The Mandalorian gave us possibly its most frivolous episode to date with season 2 episode 2 — titled Chapter 10: The Passenger — making the Star Wars series feel like it’s already spinning its wheels. That’s not a good look one episode into a new season. Sure, The Mandalorian has never been one for pushing its plot at a rapid rate, but this is going nowhere at this point. That tease from The Mandalorian season 2 episode 1 “Chapter 9: The Marshal”, featuring Jango Fett actor Temuera Morrison is essentially forgotten. And yes, you could argue that episode 1 didn’t do much for the plot either, but it was thrilling to watch and offered a lot more.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2.
Chapter 10: The Passenger — directed by Peyton Reed (Ant-Man) and written by The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau — has just one new character and was made up of just around five scenes in total. The new character is a Frog Lady — that’s the only name we’re given — who is voiced by animal vocalisation veteran Dee Bradley Baker (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and played by Misty Rosas, who is also the performer for the “I have spoken” alien Kuiil.
The mechanic Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) introduces the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) to the Frog Lady, who needs passage to her husband on the estuary moon called Trask in the system of the gas giant Kol Iben. The Frog Lady is carrying a cylinder of eggs that need to be fertilised soon, if she is to keep her family tree alive. Everyone’s favourite “the Child”, or Baby Yoda as he’s better known, is instantly attracted to the transparent cylinder with a bright-blue liquid and the floating eggs, for all the wrong reasons as we will learn.
For Mando, there’s one caveat: he can’t turn on the hyperdrive because it will kill all her spawn. Determined to find other Mandalorians, our titular protagonist agrees. Of course, travelling “sublight” is going to come with its own problems. And it does. The Mando encounters a New Republic patrol of two — one of the pilots is played by Star Wars veteran and The Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni — who request him to send a “ping”. He’s naturally hesitant as it will allow them to look into the Razor Crest’s past, which isn’t rosy, as you might remember. In The Mandalorian season 1 episode 6, Mando boarded a New Republic prisoner transport to bust someone out.
The Mando is greeted by a New Republic X-wing in The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2
Photo Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm
Cornered, the Mando pushes into gear and tries to flee, diving into a nearby planet’s atmosphere to evade the New Republic patrol. Hurtling through the clouds and pulling off some brave manoeuvres isn’t enough to lose his tail though, but he’s eventually able to find a hiding spot after entering an ice canyon. The trouble with an ice canyon is that it’s impossible to tell if there’s earth beneath a spot or not. The Razor Crest crashes through the landing base, falls onto the surface below, and gets severely damaged. A frustrated Mando tells the Frog Lady that the deal is off, and tells her to go to sleep as he will inspect his spaceship in the morning when the temperatures are better.
The Frog Lady is quite impatient though, and spots the severed head of the droid Zero, lying in the hull of the Razor Crest. The Mando is rudely woken up from his slumber by its familiar voice (Richard Ayoade) as the Frog Lady reveals that she got hold of its “vocabulator” — an instant voice translator — as they were unable to communicate. Mando didn’t speak or understand Frog, while the Frog Lady only understood the common tongue but couldn’t speak it. She then explains that he must get them to Trask because these are the last eggs she will ever lay, and the planet her husband has found is the only one hospitable for their species. She then reminds him about the Mandalorian code, which finally gets him to start the repairs.
Can someone convey that to Baby Yoda too? He’s currently the biggest threat to the survival of the Frog Lady’s family line, having slowly been consuming her eggs whenever no one is looking. Baby Yoda, you monster! Given that he’s constantly keeping track of where the eggs are, it’s Baby Yoda who points to the Mando that the Frog Lady has taken off with her eggs. The two find her in a nearby hot water pool, with the eggs being given the heat they need. The Mando notes that it’s not safe and behind to pick up the eggs, and reprimands Baby Yoda — again — when the green critter unashamedly tries to grab an egg for himself, right in front of the Frog Lady.
Baby Yoda is sad that he can’t eat more Frog eggs in The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2
Photo Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm
Pushed away from the eggs he loves, Baby Yoda starts exploring the rest of the ice cave. He finds and breaks into another tomb-shaped egg and consumes the offspring whole — good god, does the Mando not give Baby Yoda any food or what? — which somehow wakes up all the other eggs around it. Tiny white spiders, of all sizes, start to stream out of the eggs and are soon followed by their elder brothers and sisters — and the giant mother spider. With hundreds of spiders on their tail, the Mando picks up Baby Yoda and asks the Frog Lady to make a run for it.
As they run through the ice cave, the spiders begin to surround them for all sides, and the Mando blasting off a few here and there doesn’t deter them at all. He then deploys a series of explosives to hurt the mother spider but its progeny keep following them, right into the Razor Crest. Somehow, the three — the Mando, Baby Yoda, and the Frog Lady — make it into the cockpit, which is then closed shut by Mando as he uses his arm flamethrower to fry off the immediate invaders. A few remaining ones climb over Baby Yoda, and The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2 suggests that he’s vapourised them with his mind powers, only to reveal a tiny blaster in the hands of the Frog Lady.
Just as they are about to take off in the Razor Crest, the mother spider bursts in from the top and pierces through the glass hull of the cockpit. But then, the giant spider falls flat on its face as red blasters light up the air outside the Mando’s spaceship. He exits the cockpit to find out who the miraculous rescue party is, and discovers to his surprise, that it’s the same New Republic X-wing pilots he had fled from earlier. As a wondering Mando looks at them, the elder pilot explains that they ran through the full story of what happened on the New Republic prisoner transport.
Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2
Photo Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm
Though Mando busted out a prisoner (who was later blown up), he also left behind three of his back-stabbing teammates, who were themselves “priority targets on a wanted register.” Additionally, he risked his life to protect a New Republic lieutenant. Mando expects to be arrested, but the pilots let him go because these are “trying times”, which is a good reminder that The Mandalorian is set just five years after the collapse of the Empire in 1983’s Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Mando tries to go a step ahead and ask for their help in fixing his broken ship, but the pilots rebuff him and remind him to fix his transponder just so they won’t blow him up the next time they spot him.
He then gets to work on the repairs himself, before taking off for Trask with one of two engines barely functioning. Will the next episode be another going-nowhere-chapter that finds the Razor Crest floating in space without power? Hopefully not — The Mandalorian season 2 only has eight episodes and it needs to get going now — but if that does happen, at least one character will be very happy: Baby Yoda, who has somehow sneaked another (precious) Frog egg that he happily gulps down.
The Mandalorian season 2 episode 2 “Chapter 10: The Passenger” is now streaming on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar wherever available. New episodes release Fridays around 1:30pm IST.
