The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Mandalorian.
Season 2 of The Mandalorian had a lot to live up to considering how popular the first season was. However, from most accounts, the Disney+ series succeeded admirably, giving eight more episodes of the series full of awesome Star Wars action, an engaging story steeped in lore, and a lot more adorable Baby Yoda. And it also allowed us to stop calling him Baby Yoda.
But every TV season has its ups and downs, for every great episode there's one that doesn't quite hit the mark. And while Season 2 of The Mandalorian was remarkably consistent as a series, there were some amazing highs, and even some disappointing lows. So let's rank every episode of The Mandalorian Season 2 from the bottom to the top, here we go.
8. The Passenger
If there was one episode of The Mandalorian Season 2 that just felt like it was largely unnecessary, it would have to be the second episode of the season, called "The Passenger." It sees Mando take an alien woman and her eggs from Tatooine in exchange for information on Mandalorians. Unfortunately, they run into some trouble and end up crashing on another planet, where they have to deal with a new alien monster threat.
The ice spider creatures were cool, unless you really don't like spiders. And while not every episode of the show needs to necessarily advance the larger plot, the fact is this is the only episode of the season you could skip and not feel like you'd missed something. You'd just wonder why the Razor Crest got so beat up, and that ends up not being important anyway. It's still good, but it just doesn't add anything to the show beyond cool aliens.
7. The Believer
I'm honestly a little sad to put "The Believer" so low on this list, if for no other reason than it was so great to see Bill Burr again on The Mandalorian. And the episode does do a lot to broaden his character in a way that was unexpected and surprising in all the right ways. However, this ultimately is another episode that could have been largely skipped over. It's just a stop over episode which exists for little reason beyond drawing out the amount of time between the episode before it and the one after it. That doesn't mean it doesn't have its moments, like revealing to us a little bit more about the individual people that make up the Empire. "The Believer" is certainly worth seeing, but it just comes up lacking when compared to most of the rest of the season.
6. The Marshal
Season 2 of The Mandalorian opens with our hero on the hunt for more Mandalorians. He follows a lead to Tatooine, which results in no Mandalorians, but does produce one set of Mandalorian armor. One very familiar set of Mandalorian armor.
"The Marshal" gives us the first tease that Boba Fett will be part of the season, but more importantly it gives us Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth, who is one character I certainly hope we see more of in the future. He's so great that he nearly single handedly would have put this episode much higher on the list, if there wasn't just so much good stuff that happened later in the season. So much of which came from what happened here. Season 2 may not have launched with quite same fanfare as Season 1, but it was a solid episode nonetheless.
5. The Heiress
One of the things that Star Wars fans were most excited about leading into The Mandalorian Season 2 was the fact that we knew characters from Dave Filoni's animated series were going to make their live action debut, and with "The Heiress" that finally happened as Katee Sackhoff brought Bo-Katan Kryze to life.
This episode finally answered some long standing questions about our hero and his place in Mandalorian society, it gave the main plot some direction, and it also showed us just why Mandalorians are so feared, because four of them can take over a starship without so much as a scratch to their armor. The starship assault was excellent, though as an action scene it would be outdone in the season finale. Those who weren't familiar with the animated Star Wars might not have gotten as much out this episode, but it progressed the story in a big way.
4. The Tragedy
There's a lot that happens in "The Tragedy." Boba Fett arrives and gets his armor back. Ming-Na Wen returns as the sniper Fennic Shand, the Razor Crest is destroyed, and, of course, little Grogu gets taken by Moff Gideon, setting off the events for the end of the season. Also, there's Dark Troopers. There's so much going on that there really isn't anything else that does happen. If there's a flaw in "The Tragedy" it might be that it tries to cram so much into one episode.
Once the action starts, it doesn't stop, and the battle between the Empire and Team Mando is excellent. The taking of Baby Yoda maybe feels a bit anticlimactic, the Dark Troopers look menacing but exactly what they are isn't clear here beyond big black robots (unless you've played a decades old video game), but the "all is lost" moment certainly feels like just that, so it all works. We knew something like this was going to happen eventually.
3. The Siege
"The Siege" brought the action of The Mandalorian back to the planet Navarro and let us see what other fan favorite characters like Cara Dune and Greef Carga had been up to since the end of the first season. And the answer was, quite a lot. Just seeing them again was great, but getting them back together again to plan a siege on an Imperial base was even better. Seeing this team together again was just fun.
Yes, this was yet another "side quest" episode that saw Mando just doing another job in exchange for something he needed, but it ended up answering some questions, and creating several more, and when a side quest is fun, you just don't care if it's actually necessary. That's what "The Siege" is, it's just Star Wars fun the way so many fans of The Mandalorian are enjoying it.
2. The Rescue
The final episode of Season 2 could have gone a lot of different ways, but it succeeded in wrapping up nearly everything from the first two seasons in a nice little bow. We saw three badass women basically take over a ship by themselves. Mando went one on one with a Dark Trooper. Grogu was saved. The Darksaber was obtained. The episode appears to end one major storyline, but it also teases us with where the series may go from here. And then...there was that ending.
Whether or not you thought The Mandalorian's choice to bring in Luke Skywalker was good or bad, there's no denying the gravity of that choice. We saw Return of the Jedi era Luke again, maybe the CGI was slightly wonky, but a lot of people didn't care. Besides, if you wanted to see a Jedi truly shine on The Mandalorian, there was another choice.
1. The Jedi
"The Jedi" opens with the first look at a live-action Ahsoka Tano, glowing white lightsabers and all, stalking hired thugs like she's Jason Voorhees and they're horney teenagers, and it doesn't let up from there. One gets the district impression that Dave Filoni directed this episode himself because he was afraid that another director might not have made Ahsoka look sufficiently badass in literally every single frame she's in. But damn, if it doesn't work.
The best action sequences of the season are found here. Seeing what has become of Ahsoka is great for fans of the larger franchise. We know now this episode was essentially meant as a backdoor pilot, and it did its job. If you came into the episode knowing who she was, you were probably thrilled to see her play out, and if you didn't you have to be curious enough to want to see more.
What the future holds for The Mandalorian we can only guess at this point. While we know a Season 3 is on the way, no release date for that series has been given. We'll be seeing The Book of Boba Fett at the end of 2021 instead. Will the next season follow directly on the events here? Is this the last we've seen of Grogu? The only thing we can know for sure is that fans will be watching to find out.
To be fair, I'm not sure there's really a bad episode on this entire list. Are there episodes i would watch again before others, sure. But knowing that I'll probably rewatch this entire season at some point, I certainly won't mind watching any of them again. But what do you think was the best episode of Season 2 of The Mandalorian? Let us know in the poll below.
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