THE MANDALORIAN Review: Chapter 10 “The Passenger”

The Mandalorian Chapter 10: Photo Credit Disney +

The Mandalorian Review

Chapter 10 “The Passenger”

By Michelle Gonzaba

Chapter 10 kicks off seconds after the last episode. With dragon meat in tow, Mando and the Child continue their journey back to the ship. Before they can reach their destination however a few low-level bounty hunters attempt to kidnap the Child. Mando easily takes care of them, but the encounter reminds both Mando and the audience that someone will always be after the child, no matter where they go.

Mando is able to walk back to his ship and return to ally Peli Motto. He is clearly frustrated that he wasn’t able to locate any Mandalorians on Tatooine. Luckily, Motto has new information about a different Mandalorian location. According to Motto’s contact, there have been sightings of Mando’s people on the planet Trask. The information does not come for free; in exchange, Mando must bring this contact with him to Trask. After reluctantly agreeing to this deal, he meets his new travel companion. Surprisingly, it is a female creature who strongly resembles a frog. She seems quiet and shy but is desperate enough to undertake this dangerous journey with Mando and the Child. Her reason? She is determined to bring the last of her eggs to Trask, where her husband is located. If they are not fertilized, her family line will end. The frog lady boards the ship and they set off on the next part of Mando’s quest. However, the frog lady isn’t completely safe; she must keep an eye on the Child, who stares longingly at her eggs.

We quickly find out why the Child can’t resist the eggs: pure hunger. While Mando and the frog lady are preoccupied, the Child has sneakily eaten one of her eggs. Mando goes into angry-dad mode and tells the Child it’s time for a nap. They both go to sleep but are quickly woken up by a disturbance.

Two members of the New Republic patrol have flanked Mando’s ship. They make contact with Mando and inform him that it is required for all ships to have a working beacon; this is to ensure ships aren’t connected to the Empire. For obvious reasons, Mando doesn’t have a beacon on his ship. He needs to get out of this situation quickly, so he tries to talk his way out of it. Mando has many valuable skills, but “talking himself out of problems” isn’t one of them. Before the patrol can make a move on him, he makes a run for it. He races away from the patrol while trying to find a hiding place for the ship on the planet below. While the poor frog lady is screaming for her life, Mando is able to lose the patrol and land on the icy planet. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong spot to land on; the ice breaks below the ship and they go crashing down beneath the surface.

Eventually, Mando and the frog lady regain consciousness. With a hole blown out through the bulkhead, the temperature is quickly dropping inside the ship. After checking the damage, Mando realizes he will need to make serious repairs on the ship. The frog lady is agitated with this news but is unable to communicate it because of language barriers. While Mando is trying to rest, the frog lady reprograms a droid in the ship; she is now able to speak with Mando through the droid. She pleads with him to get to work so she can return to her husband and fertilize her eggs. She reminds him of their agreement; she even goes as far as to throw the ways of the Mandalorian in Mando’s face. “I thought honoring one’s word was a part of the Mandalorian code,” she says. Whether it is the reminder of the code or her desperation of continuing her family line, Mando begins to work on the ship.

The frog lady can’t wait for Mando to fix the ship; she must quickly warm up her eggs before they die. While Mando is preoccupied with repairs, the frog lady wanders off to some sort of hot spring. Mando and the Child follow her tracks. He is upset she wandered off; night time is quickly approaching and he doesn’t know what kind of creatures lurk in the darkness. Both Mando and the frog lady begin to gather the eggs from the warm water and place them back in her backpack/storage container. While they complete their task, the Child wanders off looking for food, finding hundreds of eggplant-shaped eggs. Cracking open an egg, the Child grabs the spider-like creature from inside and chows down. This snack, however, doesn’t come without consequences. The Child is quickly surrounded by hundreds of eggs breaking open with the creatures crawling out. Mando and the frog lady finish loading her eggs but soon realize they are cornered by hundreds of small spider creatures. But the tiny monsters aren’t the biggest problem; it looks like the leader of the spider creatures has been woken up by its new babies.

Mando, the frog lady, and the Child run for the ship. After shooting spiders and throwing bombs, they are able to escape into the cockpit and seal the door. Mando gets some juice in the engines and tries to take off, but one of the giant spider creatures jumps on top of the ship. With no other options, it looks like the group won’t be able to make an escape. But they haven’t run out of luck just yet; they receive assistance from the very people they were hiding from. The same New Republic patrol that tried to catch Mando is now shooting the spider creatures off the ship. They eventually finish them off. They explain to Mando that they are aware of the pro-New Republic deeds Mando has done. Because of this, they will look the other way. They aren’t all-forgiving though; Mando must repair the ship on his own. With limited resources, Mando is able to fix his ship enough to get them on their way to Trask.

Highlights and Observations:

• No mention of the main antagonists in this episode. Other than the three random bounty hunters who tried to take the Child, the story didn’t bring up anything from the previous episode.
• This was also a much shorter chapter than the premiere. It seemed more like an introduction to a longer story arc.
• How did the Child eat so many eggs? How big can his stomach be?