When last we left our cadre of lost souls, the team, led by The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, Wonder Woman 1984) along with his new pals Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison, Aquaman), Ming-Na Wen (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), and Cara Dune (Gina Carano, Deadpool), was on their way to pick up a new recruit who might help them track down our favorite guy in green, Grogu. Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa (Dope) wastes no time in this action-packed installment, as The Mandalorian Chapter 15 jumps straight to the prison planet where Cara has tracked down this week’s special guest star Mayfeld (Bill Burr, F Is For Family) while he’s toiling away in the work pits. He may not be anxious to see Mando again, but series creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are counting on the audience being anxious to see him.
Attentive viewers may remember Mayfeld from his scene stealing turn in last year’s episode “The Prisoner” (also directed by Famuyiwa), where he was part of a group of outlaws who double cross Mando during a job to liberate a particularly repugnant prisoner from a New Republic prison vessel. That episode was one of the more controversial episodes of an otherwise beloved first season, with some fans loving the episodic, “mission of the week” feel and others finding it a pointless diversion. The one thing all fans seemed to agree on, however, was how unexpectedly well actor Bill Burr fit into the Star Wars universe as Mayfeld. It was only a matter of time before the show found a way to bring him back into the fold, and this time around they decide to pay respect to the impact Burr left on Season One by giving Mayfeld an opportunity at redemption.
Mando and the team only have one way of tracking down Moff Gideon’s ship, where they hope Grogu is still being held prisoner. The team never allows themselves to doubt that “The Child” is still alive and on the ship, but they are not “The Believer” to which the episode’s title refers – we’ll get to that later. They are steadfast in their belief that they will find Grogu if they only find Gideon’s ship, and Mayfeld is the key to doing just that. As a former, low ranked empirical soldier, Mayfeld knows enough about access codes and protocols to access an empirical computer, which will provide the team with the coordinates they need to free Grogu before it’s too late. In order to do that, the team must fly to a new planet where empirical forces have a secret mining facility that is not well fortified. There, Mando and Mayfeld pair up to sneak into the base and access an empirical terminal to acquire the necessary information, but not before a few high intensity action sequences.
Mayfeld, at first, is only going along with this plan because he clearly has no choice. However, over the course of the episode, it’s clearly that the nihilist loner just trying to look out for himself on that prison ship last season has a gooey center he’s been shielding from the world after trauma taught him he was on his own. Confronting the Empire head on in this episode, stirs all that back up for him, allowing Mayfeld a chance to find his inner Rebel Scum and earn his freedom by episode’s end. Burr does an admirable job balancing his blue collar, everyman persona with more emotional material here, especially in a scene where he is forced to indulge Valin Hess (Richard Brake, The Rhythm Section), the pontificating commanding officer he and Mando are trying to fool to avoid suspicion.
The audience might expect Mando and his moral code to chafe against a situation where he must share niceties with a high ranking member of an organization who has kidnapped his surrogate son for the expressed purpose of fatal medical experimentation. However, Mayfeld is the one who can’t stomach hearing Hess, his former commanding officer, so cavalierly dismiss the death of the thousands of men who made up his own unit and the thousands of innocent locals who they helped slaughter before losing their own lives. It is the cathartic moment of the episode, and a great showcase for Burr, who truly proves himself to be the “believer” of the title by episode’s end, believing in the rebel cause in spirit if not explicitly in words.
Mayfeld’s arc, however, is somewhat in tension with how Star Wars has traditionally displayed Stormtroopers. Even after Mayfeld stands against the cavalier way the Empire treated his brothers in arms in this episode, Famuyiwa leans into the Star Wars tradition of reveling in the comic ineptitude of Stormtroopers as they are killed in droves by our morally upright heroes. As the live action Star Wars universe continues to expand, the creatives behind the scenes are going to have to start making hard choices between continuing to flesh out the humanity of the people under the Stormtrooper helmets and continuing to gleefully revel in their deaths.
A character whose arc has been well considered, however, is our favorite bounty hunter and surrogate dad, Mando. He gets a moment of his own for some meaningful character growth this episode. After having to shed his famed armor and fighting what appear to be local liberation forces all to protect his cover as an empirical soldier, Mando faces the ultimate test of commitment to Grogu when Mayfeld initially proves unable to access the terminal himself, afraid Hess will notice him and blow his cover. Mando takes on the task himself, even though it means he must take off his mask in order to make the machine work, as it requires a face scan to make sure the user is not wanted by the Empire.
We know that it is out of respect for the people who took him in as a foundling that he remains steadfast to “The Way” and never removes his armor in view of another person. Mando’s mask only came off on screen once all of last season, and only so a droid could save his life. This time around, Mando makes the choice to take his mask off in order to save Grogu. This choice reaffirms what Mando will later say in his message to Moff Gideon to close out the episode, that Grogu “means more to [him] than you could ever know.” The transformation from protector to parent is complete. Grogu is Mando’s family. And Mando will stop at nothing to keep him safe, setting the stakes as high as they get for next week’s climactic season finale.
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