef Karga they are soon set upon by a swarm of flying creatures. It does amuse me how many of these cool fight scenes have taken place at night during this series, I may be looking into it too much but I can’t help but think it may be in an attempt to hide some slightly weak CGI… Either way I still enjoyed this scene. It all leads to ‘Baby Yoda’ using his force powers to heal Greef, a massive reveal which could have a further ripple effect in within the Star Wars universe. Though for this episode it acts as a reason for Greef to come clean and admit he was going to turn on Team Mando and hand over the child to the big baddies… NO FREAKING WAY?! Obvious twists aside, the scene was set for Mando & Co to march on back to where this all began and kill the man responsible for putting a bounty on the child.

I’m sure I’ve seen this ‘fake prisoner’ plan somewhere before…

While Greef and Mando attempt the whole fake prisoner act to try get inside the heavily Stormtrooper guarded building, Kuiil quietly makes off with the child in an effort to keep it safe. What plays out next is nothing short of tragic. I think one of the words I’ve used most to describe the series so far is ‘fun’. That’s because it has been, we get introduced to the antagonist of the episode and Mando usually overcomes his challenges all while the child continues creating moments to inspire thousands of memes. We’re surrounded by lovable side characters and we usually get sent home happy, well not this time. Not only is the child captured and our heroes pinned back by a bunch of Stormtroopers led by a new villain but we sadly see the death of Kuiil in a failed attempt to protect the child from the chasing enemies. It hit surprisingly hard, not necessarily because of how well written it was but because I’ve been conditioned to not expect devastating events in this fun loving Star Wars series. Kuiiil has spoken one final time and I’m gutted.

So as we head into the final chapter, our heroes have it all to do. It’s set up perfectly and I can not wait to see how it all plays out. Yes this episode did feel like part one of two but what a fantastic part one it was, the series has found its footing once again for me and I couldn’t be happier.

Hold on.. Have they always done that?!

All in all this was an amazing episode and may well be my favourite yet. I’m really struggling to fault it outside of one or two obvious plot points. It brought together all the best bits of chapters gone by and set up the finale beautifully. Is it enough to make me forgive some of those filler episodes? Probably. Fingers crossed that Favreau and his team can stick the landing in the finale but based on what I saw in Chapter 7, I have every faith they will.

I give The Mandalorian: Chapter 7 (The Reckoning)

9.5 / 10

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