#this is rick’s biases and prejudices coming out in his writing

[dankusner]

POLICE AI helps officers write reports

Dallas PD prohibits its use, but its popularity is growing in departments elsewhere

OKLAHOMA CITY — A body camera captured every word and bark uttered as police Sgt. Matt Gilmore and his police dog partner, Gunner, searched for a group of suspects for nearly an hour.

Normally, the Oklahoma City police sergeant would grab his laptop and spend another 30 to 45 minutes writing up a report about the search.

But this time, he had artificial intelligence write the first draft.

Pulling from all the sounds and radio chatter picked up by the microphone attached to Gilmore’s body camera, the AI tool churned out a report in eight seconds.

“It was a better report than I could have ever written, and it was 100% accurate. It flowed better,” Gilmore said.

It even documented a fact he didn’t remember hearing — another officer’s mention of the color of the car the suspects ran from.

Oklahoma City’s police department is one of a handful to experiment with AI chatbots to produce the first drafts of incident reports.

Police officers who’ve tried it are enthusiastic about the time-saving technology, while some prosecutors, police watchdogs and legal scholars have concerns about how it could alter a fundamental document in the criminal justice system that plays a role in who gets prosecuted or imprisoned.

Built with the same technology as ChatGPT and sold by Axon, best known for developing the Taser and as the dominant U.S. supplier of body cameras, it could become what Gilmore describes as another “game changer” for police work.

“They become police officers because they want to do police work, and spending half their day doing data entry is just a tedious part of the job that they hate,” said Axon founder and CEO Rick Smith, who described the new AI product — called Draft One — as having the “most positive reaction” of any product the company has introduced.

“Now, there’s certainly concerns,” Smith added.

In particular, he said, district attorneys prosecuting a criminal case want to be sure that police officers — not solely an AI chatbot — are responsible for authoring their reports because they may have to testify in court about what they witnessed.

“They never want to get an officer on the stand who says, well, ‘The AI wrote that, I didn’t,’” Smith said.

Few guardrails

AI technology is not new to police agencies, which have adopted algorithmic tools to read license plates, recognize suspects’ faces, detect gunshot sounds and predict where crimes might occur.

Many of those applications have come with privacy and civil rights concerns and attempts by legislators to set safeguards.

But the introduction of AI-generated police reports is so new that there are few, if any, guardrails guiding their use.

Concerns about society’s racial biases and prejudices getting built into AI technology are just part of what Oklahoma City community activist Aurelius Francisco finds “deeply troubling” about the new tool, which he learned about from The Associated Press.

“The fact that the technology is being used by the same company that provides Tasers to the department is alarming enough,” said Francisco, a co-founder of the Foundation for Liberating Minds in Oklahoma City.

He said automating those reports will “ease the police’s ability to harass, surveil and inflict violence on community members. While making the cop’s job easier, it makes Black and brown people’s lives harder.”

Before trying out the tool in Oklahoma City, police officials showed it to local prosecutors, who advised some caution before using it on high-stakes criminal cases.

For now, it’s only used for minor incident reports that don’t lead to someone getting arrested.

“So no arrests, no felonies, no violent crimes,” said Oklahoma City police Capt. Jason Bussert, who handles information technology for the 1,170-officer department.

Not in Dallas

Last week, the Dallas Police Department prohibited officers from inputting certain information into AI and large language model programs, including ChatGPT, BERT, Claude, Grammarly and “similar technologies,” according to an Aug. 20 memorandum to officers obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Officers are “strictly prohibited” from using the tools for “the full or partial creation” of any report narrative, according to the memo.

Under the new policy, officers can’t enter sensitive or case-specific information into the programs — such as victim and suspect details, witness statements, juvenile records, personal identifiable material, unpublished crime statistics, police location reports or other investigative data.

Department officials worried the technologies could “inadvertently store or process sensitive information of external servers” in violation of the law, the memo issued by Dallas police Chief Eddie García said. The prohibition is meant to safeguard sensitive information while police develop “a comprehensive, long-term policy,” according to the memo.

Mixed responses

That’s not the case in another city, Lafayette, Ind., where Police Chief Scott Galloway told the AP that all of his officers can use Draft One on any kind of case and it’s been “incredibly popular” since the pilot began earlier this year.

Or in Fort Collins, Colorado, where police Sgt. Robert Younger said officers are free to use it on any type of report, though they discovered it doesn’t work well on patrols of the city’s downtown bar district because of an “overwhelming amount of noise.”

Along with using AI to analyze and summarize the audio recording, Axon experimented with computer vision to summarize what’s “seen” in the video footage before quickly realizing that the technology was not ready.

“Given all the sensitivities around policing, around race and other identities of people involved, that’s an area where I think we���re going to have to do some real work before we would introduce it,” said Smith, the Axon CEO, describing some of the tested responses as not “overtly racist” but insensitive in other ways.

Those experiments led Axon to focus squarely on audio in the product unveiled in April during its annual company conference for police officials.

The technology relies on the same generative AI model that powers ChatGPT, made by San Francisco-based OpenAI.

OpenAI is a close business partner with Microsoft, which is Axon’s cloud computing provider.

“We use the same underlying technology as ChatGPT, but we have access to more knobs and dials than an actual ChatGPT user would have,” said Noah Spitzer-Williams, who manages Axon’s AI products.

Turning down the “creativity dial” helps the model stick to facts so that it “doesn’t embellish or hallucinate in the same ways that you would find if you were just using ChatGPT on its own,” he said. Concerns

Axon won’t say how many police departments are using the technology.

It’s not the only vendor, with startups like Policereports.ai and Truleo pitching similar products.

But given Axon’s deep relationship with police departments that buy its Tasers and body cameras, experts and police officials expect AI-generated reports to become more ubiquitous in the coming months and years.

Before that happens, legal scholar Andrew Ferguson would like to see more of a public discussion about the benefits and potential harms.

For one thing, the large language models behind AI chatbots are prone to making up false information, a problem known as hallucination that could add convincing and hard-to-notice falsehoods into a police report.

“I am concerned that automation and the ease of the technology would cause police officers to be sort of less careful with their writing,” said Ferguson, a law professor at American University working on what’s expected to be the first law review article on the emerging technology.

