‘The Mandalorian’ Chapter 10 Recap: Star Wars Goes Full Horror

You never know what to expect with The Mandalorian. Disney intentionally keeps all lips zipped when it comes to this show, meaning you get zero casting confirmations, no weekly previews, and definitely no advance press screeners (hence my weekly attempts to offer thoughtful wordings of this show while the time is pre-dawn, hello). This is not how it’s done. Even prestige, big-budget, high-concept shows like Lovecraft Country and Stranger Things give fans and critics (who are also fans) more of a heads up about what’s to come. Not The Mandalorian. Each week is a Beyonce-style drop, which—and I speak type as someone with 6:54 a.m. coffee brain—is a decision I adore. We never know what’s going to happen! Who knew this week was—SPOILER—going to give us full-on creepy-crawly horror as well as all the maternal feels and a Dave Filoni cameo? I didn’t, and I love that journey for me (and all of us).

After a legit blockbuster season premiere, “Chapter 10: The Passenger” had a lot to live up to. Thankfully, The Mandalorian’s episodic mission statement means it never gives us the same tone twice. It never has to worry about trying to outdo the previous episode; instead, it just goes equally as far as what’s come before, but in a completely different direction. There’s a misdirect at the top of “Chapter 10,” though, one that initially led me to believe that we were getting the second half of a full-on Tatooine two-parter. Din Djarin vs. Boba Fett: you want to see it! That’s because “Chapter 10” opens up where “Chapter 9” left off, with Din (Pedro Pascal) cruising through the sand dunes of Tatooine with his collection of priceless Star Wars memorabilia (Boba Fett’s armor and a Baby Yoda puppet).

But not so fast, Din! You know you’re still in possession of a highly-valuable critter, right? A group of ragtag bounty hunters sure do, and they spring a trap that’s straight out of The Art of Ewok War on our main man that wrecks his speeder and sends him careening. It takes a lot more than that to get the drop on Din Djarin, and he quickly neutralizes the goons—except the tiniest one. That bad guy’s got a knife to Baby Yoda’s adorable yet unseen throat, which leads Papa Mando to have to negotiate. The bounty hunter accepts Djarin’s trade, his new jetpack for The Child’s life—and we know where this is going immediately. Doesn’t make it any less funny! The scamp takes off running with the jetpack and he gets pretty far away before Djarin ignites it, sending the bad guy rocketing straight up… and then falling back down with a thud.

With his speeder bike destroyed, Mando has to crossfit his way through a sea of dunes back to Mos Eisley. There he finds Peli Motto doing something that somehow doesn’t seem odd for Amy Sedaris: playing cards with a giant praying mantis.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that every week The Mandalorian takes something that Star Wars was once low-key ashamed of—like the slapdash array of puppets they quickly assembled to pad out the cantina scene in 1977’s Star Wars, which included a giant praying mantis for some reason—and shines a spotlight on it? And just to underline how seriously we should not take this franchise, Peli calls the giant mantis “Dr. Mandible,” which could either be this alien’s name or just the wacky Peli Motto being Peli Motto. Either way, Dr. Mandible reveals that they know someone who knows someone who knows of the location of a covert of Mandalorians. It’s a huge coincidence, sure, but I’d look foolish if I said this piece of intel was preposterous when it’s coming from a giant praying mantis named Dr. Mandible.

There’s just one catch, as Peli lays out for Mando back in her hangar: Din Djarin’s gotta ferry this contact to this planet, the estuary moon of Trask near the gas giant Kol Iben. Making matters more frustrating, the contact is a frog lady whose precious cargo—a tank full of unfertilized eggs—means that Djarin has to travel at sub-light speed. But her husband claims to have seen these Mandalorians, so… off they go! Sidenote: the frog lady is performed by Misty Rosas, the same performer who brought Kuiil to life in Season 1!

After blasting off in the Razor Crest and setting the course for the water moon, Din Djarin makes a disturbing discovery while checking in on Baby Yoda in the cargo hold: the tyke loves eating frog eggs! Our fave is problematic! He’s just slurping on unfertilized eggs! Mando quickly scolds Baby Yoda, but like me and a bag of M&M’S, it’s gonna take more than some scolding to keep him away from those eggs.

Then, just as Din predicted, their sub-light trajectory puts them at risk of being spotted by all sorts of ships. In this case it’s two X-wing pilots: Carson Teva (Kim’s Convenience’s Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and, making his second appearance, Trapper Wolf (EP Dave Filoni). This scene reveals two things: first, it reveals that Razor Crest isn’t the name of Mando’s ship, but the name of the brand. It’s like Din Djarin bought a Sentra and just… calls it “Nissan.” Second, we see what our rebellious heroes of the original trilogy have become: traffic cops. This is what Cara Dune (Gina Carano) was complaining about when we first met her last season. All the action troops saw during the war with the Empire has, in peace times, become mundane. Now X-wings aren’t running raids on battle stations. They’re running plates.

