Serial Consumer celebrates and interrogates Evan’s relationship to franchised media and his addiction to purchasing its licensed products. Amid a brief absence of new content, Evan is creating throwback recaps for each episode in the first season of The Mandalorian for his latest installments.

My initial viewing of Sanctuary was a letdown, and I’ve long felt like the episode is the worst of the entire series. Watching it again, I’m a little kinder to it, although I still think it’s kind of a drop in relative quality from the first three chapters. There are things I like about it and a few things that I still think don’t quite work. I’m glad I rewatched it, though, and probably won’t skip it anymore on subsequent series watch-throughs.

First, the good: I’m a fan of the decision to slow down the show after the season finale-level action and development in The Sin. This is the first episode to lift the “Mando walks into town, is hired to do a job, trains the locals” Western set-up (although without six other compatriots), and it’s reasonably well done. I love the use of an AT-ST as a terrifying walking tank, given how easily they’re destroyed by the Ewoks during Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi. The addition of bright-red “eyes” in the viewports is top-notch design. We get a lot of cute Grogu material here, too.

The bad: I’ve never really liked Cara Dune. I think Gina Carano performs decent fights, but her acting is so unforgivably labored. She gets some good world-building dialogue about what happened to the Rebels post-Empire in regard to politics, but she’s not great at delivering it. I was surprised they wanted to give her an entire spinoff and honestly relieved when Carano’s personal viewpoints got her kicked off the show. Cara has a few neat moments here and later on, but on the whole, she drags down the tone of the show, which is otherwise very immersive and filled to the brim with talented character actors showing up for bit parts. Sanctuary is very much Cara’s episode, built to introduce her and let her shine, and for that reason I’m still not over the moon about it.

I like now, as I liked then, the additional information about Mando’s helmet vow, but it has always seemed silly that he makes a big deal about taking it off and then takes it off in front of an open window. I also don’t quite buy the idea that he’s remotely tempted to settle down on the planet, which you kind of have to believe is at least a little bit of temptation in the middle act because that’s the archetype with which they are playing.

Fun episode, though.

Consumer Report

My 6″ Jedha Patrol Trooper from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story finally arrived, and it’s a very wonderful figure. I regret not buying more of the new Stormtroopers back in August 2020 but have enjoyed all the variants that have trickled out since then.

Shopping List

I have to remind myself that these lists are fantasy lists and that I can wish for items that will certainly never come to be. My biggest wishlist item from Sanctuary is a 6” scale AT-ST for my figures to play around. It would probably be prohibitively expensive, but a boy can dream, right?