Ferguson said a police report is important in determining whether an officer’s suspicion “justifies someone’s loss of liberty.”

It’s sometimes the only testimony a judge sees, especially for misdemeanor crimes.

Human-generated police reports also have flaws, Ferguson said, but it’s an open question as to which is more reliable.

For some officers who’ve tried it, it is already changing how they respond to a reported crime. They’re narrating what’s happening so the camera better captures what they’d want to put in writing.

As the technology catches on, Bussert expects officers will become “more and more verbal” in describing what’s in front of them.

After Bussert loaded the video of a traffic stop into the system and pressed a button, the program produced a narrative-style report in conversational language that included dates and times, just like an officer would have typed from his notes, all based on audio from the body camera.

“It was literally seconds,” Gilmore said, “and it was done to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t have anything to change.’”

At the end of the report, the officer must click a box that indicates it was generated with the use of AI.

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

I still can’t believe that people accepted Rick writing that Nico’s touch was poison. Nico. The only queer kid in the entire fucking series. Has a touch that makes living things wither and die. He was violently outed, almost no one and nothing likes him, he hates himself as much as everyone else hates him if not more so, and his touch is poison. Just being around him is “dangerous” because he “just can’t help himself.”

I know I’ve written about this before but everything about Nico di Angelo was written to be incredibly homophobic. Nothing that Rick writes is good representation or normalization. Do not give Rick credit because you desperately want a canon queer character. This is bottom of the barrel homophobic shit that he gets away with because people have loved Nico from the beginning and desperately want canon queers.

And don’t get me fucking started on Will Solace and Dionysus.

No. Nope. Gonna say it.

Nico was paired up with Will because Rick didn’t like how popular percico was and realized that it was becoming more profitable to include the queers and people of color instead of making everyone cishet and white. That’s the beginning and end of it. Full stop. Will was in one scene in the very last PJO book. He’s barely a background character. Rick literally took all of the fandom’s head canons of this unimportant nobody character and shoved them onto Will in a lazy attempt to make him into something profitable. He’s not even pretending to hide it. That’s how we got glow-in-the-dark Will Solace and everyone who’s been around the fandom knows it.

And even if you can forgive those things, how could you possibly forgive Rick for giving Nico PTSD? Rick has been asked about PTSD in demigods before and he literally said that demigods just don’t get PTSD. Oh, but the queer one does. Huh. How strange. Wonder why he chose Nico out of all of the demigods who went through horrific shit to be the one with severe, noticeable, deadly PTSD (/s).

PTSD so fucking severe, noticeable, and deadly that the renowned healer who brings people back from the brink of death, Will Solace, cannot heal him. Not with his incredible healing powers, not with assistance from his almighty father (the great god of healing, Apollo), and not with the power of his love. In fact, Will is the only love interest who can’t “fix” their partner. Surely that’s a coincidence and has absolutely nothing to do with them being queer (/s).

Speaking of powerful people who can’t heal Nico’s severe, noticeable, deadly PTSD, apparently it’s simply too much for the god of madness, Dionysus, to fix. You know, the god who eliminated Chris Rodriguez’s ghost-induced insanity with a snap of his fingers on a whim. He’s simply not powerful enough to make all of Nico’s pain and suffering go away. Now I can’t imagine why one boy tortured into insanity could be magically healed but the other boy tortured into insanity simply cannot be. I wonder if it has anything to do with Chris being paired with a girl…and Nico being paired with a boy. You know, we might never find out (/s).

[inky-duchess]

The Red Herring

The Red Herring is a writing tool in which the writer purposely dangles a clue or a suspect before the reader in an attempt at misleading them from the answer to a mystery. This clue is meant to sidetrack the reader from what is really going on in the narrative.

What exactly is a Red Herring?

As we said above, it is a trick to mislead the reader. Say there is a murder of a wealthy woman and there are three suspects: her husband, her lover & her servant. The husband acts edgy throughout the narrative, is shown to be jealous and quick to anger. The reader begins to suspect it was the husband who murdered his wife. While the reader is sizing up the hubby, nobody is watching the servant and the lover.

How to Write a Red Herring

The concept of a perfect Red Herring is playing on the preconceptions and prejudices of the audience. The audience excepts a certain suspect to every crime and a clue to turn out to be the key of the mystery. You have to think of the reader as a cat playing with a lazer. They will follow the path you place before them because they trust you (horrible mistake I know). Some helpful things to keep in mind:

The red herring is innocent. You must remember that. Don't trap yourself into writing the RH into the corner. The reveal will not work.

On the other hand, the guilty party should not be completely clean and innocent until they are reveal to be the villain/impor. The true reveal should never come out of nowhere.

Remember the prejudices of your audience. For example every crime show on TV has the husband the first suspect whenever a woman is killed.

Your clues do not have to be bloody knives and ill intentions. Clever clues such as scents left behind after a crime or the way a character speaks about the incident should also be used.

Other characters are a good device. If Character B thinks Character A is acting shady, the audience maybe swayed by the notion. After all we trust in our narrators, biased or not.

You must ask yourself: what does the reader expect?

Examples of Excellent Red Herrings

In Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, Carter overhears the villain, Set, speaking French to a minion which leads both Carter and the reader to suspect Desjardins- the only French speaker in the narrative.

In Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, we suspect like every one in the narrative that Sirius Black is the antagonist. He is an escapee from a notorious wizard prison, convicted of multiple murders and his first appearances are rather dramatic. With everyone watching the convicted murderer, nobody is watching the rat.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, we are lead to believe that Cersei Lannister murdered Jon Arryn. She is certainly capable of it as well as having a strong motive. While looking at the very likely suspect of Cersei and the obvious motives, we are not seeing another murderer and another murderer. It was Littlefinger & Lysa, to "save" Sweet Robin/ begin the War of the Five Kings.

The film series Final Destination is a great example of this. In one scene, one of the victims is plugging in a dodgy radio whilst Death spills water across the floor only for him to slip on the water and fall into the bath instead of getting electrocuted. Another scene sees a gymnast on a bar with a nail sticking out of the bar. We expect her to step on the nail and fall to her death but instead another gymnast steps on it inciting a chain reaction.

[purplerakath]

The Gamer Redemption in Degrassi Next Class

...or Lack thereof.

