Chris

Quite.

I think it’s pretty clear which one of us has the better appreciation of how a Jedi should be portrayed. For the record, she was well written and performed and she helped further the story. The Child is after all a youngling of the temple so it’s not random fan service to throw in a Jedi knight from time to time. But this series is about how one orphan saves another. It’s about a bounty hunter who is shown to have an honour code. It’s about his struggle to reconcile the two (which is why we see him frequently juggling the Child while trying to help every hopeless cause he comes across. It’s a pity this pretty fundamental piece of character exploration keeps going over your head, because it’s this, and not Yoda-esque monologues about the Force, that drives the story).

You still seem to be having trouble separating the saga films from a weekly serial, aimed at a family audience, and deliberately designed as a pastiche of a 1950s western. Which is a shame because they really couldn’t have laid on the lone gunslinger motif any thicker this week if they’d used a trowel.

If you’re not familiar with the extended universe, then I recommend you dip into it. Not all of it is entirely canon, particularly not Grand Admiral Thrawn as originally written because those original novels develop some of the main saga characters in ways that were later overruled by episodes 7-9 (to the annoyance of some fans). But they will give you an idea of how the wider Star Wars universe actually works, outside of the massive, multi-generational family empire saga that is told in the nine principal films. The Mandalorian is made by people who know how that universe works (Kathleen Kennedy in particular, produced all five Star Wars films released since 2015), and what they are making is entirely consistent with it.