Warning: Spoilers for the first three episodes of “The Mandalorian” to follow.
The latest episode of “Star Wars: The Mandalorian” spelled out the sins of being a Mandalorian. You shouldn’t care about people. You shouldn’t care about the bounty you collect. Don’t have a heart. Don’t emotionally invest yourself in anything.
But it turns out the one thing that saved our main character in this week’s episode was empathy, love and community.
“The Sin” begins with Mando arriving back on his home planet with Baby Yoda. He surrenders the young child to the bounty hunter’s guild and receives his credits in return. But you can see on Mando’s face — not his actual face, but the expressions on his mask — that he is unsure with his decision to hand over the child since the baby helped him in an attack the previous week.
It’s not until later in the episode — once Mando receives new armor and a stern talking to about how he shouldn’t care about what happens to Baby Yoda — that the Mandalorian makes his move to win back Baby Yoda from the clutches of the Empire. And once he does, he is cornered by his fellow bounty hunters, who all want to collect Baby Yoda for themselves.
All signs point toward Mando having to surrender the baby and give up everything he as fought for. But then Mando’s true community, the Mandalorians, appear and strike down all the bounty hunters. The Mandalorians, who previously in the episode were hostile toward Mando for caring about his bounty, sacrifice their lives for Mando, taking down the bounty hunters. In doing so, the Mandalorians secure one of their own.
Though the episode dabbles in the ideas of greed, empathy and finding your own path, the most prominent theme from “The Sin” is the idea of finding your community. Not just a community, but the right community. It pushes the idea of finding the people who will help you when you’re knocked down. Find those who will lift you up during times of great struggle and despair.
Mando was certainly on the ropes toward the end of the episode. He could have easily surrendered the bounty to the hunters and then been shot and killed (of course, we knew that wasn’t going to happen, but still). It wasn’t until the Mandalorians came to the rescue that he survived. Mando’s community came to help and helped him when he was at his lowest point.
And it’s even more powerful when you remember that the Mandalorian community is hiding in the shadows. The Empire has forced them into hiding after destroying their home planet Mandalore. They hide in the shadows, operate under the radar. With such an attack as this one, they’re coming out of hiding and truly sacrifice everything they’ve worked for.
It’ll be interesting to see how much more of the Mandalorian community we’ll see moving forward. The ending of the episode indicates this is no longer a show about bounty hunters and maybe one more about the Mandalorians, which is certainly more fitting for its title.
But the shift toward the show being more about the Mandalorians hints at a show more focused on community — finding those who provide you comfort and those who lift you up and make you the best person you can be. And that’s a “Star Wars” show everyone can take something away from.