So Degrassi rarely has multiple characters do something truly horrific together. The reason is you need to individually redeem each character or their actions will still be a part of their canon without a salve or mend to undo the damage. This is why Alex’s part in the prank on Rick Murray just sorta vanishes, as the plot revolves around Spinner’s redemption, and Jay’s fall (until suddenly he’s a good guy).

So when Next Class had four of it’s eighteen characters involved in torturing someone, well... it leads to some issues. Each of the four gets a different degree of evolution off of the events, and depending on the work put in shows the level of ‘fix’ the character gets. And while the fandom usually comes down harshest on the ringleader... he isn’t the one who has the biggest issue on this plot’s aftermath.

The Good - Yael

So Degrassi is kinda biased in favor of characters played by female actors. This is just sorta a thing, but in this case they put in the work. Yael is the first to show sympathy for Maya, and regret for their actions. Which is a great starting point.

Followed up with Yael having a plot that directly rejects the actions of the Next Class 1 cyber-harassment. Yael’s app was meant to be a feel good empowering solidarity voice, a good thing to help people. That they turned into a gossip app to win a bet. BUT, when the app is being used to harass and torture Frankie, Yael gives up the bet and deletes the app.

After this Yael never directly antagonizes anyone, just occasionally gets mad about how stupid girly things are. They reject the horror of what they did, and never do it again.

Solid 10/10 delivery on that.

The... okay - Hunter

Yup, Hunter comes before the other two. So Hunter doesn’t reject his past actions, he never admits what he did was wrong. But they do spend a while explaining where he was, and showing he isn’t there anymore. He also warns Yael if they are ever scared of him, to run. It’s a pretty good step in the right direction.

...So the problem is Hunter is a stupid teenage boy doing stupid shit for the last two seasons. This isn’t bad writing it just doesn’t help soften or make amends for his actions in NC1. They could have done better by having him be more aware of his prejudices, and more aware of the damage they could cause. But... this is fine.

A reasonable 6/10.

The ‘you didn’t really try’ - Baaz

So Baaz they never did anything wrong, but that’s a far removed step from doing it right. He never admits being wrong, or is shown to be in some negatively effected diagnosed mental state. He plays the numbers and comes clean to minimize punishment. His first interaction with Maya is to try and make her his client. He uses a friend to try and pick up a girl who wants nothing to do with him because he’s a creep.

Basically they never revisit what Baaz did, but also don’t do anything to make him especially likable. Zero effort yields zero reward.

0/10

The ...JUST WHY!? - Vijay

You might have noticed that these are going best writing to ‘make them functional characters’ to worst. And Baaz was at zero. So... yeah.

Vijay started out strong, he showed a clear emotional reaction to Maya. This is undermined by him... publicly shaming her online because she didn’t like the way he handled her song. And he was still passive aggressive when Maya was the bigger person writing a song for him. I could just end it here except.

He does it again, he outs Zoe online because she disagreed with him. That’s twice after Next Class 1 he used the internet as a tool to attack people. As if he completely missed how much harm that can do. We never see him own up to this, we never see him feel anything about how his actions could have gotten Zoe kicked out of her house had her mother believed the video.

Unlike Baaz, Vijay is given some positive scenes of being a semi-decent person. But they just- this would be like if after Peter blackmailed Manny with nudes he blackmailed two other people over the course of the series and we were just suppose to- ignore it. Yes, these two instances aren’t as bad as a dedicated campaign of terrorizing someone, but it still does not suggest any lessons learned.

-4/10

I hope this puts my complete aversion to doing anything with two of these characters into perspective.

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Fair warning: this is both on the long side and contains homophobia.

So, funny story: one of my friends in high school was extremely homophobic. Like, full-on, scrunch up nose in disgust, go on extended rants about ~*~the queers~*~, laugh at gay jokes in Family Guy, outright admit in an Religious Studies class that he was homophobic.

And I bet your guessing that this story is about how this scene changed his mind completely and how he had never thought about it that way and he just needed another point of view to make him examine his biases. But no, this isn't that kind of story, he actually declared his eternal hatred for all works of Rick Riordan and now no-one from our old group talks to him because we either figured out he was going to be an utter tool forever or figured out we were queer as fuck so good job picking your friends there you dickhead.

The point is, that for the longest time I was convinced that I was secretly a homophobe, because this scene made me so violently uncomfortable, it was the one scene I kept skipping over when I reread the book, and I was concerned that my ""friend's"" prejudice had rubbed off on me, which I desperately didn't want to happen because I knew so many people who were so incredibly happy about Nico being gay, and also being a homophobic shithead was a horrible thing to be and I didn't want to be that.

It wasn't until a few years later, when I had come more fully to terms with my own sexuality and identity, that I realised why this scene was so viserally uncomfortable to closeted teenage me. I genuinely don't know why Riordan chose to write it like that, but this scene is probably one of the best ways to cover topics like this, especially for young readers. It's not sanitised, it's not romanticised - it does not lie to young queer kids and say that once you come out it's all perfect. No, coming out is hard, no matter if it's the first time or the fiftieth. Being out is hard, and the character of Cupid is something depressingly familiar to me personally - I'm reminded of my mum outing me to some of my extrended family whilst I was out of the house, and the pit in my stomach when she told me that she had a few days later, innocently oblivious to it until I explained that you just can't do that. There are hopeful spots, and it's good that Nico eventually finds his way towards happiness and joy with people who love him for what he is, but at some point a lot of kids are going to feel like Nico, and just like when he told Dyslexic and ADHD kids that they could be heroes, Riordan takes these children and calls them brave.

aaaaand here it is…The cupid Scene from “ House of Hades” this was one of my favourite scene of all the books. 

[thesffcorner]

The Mandalorian: Season 1

The Mandolorian is an 8 episode series on Disney+, written and produced by John Favreau. It stars Pedro Pascal as the titular Mandolorian who I will be referring to as his actual name, Din Djarin for the rest of this review, rather than the fan-name Mando. 

Djarin is a bounty hunter, working for the Guild in the early days of the New Republic. His story starts as he takes on an under the table job to retrieve a package; however as things tend to go in this situation neither the package nor the people who are after it are what they seem, and Djarin must decide if it’s worth risking his life and reputation to protect it.  

