‘The Mandalorian’ Chapter 10 Recap: Arachnophobia
Season two of The Mandalorian continues to roll on! Last week‘s shocking character reveal had us talking all week, but even the drama of the resurrected Boba Fett wasn’t enough to prepare us for the stress levels induced by Chapter 10. Let’s recount the tale of Mando’s latest adventure, shall we?
Chapter 10: The Passenger
In the opening recap, we see a short clip from chapter six of Mando killing the droid Zero to protect the Child, but it’s mostly a montage of clips from last week’s season two premiere. The chapter kicks off in the present time with Mando zooming across the Tatooine desert on his speeder bike. The joyride doesn’t last long as Mando is ambushed by some ruffians who set a rope trap that sends Mando and the Child flying through the air and destroys their bike. Mando takes out most of the group, but one of them grabs the Child and holds him, hostage, with a knife in hand.
Mando puts down his jetpack as ransom, and the alien relinquishes the Child. Attempting to fly away on the jetpack, the alien lasts five seconds before Mando activates the jetpack, sending the kidnapper on a fatal flight. Mando’s jetpack triumphantly flies back to him, the Child looks up at Mando with a grateful smirk and our titular gunslinger delivers the coolest dad shrug ever.
After the title crawl, Mando and the Child traverse the beautiful scenery of Tatooine on foot and stop by a cantina, where they find Peli Motto. Mando recounts the tale of the Cobb Vanth and their triumph over the Krayt dragon and requests another lead on the Mandalorian. So far, giving the Mandalorian some iPhones would resolve most of the season two plot lines. Peli tells Mando that if he covers the bet of the Insectoid she’s playing cards with, it will offer its knowledge. The Insectoid says that the contact will rendezvous at the hanger and tell him where more Mandalorian are.
Mando heads back to Peli’s place, where they cook a chuck of Krayt dragon fresh as the mechanic relays details about the contact. Peli says that the Mandalorian covert is close by, but she doesn’t know if they are the same ones who left Nevarro. In return, the contact is requesting passage through the system—but without using the ship’s hyperdrive. Her request poses a problem for Mando, as traveling fast is the only strategy keeping him and the Child safe. The contact, a pink frog-like creature, emerges from the shadows carrying her spawn in a container. The Frog Lady explains through Peli’s translation that jumping into hyperspace would kill the eggs, and she needs to return to her husband on the estuary moon Trask, who claims to have seen Mandalorian there.
On the Razor Crest, Mando struggles to communicate with his passenger, attempting to speak Huttese to no avail. The ever-wandering Child, curious about the passenger’s cargo, waltzes up to the container of spawn. When Mando comes down from the cockpit to check on the Child, the infant is sticking its hands in the cookie jar and eating the passenger’s spawn. Dad Mando mode quickly jumps in, as he scolds the Child for its snack choices, places the Child back in its room and takes a nap with it.
The gang hit their first snag after a New Republic X-wing approaches the Razor Crest, questioning Mando because his transponder is not emitting. Mando awkwardly promises to run a beacon and says, “may the Force be with you,” to the X-wing pilot named Carson. Before Carson flies away, the pilot asks Mando to send him a ping because he is sweeping for Imperial holdouts. Not wanting to send the ping, Mando fibs twice that he doesn’t have that hardware online and then that it isn’t working. Mando is not the best of liars. Carson says that if he cannot confirm Mando is not Imperial, the protagonist has to follow him to the outpost of Adelphi. Mando finally transmits the ping and has to lie about his equipment being noisy as the Frog Lady starts croaking in the background. Carson asks Mando if his Razor Crest was in proximity of the New Republic Correctional Transports Bothan-Five, causing the gunslinger to fly away.
Mando pilots the Crest straight down into a canyon, followed by the X-wings, who threaten to fire. Breathing heavily, Mando uses the Razor Crest as a sled to slide into a cave. The gang escapes the pair of X-wings, but the ship breaks through the ice and crashes down below. Knocked unconscious, Mando awakens to find the Crest in critical damage. Mando leaves the cockpit to check on the Frog Lady’s eggs to find the Child snacking on them again and letting out a burp. Deciding to check their prospects in the morning, Mando sits down against the wall and goes to sleep, with the Child curled up next to him.
The Frog Lady ominously watches the remains of Zero, which regains consciousness in the morning and speaks, waking up Mando. Turns out, the Frog Lady has a knack for droids as she bypasses the droid’s security protocols and accesses its vocabulator to communicate with Mando. Still refusing to trust droids as anything more than killers, Mando scolds the Frog Lady. She defends herself by saying that her husband risked his life to set up a life for her spawn on the only planet hospitable for her species, refuses to let her family line go extinct and demands that Mando stick to the deal. Mando is annoyed, but in reality, the Frog Lady and her eggs are a solid parallel to what Mando is doing for the Child.
Mando is interrupted by the Child while attempting repairs, who notices footprints leading away from the ship. The pair find the Frog Lady chilling with her eggs in a natural hot tub. While Mando helps the passenger collect her spawn, the Child wanders into a patch of spider eggs. After eating one, the rest of the eggs hatch, and the scared infant waddles back to Mando as a terrifying spider emerges and chases the gang, in a scene more terrifying than Aragog’s lair in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Not having access to the Weasley’s flying car, Mando gets them back to the ship, using his blaster to stifle the arachnids. The gang traps themselves in the cockpit, where Mando uses his flamethrower to burn the invading spiders. The mother spider prevents Mando from flying the Razor Crest away until blasts from an unknown firer finish off the spiders. Mando exits the ship to find Carson, who says he discovered Mando’s arrest warrant for the abduction of a prisoner, but also that the protagonist apprehended three wanted culprits and put his life in harm’s way to protect Lieutenant Davan in the New Republic Prison.
Mando proposes that he will forego the bounties on the three criminals if Carson and his X-wing mate help him fuse his hull. They refuse, telling Mando to fix his transponder and exit the scene. Mando can’t do anything about the main hull’s integrity, but he can make enough repairs to limp their way to Trask. Ascending into the air, Mando puts on autopilot and falls asleep with the Child in his lap.
Make sure to look out for more of our content on The Mandalorian soon! Want to refresh your memory on season one? Click here for chapter recaps of season one of The Mandalorian. What were your favorite moments in chapter ten? Let us know @capeandcastle on Twitter! Be sure to check out our site for articles on all things Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and more!
