Din travels to Mandalore after stopping by Peli's garage for an astromech, but runs into unexpected trouble.
Tropes:
- Achilles in His Tent: Bo-Katan is motivated to emerge from the metaphorical "tent" when, instead of telling Din off once and for all so she can mope in peace when his Hotrod N-1 buzzes around again, she finds only Grogu in the N-1's cockpit, distraught. She immediately deduces that Din is in trouble and eagerly flies off to his aid.
- Always Need What You Gave Up: As part of his redemption baptism, Din drops his jetpack before walking into the water. Unfortunately, he ends up stepping onto a broken step and sinking, requiring Bo-Katan to save him since he didn't have his pack.
- Badass in Distress:
- Din is captured and sedated, leaving Grogu no choice but to save him. Grogu can't do it alone, however, so Din sends him to find Bo-Katan.
- Happens to Din again at the end of the episode when he falls into the depths of the Living Waters and Bo-Katan has to fish him out because he removed his jetpack.
- Blown Across the Room: Or out of the cave mouth. An Alamite blocks Grogu's way as he flees to the Hotrod N1 to go call on Bo-Katan for aid, so he tosses the Alamite quite a distance with a hefty Force-throw.
- Broken Bird: Bo-Katan flatly states her family never truly believed in the religious trappings of the creed to the extent that the Watch does, but she's still clearly traumatized by the deaths of her family, not to mention the destruction of Mandalore and scattering of its people.
- Butt-Monkey:
- R5-D4 is unwillingly sold to Din and made to travel to the dreaded Mandalore. Upon arriving, he's forced by Din to scout ahead, and is quickly attacked by Alamites, needing to be rescued. Small wonder that, after leading Bo-Katan back to the planet, R5 opts to stay aboard her ship.
- Din himself is ambushed and attacked twice within hours of arriving on the ancestral homeworld of his people, needing to be rescued by Bo-Katan in the latter case. Adding insult to injury, he doesn't even get to finish reciting his vows as a Mandalorian while bathing in the Living Waters before falling beneath said Waters mid-sentence (though he is considered redeemed next episode), needing to be rescued by Bo-Katan again.
- Chekhov's Classroom: An informal example. In both this and the previous episode, Din has been shown teaching Grogu how to navigate the galaxy and how to fly his Naboo starfighter, and specifically indicated the planet which Bo-Katan currently resides on. This, plus the installation of R5-D4, comes in handy when Din is captured, allowing Grogu to indicate Kalevala on the starmap so R5 can fly them there to seek Bo-Katan's help.
- Cliffhanger: The episode abruptly ends right as Bo-Katan rescues Din from the depths of the Living Waters, right after she caught a glimpse of a live mythosaur, the creature on which the Mandalorian nation's crest is based, and that Bo-Katan was convinced was just a superstitious legend.
- Continuity Nod:
- When Din arrives on Tatooine, it's Boonta Eve and there's a race going on (although it's done with speeders instead of podracers). Peli complains to her other client about having to work that day.
- Peli is still missing the tooth she lost falling out of a droid-carried rickshaw during her tussle with the Pykes.
- Din can still barely lift the Darksaber due to his lack of training. Bo-Katan wields it expertly, which is understandable since she's done so before and probably was taught formally by either Kanan or Sabine.
- While searching for Din, Bo-Katan tells Grogu she's fought alongside Jedi before, no doubt referencing her past run-ins with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus, and Ezra Bridger.
- Bo-Katan tells Din that her father died defending Mandalore, which had previously been mentioned in supplementary materials for her sister Satine's backstory.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Bo-Katan effortlessly hacks the cyborg creature's Mini-Mecha to pieces with the Darksaber.
- Deadpan Snarker: Bo-Katan once again lays the sarcasm on heavily in this episode: she teases Grogu about thinking Din was the only Mandalorian, all but taunts Din about never before having had a meal which any Mandalorian on the planet would have grown up eating regularly, and when they reach the waters, reads the placard detailing the legend of the first Mandalore with a tone which makes it clear she'd like nothing better than to roll her eyes in derision.
- Death World: Downplayed; Mandalore is a blasted wasteland, with its surface vitrified from the thermonuclear carpet-bombing and wracked with storms. That said, the air is breathable, which is better than had previously been reported, and upon seeing the Alamites alive, Bo-Katan notes with cautious optimism that if they could survive, other things could too.
- Earth That Used to Be Better: Mandalore has seen better days, to be sure. Perpetual storms cover the planet, the surface has been glassed, and the fusion bombs messed up the planet's magnetic field, making communication outside the atmosphere impossible. Air's breathable, however, so that's an upside.
- Empathic Weapon: Din is still having trouble using the Darksaber, implicitly because he is refusing to bond with the crystal due to the responsibility it represents. He lifts it like it weighs a hundred pounds and barely gets a couple strikes with it. Bo-Katan, meanwhile, wields it with no effort after taking it from the cyborg.
- Failed a Spot Check: Din is so focused on getting to the Living Waters and being redeemed that he doesn't pay attention to his surroundings. He walks into an ambush, fails to spot a trap, and then walks off an underwater cliff.
- First-Name Basis: Unlike everyone else who is on friendly terms with Din (they usually refer to him as "Mando"), Bo-Katan calls him by his given name. One Mandalorian calling another "Mando" would be odd.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Bo-Katan reads a plaque explaining how the first Mandalore faced a mythosaur that was found in the mines, hence why its skull is the symbol of Mandalore. The viewer can guess Din's dip likely won't go as planned from that tidbit. Interestingly, while there is a mythosaur down there, it's not the reason for Din's plummet; Din just walked off the edge of a broken step and — not wearing his jet pack at that moment — sank like a ton of rocks. The mythosaur doesn't even attack them (not in this episode, anyway).