Before the show aired, I wasn’t very interested in seeing it; I hadn’t seen any trailers or buzz and I was still under the impression that it would follow Bobba Fett. Seeing the first episode I wasn’t sold on it either; I was disappointed that we were not following Fett, and that we were stationed after the events of ROTJ. However, I pushed through, and my opinions evolved significantly over the course of the show’s 8 episodes. 

Overall, I enjoyed the show. There were some issues, and I can definitely see areas where Favreau can improve for next season, but I think season 1 was a solid starting point. My main complaint is that the season was too short, and even at 8 episodes, it still felt like it spent a lot of time on unnecessary filler. We’ll talk more about this, and other specific issues in the episode breakdown, but if you just want my opinion on if you should see it or not with no spoilers it’s this: If you like the Clone Wars, Rebels or the Solo film, you will like this. If you don’t, you probably won’t. Take that as you will. 

So let’s get into this episodes, and I’ll end with some general thoughts and desires for season 2.

Episode 1: The Mandalorian

This episode is written by John Favreau and directed by Dave Filloni, the show-runner for my personal favorite Star Wars series, Star Wars Rebels.

We start with Djarin looking for more work from his Guild leader, Greef Karga, who offers him an extremely well paid, unsanctioned job, to track down a valuable package for some former Imperials. The man, just called the Client, strongly hints that he wants the package dead, and in return he is paying in Beskar, metal important to the Mandalorians. 

The package is located on Arvala 7 (yes, I did look that up), and Djarin gets some help on his way, from a vapor farmer named Kuili, and another contractor, assassination droid IG-11. Djarin ends up shooting IG, after the droid attempts to kill the package, which turns out to be a child, the same race as or very loved Yoda. 

If you have seen Rebels, than I think you will be very familiar with Filloni’s direction and style; unfortunately, for me this felt like one of the weaker episodes in Rebels. Even when Rebels was great, it suffered from an uneven tone; it could never quite decide if it was a kids or adult show, and as such the tone could fluctuate between really dumb and cringey comedy to serious and violent death in the span of a few minutes. 

This is no different; there is some goofy humor, some characters that straddle the line between funny and annoying, but also some darkness, and good, subtle characterization.

The biggest issue this episode has (and it’s an issue the entire show never overcomes) is the pacing. It’s at once very slow, meticulously showing the loneliness and drudgery of being a bounty hunter and extremely fast, covering important character development and plot points in  single montage.  

Perhaps this is a flaw of Filloni, because what works in animation, doesn’t always work in live action. In Rebels, we could tolerate characters like Honda, we could swallow that characters teleport around and solve season ending issues in a conversation. Live action has a lot more constraints, suspension of disbelief is easier to break, so having character relationships develop at unnaturally fast paces or condensing what should be days if not weeks in a single 30 sec montage is a bit much. 

I don’t want to make it sound like Filloni is a terrible director and this is some insurmountable flaw; Star Wars as a rule tends to not do well in developing its characters. Ever since a New Hope, where Luke was more distressed at Obi Wan dying, than his own aunt and uncle, or Leia losing her entire planet, the franchise has glossed over really important bits of storytelling (ahem, somehow Palpatine has returned).There is nothing as drastic in this episode, but it was still frustrating to have the first half of the episode so meticulously follow Djarin capturing the bounty and taking the job, and having the important parts like deciding to save the child or befriending Kuili take up 5 minutes. 

On the positives, in a short time we get a really good idea of what kind of person we are following; Djarin is impatient, headstrong, a loner, someone who is very honorable, but doesn’t like showing it. We also get a good sense of the villain; Werner Herzog as the Client is a mix of a staunch and imperial like Tarkin, while also being fascinated by cultures like Thrawn. 

An ok start the show, but definitely one of the weaker episodes in the season.

Episode 2: The Child

Episode 2 is written by John Favreau and directed by Rick Famuyiwa. After rescuing the child from the compound, Djarin finds his ship being stripped for parts by the Jawa. He goes after them, but when he manages to get to the top of their ship he gets blasted away. He has a dream about the day his parents died, and is rescued again by Kuili who offers to help him get his parts back. To do so, he must steal an egg from a mudhorn, and almost dies, except the child, using the force creates enough of an opening for Djarin to finish the animal off. 

This episode is a vast improvement over episode 1; it has more action, more character development, more intrigue and a much more even pace. It’s still a slow episode, and we don’t learn much about any of the characters, but enough of what happens kept me engaged and interested. 

However, this was the first episode where I noticed a bit of an issue with Dij Djarin’s characterization, an issue the show never really resolves. 

I think, Pedro Pascal is too old to be playing Djarin. Alternatively, the writing of Djarin doesn’t match the age and gravitas of Pascal. Let me explain. 

In episode 1 we learn that Djarin is impatient. This is fine. What is less fine is for Djarin to be brash and impatient enough to think he can a) take on an entire moving castle of Jawa by himself, b) threaten and shoot at the Jawa who already beat him once, c) tret the Jawa like pests even though Kuili and the Jawa themselves already demonstrated that they are intelligent and perfectly capable of negotiating. 

These are not the actions of a man in his 40’s who is impatient; this comes off as someone who is too big for his birches, someone young and inexperienced and full of prejudice. A Luke Skywalker or Ezra Bridger, not Pedro Pascal at the same age as Qui Gon Jinn. It’s fine that Djarin is close minded and biased against Imperials and droids; it doesn’t make any sense that an experienced Mandlorin bounty hunter could speak Jawa and yet somehow not know anything about them. 

This gets worse in the next episode where the other Mandalorians pick on Djarin and treat him like this young man who got lucky to be paid instead of an experienced warrior of decades. Even the Armorer treats him like a newbie; he doesn’t have a signet, he doesn’t have a jet-pack, and yet he’s in his mid 40’s!

Again, this isn’t just a problem of Favreau; he tends to write immature men after all, seeing as his biggest success to date is Tony Stark. It was also a problem in the prequels where I constantly got the sense that Ewan McGregor was playing a very different character from the one Lucas had written and Sir Alex Guinness portrayed. I just wish we would have gotten more reasons for why Djarin acts so inconsistently and why he’s only impatient and inconsiderate when the plot needs him to be. 

