...the way they built tension during that conversation in the officer's mess and then relieved it with a blaster shot made me bark out a good, solid laugh. Good stuff.

A Star Wars rescue squad isn't complete without a droid to hack the Empire's transport to unlock doors and discover vital information for future plans

I disagree. While it certainly wasn't the typical Mandalorian episode, it dove deep in the psyche of both Migs and Din Djarin. Migs obviously signed up for the Empire but it turned out to be something other than he expected and the pain of losing friends has haunted him each and every day since that battle. Just seeing that seething anger for the Empire build over the course of that scene was pretty freaking amazing and hats off to Bill Burr, who just absolutely slayed in this episode. The depth of his pain and despair was palpable.

Clearly, Din sees himself as a Father to Grogu, so much so that he's willing to give up the "The Way" and everything he previously believed in for a chance to retrieve him and save his life. I thought that was extremely powerful and while the seeds of him removing his helmet were sown in "The Heiress", I was a bit surprised to see him remove his helmet (and armor!) so soon. I thought maybe it would happen in Season 3 or 4, under dire circumstances but Favreau chose to do it now and IMO, it had a major impact.

Seeing the Mando stand up to and threaten Moff Gideon was absolutely amazing, although now, I'm a bit skeptical that we'll see whichever Jedi (or Sith!) that Grogu may have communed with through The Force in the final episode of the season.

And finally, I'm really happy to see that ridiculous rumor about Pedro Pascal being "unhappy" about not showing his face debunked. Not that I'm the "All Seeing Eye" or anything, but as I posted earlier this year, I had heard absolutely nothing about him being unhappy with the role or the lack of "face time", something I'm pretty sure I would have heard if true.

It was great to finally see that Chilean face

And it wasn’t some huge buildup. They just sort of did it nonchalant. I figured they would find some way around it without showing it.

I won't lie, I wasn't expecting a Bill Burr redemption arc. But as you said, he ****ing wrecked shit. Every note they set for him, he knocked it out of the park. It was fairly moving when he said, "gotta sleep at night." I felt compelled to give a fist pump. Not at all what I was expecting.

I'm a Burr homer, but I was all in for the jokes and charisma. I had no idea he had that in him.

Burr's comments about Mando dumping the rules when things get hot were a little on the nose but worked well and really resonated when he dumped the helmet.

The ending was awesome. It's one thing to write the monologue, it's quite another to deliver it to where it works. Some of it was Esposito's performance, most of it was Pascal's delivery. **** YEAH!

And everything Slave 1 does makes me dork out. God I'm a nerd.

You realize they showed his face in Season 1, right? When the droid fixed his busted dome.

Initially I just thought there too much on the nose dialogue, a completely unnecessary action sequence wedged into the middle, an awful mishandling of an extremely important character growth with him removing his helmet, and, really, just overall a side track of an episode that, to me, should have propelled us straight into the rescue arc. Literally everything that happened could have been shown in 10 to 15 minutes, and it could have then jumped us forward towards rescuing Grogu. Instead it was a speed bump following several fantastic episodes.

Maybe you're right, but I loved it. I'm open to me being Burr homer skewing my perspective.

I think the strategy, right or wrong, is to let the audience catch it's breath some. I think the real important points can be washed out if the series is throwing 100MPH the whole time.

Maybe the week between episodes takes care of it, but I think that's what they're going for. And in my obtuse, dumbass, hickabilly opinion, it is the right play in the long term. It's frustrating when we wait a week, but I'm sure there are people going to buy D+ for a month and binge it. Hell I'm gooing to binge it, probably soon, and it changes the consumption of the story.

The one thing that bothered me was the TPS report reference. It’s just as cheap joke that took me out of the scene for a moment and didn’t seem needed.