- Foreshadowing: Bo-Katan notes that the Alamites managed to survive on Mandalore despite the devastation the planet has suffered, musing aloud that other living things could have endured on the planet as well. Sure enough, when she dives into the Living Waters to save Din, she's astonished to see a real, live Mythosaur lying in the depths.
- Giant Eye of Doom: Harmless in the end, but the Mythosaur's eye perking up to perceive Bo-Katan while in the depths of the Living Waters takes her by such surprise that her helmet burps a bunch of bubbles out from the water seal.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A cyborg of some kind captures Din and hooks him up to a machine that steals his blood. It's never explained what it is, where it came from, or why it does what it does, unlike the Alamites or the Mythosaur. It has no relevance to the plot other than to get Bo-Katan to come rescue Din and cause her to wield the Darksaber in the fight.
- Honest John's Dealership: Peli haggles with a Rodian to fix his speeder. As soon as he's gone, she calls in the Jawas, who are carrying all the parts they stole from said speeder. She then sends them off to do it again.
- I Owe You My Life: Din declares himself in Bo-Katan's debt after she rescues him. This doesn't stop him from insisting on finishing his quest, however, so she chooses to guide him.
- Lovable Coward: R5-D4 is clearly reluctant to go on the mission, but is still a sympathetic character.
- Mood Whiplash: Din's ritual bath and recitation of the atonement is suddenly interrupted when he falls underwater.
- The Morlocks: The pale-skinned, multi-eyed, bestial humanoids who attack R5, Din, and Bo-Katan are called Alamites, savage creatures who used to live in the wastelands outside the cities. With the Imperial bombardment, the survivors moved underground.
- Mundanger: What threatens Din's life as he tries to rebaptize himself isn't the mythosaur living down there, it's a broken step leading into a steep drop and his heavy armor and lack of jetpack causing him to sink like a stone.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The Mythosaur isn't the cause of Din's unexpected dive (he wasn't paying attention for underwater ledges in the ruined stairs), and when Bo-Katan sights it, the beast just opts to retreat elsewhere out of an abundance of caution.
- Not Helping Your Case: Peli tries to sell Din on R5-D4 by slapping its head. A piece falls off as soon as she does. Still, this being Peli, she talks him into it.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Upon hearing that Din is going to Mandalore and hearing the job specifics, R5-D4 starts backing away, clearly not willing to go to Mandalore.
- Bo-Katan is annoyed by Din returning so soon and intends to drive him off, but when she sees that Din's ship and child have returned without him, she immediately realizes something terrible has happened.
- Mythology Gag: The cyborg creature's trap is set off when Din picks up a discarded Mandalorian helmet, much like how Boba Fett used his father Jango's helmet as part of a trap meant for Mace Windu.
- Real After All: Bo-Katan speaks of the Creed and other such fables as a way to placate the masses, clearly not believing them herself. When she rescues Din from the living waters and sees there really is a mythosaur living down there (at least, there is now), she's clearly shaken.
- "Rediscovering Roots" Trip: This is Din's first trip to Mandalore, his people's homeworld. Here he engages in an ancient Mandalorian ritual, tastes traditional Mandalorian cuisine for the first time, and even encounters a mythosaur (though he may have been unconscious for that last one). In a sense, this likely applies to Bo-Katan as well; her cynical outlook towards Mandalore has clearly taken a blow after seeing the mythosaur that Din likely sank past.
- Sensor Suspense: When R5 rolls out of sight, Din switches to scanners to keep track of him. After a few moments, R5's signal vanishes.
- Symbolic Baptism: Not Din, since he was after a literal baptism, but when Bo-Katan has to dive into the living waters to save Din, after dismissing almost all Mandalorian tradition as myth, she comes face-to-face with a real mythosaur, effectively receiving a baptism of her own towards her jaded outlook. Noticeably, she doesn't remove her helmet when the episode ends.
- Tempting Fate: Din assures Grogu that R5 will be fine. R5 rounds a corner, Din turns on a tracker, and seconds later his signal blinks out. Learning nothing, he assures Grogu that he'll be right back as he goes to fetch the droid.
- Tsundere: When it looks like Din is coming to visit again, Bo-Katan is annoyed and has every intention of telling him to buzz off, but when she realizes that Grogu is alone aboard Din's starfighter, she's immediately concerned and sets out to rescue Din upon learning that he's in trouble. After they reunite, Bo-Katan is her usual snarky self, brushing off Din's reverence for Mandalorian tradition, but once he finds himself in trouble yet again, she doesn't hesitate to dive into the Living Waters to save him.
- Un-Robotic Reveal: The thing that captures Din appears to just be a droid, until a living eye opens in its photoreceptor and some kind of creature climbs out of its back.
- We ARE Struggling Together: As discussed many times before in other media, Mandalore's fall was ultimately caused by the massive amount of infighting. Bo-Katan explains to Din that by the time the Empire set its sights on Mandalore, the once proud warrior culture was so divided and splintered, no-one stood a chance.
- Wham Shot: Bo-Katan meeting the gaze of a mythosaur as she rises from the murky depths of the Living Waters with Din is considerably surprising, in part because she's completely stunned to see one after dismissing it as a myth, and in part because this is one of the few depictions of a living mythosaur across all Star Wars media, and the first-ever depiction of the creature in live-action.