The rest of the episode is fine. I liked the dynamic between him and Kuili; Kuili himself is great character, a world weary man who has worked a lifetime for his freedom and has a deep understanding of the value of life, peace and even money. I honestly wish he was in the show more; the best scenes are the ones of him and Djarin interacting. The child was also adorable; trying to heal Djarin, protecting him from the mudhorn. It was a slow build to Djarin increasingly caring more and more about it, even though he has no idea what he’s doing. 

A vast improvement over episode one, even though it’s not perfect. 

Episode 3: The Sin

Episode 3 is written by John Favreau and directed by Deborah Chow. Djarin returns to Navaro and hands the child to the Imperials, getting a full payment of Beskar for his troubles. He asks what is to happen to the child, which is a violation of the Guild’s rules, and draws the suspicion of Karga and all the other bounty hunters. Djarin gets a new set of armour from the Armourer, as well as a new job from Karga. However he can’t make himself leave, and he returns to rescue the child just in time, as it is being experimented on. Every bounty hunter in Navaro attacks him, but the Tribe of Mandalorians come to his aid, and he shoots Karga before getting away. 

This is probably my second favorite episode of the show; it was the point where things finally clicked and I got an idea of what the stakes and the story would be. It’s a little unfortunate that it took 3 episodes for that to happen, but it’s better late than never. 

This episode brought in some more mystery about the child; we still know nothing about what it is or where it came from, other than it being around 50 years old. The Client very clearly wants the child dead, while Dr. Pershing, the collaborator wants it alive for some kind of experiment. The child really isn’t the focus in this story, even if it is what everyone wants and around which the plot revolves; the real focus is Djarin’s evolving relationship to the child and himself. 

I think this was the best development Djarin got in the season (outside of the finale); we see his slow bonding to the child, feeling guilty and upset over handing it over. His relationship to the child mirrors his own past; he was a founding, the Mandalorians saved him from the Great Purge, and he already has a history of caring for foundlings, making sure all of his extra Beskar is given to them, and essentially following the Way so he can help more foundlings. Him giving the child away is a direct betrayal to his own sense of self, even if he is a loner who has no idea how to take care of another being, let alone a baby. 

We learn too, in the scene I mentioned before that Djarin is an outsider even among the other Mandalorians. He isn’t liked or respected; he is made fun of and challenged by others who consider him a traitor or weak. Whether this is because he’s a foundling and thereby not a ‘true’ Mandalorian (which doesn’t really make much sense considering what we find out later) or his vocation/personality, it clearly affects him enough to act and live the way he does. His constant pretending that he is heartless is challenged both by Kuili and especially by the child, for which he’s willing to risk his life and the secrecy of the Tribe.  

This is all basic stuff; none of this is groundbreaking, but it was still nice to see Djarin evolve as a character. If there is one theme in this show it’s fatherhood and community; Djarin needs people around him, he needs a clan, and this episode is the first step for him to accept that. 

The rest of the episode was great; it had a nice pace, it was full of tension, I liked the Armourer who gets a bit more personality as well as Greef Karga, who I have a soft spot for, even if he betrays Djarin twice in this episode. The action scenes were well shot and choreographed, I loved the Mandalorians at the end and overall it’s a big step up from the previous 2 episodes, and definitely one of the better ones in the season.

Episode 4: Sanctuary

Episode 4 is written by John Favreau and directed by Bryce Dallas Howard. It’s also my favorite episode in the show. 

In an attempt to get some heat off of him after Navaro, Djarin lands on Sorgan, a sparsely populated forest planet. He runs into an ex-rebel shocktrooper, Cara Dune, and gets approached by 2 farmers who need help in dealing with a gang of Klatoonian raiders. What the farmers neglect to mention is that the raiders have an AT-ST fighter, and Cara and Djarin have to quickly train the farmers to learn how to fight the raiders. After freeing the village, Djarin contemplates leaving the child with Omera, whom he has some chemistry with, but a bounty hunter tracking the child arrives and tries to murder it, at the last moment stopped by Cara. Realizing that as long as the Client is hiring bounty hunters, the child will never be safe, Djarin leaves the planet. 

I love this episode; it’s the perfect mix of humor and serious action, it has excellent character writing and pacing and it’s a complete story. It’s up there with some of the best Rebels and Clone Wars episodes and I wish the rest of the series was of this calibre. 

One issue that I haven’t yet mentioned, was that many people didn’t like that in episodes 1-3, the only female speaking roles was the Armourer, and there were few to no female characters even as extras in the background. I could somewhat excuse that in 1 and 2, since a lot of those episodes were following Djarin alone in deserts and caves, but in 3 I was starting to get annoyed too. The Armourer is cool and important as a character, but she is a tertiary supporting character at best. So it took 4 episodes to get some women in this show, and thank god they are all great. 

Cara Dune is absolutely flawless; I loved that she was a rebel shocktrooper, I loved her relationship with Djarin and sparring partners and quick friends who shared a lot of experiences by virtue of living through the war. She is competent, looks powerful, is noble and stoic while still having a lot of personality in her limited dialogue. It takes her no time to start making fun of Djarin’s dumb decisions, and I love that for her. 

Omera is the opposite; she is quiet, kind and secretive. She has a lot of knowledge and understanding and clearly has a past involving trauma, but we never have to see it; it’s her acting and dialogue that captures it perfectly. She is intuitive, picks up on Djarin’s insecurities and worries about the child and his choices, and the chemistry between them felt natural, even if they don’t spend a lot of time together. 

Unfortunately, this episode also starts my second big problem with Djarin, which I’ll call, wait were Mandalorians always like this?

First off, I had no idea Mandalorians can’t take their helmet off. The characters in both Rebels and Clone Wars take their helmets off all the time, especially when they are around family and friends; they only really keep them on when in battle or around enemies. Even in the prequels Jango takes the helmet off. 

At first I thought they aren’t supposed to let anyone take the helmet off, as in without their consent like in battle. That’s when they get disgraced and can never put it back on. But no, apparently it’s ever, under any circumstances. Really? Like they can never let their loved ones see their face? How does that make any sense? 

I saw people comparing the helmets to head scarves, like hijabs or nqabs, but people can take those off you know? When women are at home, and in front of their partners and families and female friends. They don’t wear the scarves forever, even at their own house!