Of course, Carson and Trapper (coming in 2022 to Disney+?) get some action when they try to verify that the Razor Crest has no Imperial ties. The shot of their S-foils moving into attack position was a perfect visualization of the heightening tension. As soon as they ask Mando if he as anywhere near the New Republic correctional transport Bothan-Five, which of course he was in “Chapter 6,” Mando bolts. Then we get a chase scene as the X-wings pursue Nissan—er, Razor Crest through a cloudy atmosphere. It’s big, sweeping, and made me feel like I was in—what were they called?—a “movie theater.” Remember those?

Din Djarin’s evasive maneuvers shake the X-wings, but they leave the Razor Crest in a crumpled heap at the bottom of an icy cavern. The cargo hold’s integrity has been compromised, fuel is spouting, and everything’s the worst. To assuage the frog lady’s fears, Mando goes on the grimmest Easter egg hunt ever to check on her kids—and he finds out that not even a crash landing can curb Baby Yoda’s appetite. He’s still scarfing down eggs! Stop it!

With his ship wrecked and temperatures dropping, Djarin throws his hands up in defeat. Not so fast, dude! In a classic example of “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the frog lady that we presumed was a timid Tatooine bumpkin hot wires the remains of the mercenary droid Zero (Richard Ayoade) that Mando added to his Star Wars collection back in “Chapter 6” and uses the protocol droid’s translation and vocalization tech to read Din Djarin to filth.

This is her one chance to spawn or it’s the end of her family line, so this Mando needs to buck up and keep his word—or maybe tales of Mandalorian honor were just stories for children. Mic drop.

Mando gets to work, but his hull repair is interrupted by a cutely frantic Baby Yoda. Frog lady has taken off, but only because she sensed a hot spring deeper in the cave and her eggs needed warmth. Din Djarin and Baby Yoda find her, soaking with her eggs like she’s in a hot tub at the DoubleTree. Baby Yoda just sees egg soup, and his dad has to once again shoo him away from getting his gobble on. Led by his appetite, Baby Yoda wanders into a patch of upright eggs. If Alien taught us anything, it’s that you do not wander into a patch of upright eggs! He cutely claws into one egg and eats a disgusting spider embryo, green goop and all. Bad move.

If it wasn’t clear already, “Chapter 10” of The Mandalorian is all about maternal instincts and the lengths parents will go to to protect their young. Frog lady is journeying to a new planet with a bounty hunter as a taxi driver so her husband can fertilize her eggs and continue her family line. Din Djarin has given up his entire livelihood and reputation in order to take care of Baby Yoda. And, because a theme should always come in threes, the baby spiders have a protective mama (and approximately a billion skittering siblings). It’s here that I should point out that the Mandalorian EPs gave Ant-Man franchise director Peyton Reed the episode filled with spiders.

This episode should come with an arachnophobia warning, because the spider chase scene is the Star Wars franchise’s first true step into straight-up, skin-crawling, nightmare-inducing horror territory. Nothing stops them, not laser blasts or explosive charges or a flamethrower. They leap and slash and spit webs like a mass of legs and teeth (oh god, the teeth!). Things get even worse when they reach the Razor Crest and spider aliens spill in through the breached hull and up the ladder, all the way into the cockpit. Fortunately for Baby Yoda, frog lady has maternal instincts that extend beyond caring for her own; she blasts away a few of the spiders trying to get the kid.

Mando’s immediate mission is to just get out of the cavern, a mission thwarted when big momma drops on top of the ship, legs puncturing the cockpit while her rows of sucking teeth scrape the glass. Then—laser bolts! The X-wing pilots are off-camera, offering much needed assistance to their quarry. Turns out they got a lot more info on Din Djarin after running his plates: yeah, he helped a prisoner escape, but he left three other wanted felons in his place and security footage showed that he tried to save the murdered Republic officer. As thanks, the pilots don’t arrest him. But, in a true dick move, they scoff at Mando’s request for help repairing his ship. Carson and Trapper laugh in his face and peace out, essentially leaving Din Djarin there to die. Zev Senesca would never! Maternal instincts, these two pilots lack.

With no better option, this temporary and very ragtag found family piles into the cockpit since Djarin can at least patch those breaches. They limp off into space, heading towards the estuary moon and definitely more danger. The frog lady hugs her tank of eggs close… and Baby Yoda slyly pops another egg into his mouth. As all mothers know, kids will be kids—and sometimes kids will, uh… eat other kids?

And y’know how I said The Mandalorian always keeps us guessing? Well, we don’t have a preview for next week, but we do know that they’re heading to an estuary moon. The Season 2 trailer was filled with shots of Mando on a water planet. Now we know the water planet has Mandalorians on it, too. Who else is on that water planet? Sasha Banks. Is Sasha Banks playing fan favorite Mandalorian Sabine Wren? Looks like we may find out next week!

Stream The Mandalorian on Disney+