Which makes me wonder, do Mandalorians not have partners or kids? Even if we follow the stupid retcon (which we’ll talk about) from this show, and Mandalore isn’t a people but a creed, that would imply that all the Mandalorians are foundlings. But if that’s true, than why is Djarin treated like an outsider, and so insistent on helping the foundlings if all Mandalorians are foundlings? And even if that’s the case, there’s no mention of Mandalorians being like Jedi, and being banned from having partners and children. 

If they can have partners and children how does that work? Outside of the obvious, how do you have sex in armour (unless it’s just the helmet and the rest of the armour is irrelevant), do their partners and kids never see their face? Or is it that once you find a partner you take the helmet off and never put it back on? Or do not all Mandalorians follow the Way and the ones who don’t are the ones who marry and have kids?

None of that makes ANY sense, and I hope that they explain it at least a little in season 2, because as is, it’s not only dumb, but it also contradicts everything we know about Mandalorians from other Star Wars properties. 

Outside of that, everything else this episode was great. The action was fun, the dialogue was funny, I liked the training montage, I liked Cara and Djarin’s fight, I liked the child being a child, the conclusion to the story, everything. It’s the best episode of the season, and unfortunately, only the season finale comes close to it. 

Episode 5: The Gunslinger

Episode 5 is written and directed by Dave Filoni. While leaving Sorgan, Djarin is attacked by a bounty hunter and during their battle, Djarin’s ship gets damaged. He’s forced to make a pit-stop on Tatooine, where he leaves his ship for repairs with Peli Moto. To pay for the repairs he takes a job with Toro Calican, an aspiring bounty hunter who is tracking Fennec Shard, a notorious assassin. If he catches her he can enter the Guild and Djarin can keep all the money. However, things aren’t ever easy, especially after Toro learns that Djarin and the child are worth a lot more to the Guild than Fennec herself.

This episode is about the same quality as episode 1, but it suffers from a different kind of issues. The pacing is much better, and there is some actual tension while Toro and Djarin try to find and catch Fennec. However, after everything in 3 and 4 this feels like pure and simple filler. In an 8 episode season, that’s inexcusable. Making a pitstop on Tatooine accomplishes nothing, it’s just fan-service; there isn’t even character development for Djarin; he ends the episode exactly as he started it. 

Fennec Shard is a waste of  character and a waste of Ming Na Wen. The marketing for this show made it seem like she would play this massive, important role, but all she does here is shoot at Djarin, get her ass kicked, make an incredible rookie mistake in telling Toro all she knows about Djarin and then gets killed. Even if she’s not dead by the time season 2 rolls around, nothing about her character interests me; for a super assassin who worked for the biggest criminal guilds in the galaxy, she gets taken down by a rookie bounty hunter who can’t shoot straight. 

Toro likewise was a wasted character. In a way I see what Filoni was maybe trying to do with him; if Djarin had treated him better and with a little more respect, Toro wouldn’t have turned on him, except the way it came off is that Djarin was right to treat him like shit, because Toro betrayed him when he realized he could use Djarin to get into the Guild. So what was the point? 

Peli was adorable and actually had the strongest character arc in that she started the show with wanting to charge Djarin extra for the child, only to fall in love with it by the end, and treat it like her own baby. It was cute and funny, but it wasn’t worth a whole episode. If this was an episode in a longer series I’d have no issue with it; as is it just broke the flow of the show and achieved nothing. 

Episode 6: The Prisoner

Episode 6 is written by Chris Yost and Rick Famuyiva and directed by Rick Famuyiva. It’s also my least favorite episode of the season. 

Needing credits, Djarin accepts a job with a former crew mate, Ran, who wants him, a former Imperial sharpshooter Mayfield, brawler Burg, droid pilot Q9-0 (Zeroes) and his ex-girlfriend Xian to break a prisoner out of a New Republic droid-manned prison transport. Tensions in the crew are high, and escalate after Xian ends up killing a human pilot on board the transport who activates a New Republic beacon. The crew trap Djarin in the prisoner’s cell (the prisoner being Xian’s brother Qin, who Djarin helped put in jail), and Djarin takes the crew members out one by one, until it’s just him and Qin. He gets Qin back to Ren and as Qin is about to go after him, New Republic X-Wings, following the beacon Djarin placed on Qin arrive and destroy the station. 

I can see what this episode is going for; it’s a Cowboy Bebop style, space western, and again, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with Djarin joining his old crew for a job and things going south. It could have been a character building moment, to see how far Djarin has come, from associating with dishonest killers and thieves, to hunting bounties for the New Republic. But even more than the previous episode, this one is filler, and it’s made worse by some truly bizarre casting choices and dialogue, as well as a bewildering ‘twist’ at the end. 

Let’s start with the twist. Why would Ren PAY Djarin, let him leave, THEN send Qin after him? It’s not a Guild job, clearly, seeing as Djarin has been barred from the Guild and they are breaking into a freaking New Republic prison, so why wouldn’t they just… shot him as he’s on the platform and let his body fall into space? Answer? Because I guess it looked cooler this way. 

Second, the crew. God I found most of these people insufferable. Mayfield was a cartoon character; he kept wildly flip flopping between bad-ass villain and incompetent comic relief, and I couldn’t tell if his goading of Djarin to take off his helmet was supposed to sound like he was hitting on Djarin, or they just didn’t realize it? It reminded me of John Cena’s character in Trainwreck, and I don’t think it was supposed to be a callback. 

Then we have Zeroes and Burg who are completely nondescript bad guys (although considering how bad of a pilot Djarin is I was glad to see some good piloting for a change). Xian was a can of worms I’m not sure I even want to unpack. First, why give her and Qin Chinese names, but have white actors play them? Second when are we going to stop with the all Twi’leks are sexualized perverts/slaves/are completely insane? I thought the whole point of Disney taking over the SWU was to eliminate this kind of racist and sexist shit, and yet here I am again, in 2019 forced to watch this horribly written fetish-fulfillment on my TV. 

I hated Xian as a character more than I’ve hated anything else in a while, and that’s saying something, because I’ve seen TLJ. 

There were some good bits in this episode; the child hiding around the ship from Zeroes, and thinking he killed him with the force; Djarin asking the pilot for his name and trying to diffuse the situation; thinking to put the tracker on Qin. Even the concept itself was good, and I wouldn’t mind the same episode just with characters that are actually interesting, instead of all these insufferable stereotypes. The show really drops the ball with these 2 episodes, so I was honestly glad I only had the finale left. 

Episode 7: Reckoning

Episode 7 is written by John Favreau and directed by Deborah Chow. Djarin gets a message from Greef who has survived their last encounter; he wants the Client gone so the Imperials who have taken over Navaro leave, and Djarin wants the bounty hunters to stop coming after him, so he accepts, and recruits Cara and Kuili to help. Kuili insist on bringing along the reprogrammed IG-11, who is now a nurse droid. 

The group meets Greef and two bounty hunters and as they head back to the town, they get attacked by Mynocks. The child heals a wounded Greef, and he kills the two bounty hunters, who were there to help him betray Djarin. They devise a plan; Cara is to pretend she captured Djarin and the child, while Kuili takes the child back to the Djarin’s ship and barricades himself inside. Unfortunately, the Imperials sense the betrayal, Kuili is killed and the child taken, just as Moff Gideon arrives with a platoon of death troopers and kills everyone inside the compound including the Client. 

I liked this episode though it is a bit uneven. The first half is spent with Djarin recruiting Cara and Kuili, while the latter is a rather tense standoff with the Client and subsequently Gideon. I liked that we got Cara and Kuili back, enjoyed the tension between Kuili who used to build Imperial weapons and Cara who fought for the Resistance. 

What I didn’t like so much was the child randomly being jealous of Cara? Like he tries to crash the ship when she and Djarin are bonding over weapons, and then tries to choke her? 

This is sort of a bigger problem for the show. We are 7 episodes in and we still know nothing about the child; we don’t know it’s species, why it is force sensitive, why the Imperials are after it, or even why it seems to randomly switch personalities. My further question is who exactly are the people after him? By this time, the First Order should already exist, especially if this takes place after the battle of Aquila, so is the Client First Order? Or Palpatine’s goon? Unaffiliated? 

There is an extended montage that shows how Kuili reprogrammed and taught IG to be a nurse droid which was sweet, but wasn’t really necessary; I find it funny that this montage is longer than both the training section in ep. 4 and Djarin learning to ride in ep. 1. 

The ending was appropriately a cliffhanger and I hate that they ended up killing Kuili’s character off; it was clear it would happen, especially after his fight with Cara, but it still sucks that they did it. I also didn’t like that they wasted the Client; he could have been a really interesting villain and Herzog is an excellent actor, but they never gave him a chance to do anything. 

An objectively good episode, but not my favorite. I felt that more time could have been spent on building up Moff Gideon and the Client than Mynock attacks and training montages. 

Episode 8: Redemption

Episode 8 is written by John Favreau and directed by Taika Waititi. After being captured by stormtroopers waiting for the order to bring the child into town, IG rescues it and shoots up Moff Gideon’s platoon. Gideon in return threatens the group to surrender, calling each member by name, which shocks Djarin because the only people who know his name would have died or at least been on his home planet during the Great Purge. 

Gideon injures Djarin who tells the others to use the underground tunnels to get help and/or escape. IG stays with him, convincing him to remove his helmet to administer bacta to his head injury. In the tunnels the group finds the Armourer alone, as all other Mandalorians have been killed or escaped and she gives Djarin a jet-pack and his signet; a clan of two. She ordains the child a foundling and in accordance with the Way makes Djarin responsible for keeping it safe and returning it to its people. 

The group uses an underground lava river to escape, and IG self-destructs to take out the ambushing stormtroopers. Gideon attacks them in his TIE fighter, and using the jet-pack Djarin manages to knock him down. The group says farewell, with Cara staying behind with Greef to help rebuild Navaro, while Djarin and the child leave. Gideon, having survived the crash uses the Darksaber to cut himself out of the fallen TIE and the season ends. 

This is my second favorite episode behind Sanctuary; it’s action packed, tense and full of Waititi’s recognizable humor. The opening scene alone had me in stitches; that is by far the best use of stormtroopers in any Star Wars media, outside of that First Order SNL skit with Adam Driver. 

We learn a decent amount in this episode; first that the Empire still has pockets of powerful followers, that Gideon and Djarin have some kind of past, that Gideon wants the child and most importantly that he has darksaber. How he has it we don’t know; he either took it from Kryze or is himself a Mandalorian. 

Now, we get to the second wait, were Mandalorians always like this? I thought that the  Mandalorians were a warrior race, but according to Waititi, they are a creed. This… doesn’t make sense. Why was there a civil war between the different clans? Why are there foundlings and not? How does one become a member of this creed, do you have to be a foundling? Or do you just have to follow the Way? Do all Mandalorians follow the Way? If anyone can be a Mandalorian if they follow the Way, then why can’t the child? I didn’t realize the foundlings also have to be Spartan-strong or else they don’t count. 

Then we get to the helmet thing. Now, no LIVING being can see their face, so this confirms that not even their partner and children can see their face. WHY? What purpose does this serve? Why make it this dramatically ridiculous? I guess cause they liked the line ‘I’m not a living being’. 

Waititi really enjoys taking established properties and spinning them on their head; in Thor Asgard was no longer  a place, but a people, here Mandalorians aren’t a race they are the followers of a creed. But that doesn’t make sense if this creed has no rules or hs arbitrary rules that keep changing. 

The rest of the episode was fine. Jrin completes his arc, but getting attached too IG, enough to be sad when IG self-destructs. I liked how insistent Cara was in saving him; a very soldier thing to do, and in general their friendship is excellent. I really hope this isn’t the last we see of her. The humor was also excellent, as it always is with Waititi and it was a good way to end the season.  

Concluding Thoughts: 

I feel like I always come off more negative than I mean to in all of my reviews, but it’s just because there are only so many ways I can say I liked this, this was well done, I loved this. I did I really enjoy this season; I can safely say that I love all the characters, Djarin and the child especially, I am very curious to learn more about Moff Gideon and his hipster top knot and I hope Cara Dune and Fennec Shard come back and have more to do. 

I don’t have any theories about what the child is; I’ve heard people say that it’s a reincarnation of Yoda, that it’s the Force itself in a body (like Anakin, but double), that it’s a clone of Yoda from either the Clone Wars or even Palpatine’s experiments.

Personally, I’m more interested in learning more about Djarin, and how Bobba Fett ties in with his past considering it was his signet that Djarin gave to the child at the end. I also would like to visit or revisit some more worlds; perhaps see some worlds from the books like Aquila. There are rumours that characters like Lando and Ahsoka Tano might make an appearance, and while that would be neat, I don’t necessarily mind the lack of Jedi in the show. 

As for the people working on the show, I think each director brought something to the table. I would love for Deborah Chow, Bryce Dallas Howard and Taika Waititi to return in season 2, though I’ve also heard Waititi is getting his own show. 

Them’s my thoughts. If you got to the end, thank you for reading, and I might be back quite soon, because I would like to re-watch the Clone Wars before season 8 comes out later this year.  

[owlawesomeness]

11 Questions

RULES: 
1. Always post the rules
2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you 
3. Write 11 questions of your own
4. Tag 11 people (or however many you want) I was tagged by the lovely @tessalivesandbreathesbooks (thanks Tessa! ❤️) 1. Tell me something curious about yourself. Well, I’m not sure there’s really anything curious about me lol. But I guess if I had to say something it would be that if you give me a 500 page book and plenty of space, I could finish it within a day. Oh, and I can write in Gnomish, which comes in pretty handy when I don’t want anyone to know what I’m writing lol (Gnomish is a language from the Artemis Fowl series, for anyone who's wondering) 2. Top 5 book series. Give us a brief summary of them. Agh, okay, brief is going to be a challenge, but I can try lol. (Also these series are in no particular order, and I have a lot more series that I love, so not all of them fit in the list) Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Percy Jackson and friends fight a bunch of monsters from Greek mythology and save the world while they’re at it. Everyone should read this, if not for the story then for the chapter titles, because they’re hilarious. Harry Potter: (I feel like almost everyone and their mothers know about Harry’s story at this point, so this one won’t be very long) Boy wizard’s parents die when he was a baby, boy lives with aunt, uncle, and cousin until he’s twelve, then he gets shipped off to a wizarding school so he can learn to control his powers and eventually he defeats the man who killed his parents. ACOTAR: Teenage girl learns to hunt and care for her family after her mother’s death, but is forced to go to the fae land of Prythian after killing one of it’s subjects. There, she finds love in the most unexpected of places, and learns what it means to be free. Artemis Fowl: Artemis Fowl is the son of an infamous crime lord and millionaire. But when Artemis starts looking into the existence of faeries, he finds a whole lot more than he expected. The Mortal Instruments: Before Clary met Jace Wayland, she was ready to spend her life as a New York artist. But when she is introduced to a whole other side of the life she thought she knew, her view for the future is changed past the point of no return. 
3. What’s your TBR list for the summer? Well right now I'm working to finish Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and then after that Philosophical Phridays by Gregory Kerr, Summer Days and Summer Nights edited by Stephanie Perkins, and Me Before You by Jojo Moyes are all on my list, though I'm sure I'm forgetting some. 4. What is your favourite song right now? I'm not sure. I love so many different types of music that it gets really hard to pick one specific song. I've had Waving Through a Window from Dear Evan Hansen on loop in my head for awhile now though, so I suppose that qualifies for a favorite song. 5. Top 3 favourite authors. Rick Riordan, Sarah J Maas, and JK Rowling 6. What kind of movies do you like? What’s your favourite of all times? Hmm, well I like a lot of adventure/fantasy stuff, and sometimes realistic fiction-y movies. And I've always loved The Never-Ending Story, so we'll just say that one's my favorite. 
7. Are you a winter or summer person? Yes. I love all the seasons, though I am biased towards autumn, as that particular season is the time for some of my favorite things, like bonfires, crunching leaves beneath my feet, and of course, my birthday. 8. What’s your HP house? And your ACOTAR court? Proud Hufflepuff y'all!! 💛💛 And I’d probably be Night Court, and not just because I love the people there (though I really do, they’re amazing) Velrais (I hope I’m spelling that right) sounds absolutely amazing, and I’d fit right in with the whole atmosphere of it, or from what I can tell from the books anyway. 9. Write the worst summary possible of your favourite book! I can’t pick a favorite, I love all of my books (and you know this Tessa, you cruel, cruel human. (Just kidding I love you 💖💖)) But since I have yet to talk about Rainbow Rowel on this post, Eleanor and Park it is. Eleanor and Park: Boy meets girl on bus. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl moves away, boy writes to girl but girl doesn't respond. Girl finally sends a postcard. Boy is happy. 10. If you could visit a fantasy world you’ve read about … which one would it be? Well let’s see. I’d love to visit the PJO world, because I love the characters Rick has created, plus all four of his series technically happen in the same universe since characters from PJO interact with characters from HOO, KC, and MCatGOA, so I’d be able to meet all my favorite characters lol. So PJO universe it is. 11. Which character do you think would be your best friend? Gah, I don’t know to be honest. If I’m just picking from the universe above, I’d honestly be friends with just about anybody there, though I’d probably connect most with Percy, if only because we have a whole series out already where the readers are inside his head, so I know I’d get along great with him. And now for my 11 questions:
1. What are the last three songs you listened to/last three played?
2. What is your favorite place to relax?
3. When looking for something to read, which book or books are your go to rereads?
4. What is one thing you wish you could change about the world we live in? 5. If you could spend the rest of your life in one place, including both real and fictional, where would you be? 6. What character(s) do you love to hate? 7. What would you do if you were suddenly turned into a kitten? 8. How long have you been on tumblr? 9. What did you last search on Google? 10. If you could say one thing to anyone in the worlds without fear of repercussions, what would you say and to whom? 11. Which character had you bawling when nothing else seemed to have any effect on you I tag @crimgy , @mittlieder-17 , @mimi-needs-more-sleep , @reynaskyrunner , @brooklynbooks , @scarletquickshotfox , @buttons1220 , @dayanna-hatter , @whitebear-ofthe-watertribe , @windy-scribbles , and @ladynoirandotherthings . None of you have to do this of course, it's all up to you ^-^