First things first: since this is an article concerning the Star Wars universe, it could be read by the group of Internet users simply known as “Star Wars Nerds” or SWNs. Since I’ll be saying some not nice things about the Internet darling Baby Yoda, it’s bound to make said nerds angry. And just as Kelly Marie Tran can tell you, the only thing worse than a Star Wars Nerd is an angry Star Wars Nerd. So, let me just drop this here:
The following will contain spoilers for Season Two of The Mandalorian. Also, if you are going to read forward, I highly recommend reading until the very end, ya freakin’ nerds.
Now, as any long-standing listener of any Canadian Movie Crew podcast will already know, I’m not a die hard Star Wars fan. The movies are good but not great. I don’t think they are as amazing as SWNs make them out to be. The prequels are ok and the sequels are, to me, less than spectacular.
That being said, I have been enjoying The Mandalorian. Season 1 was very entertaining. And even though Season 2 has been mostly treading water with sidequest episodes and end-of-the-episode teases that have yet to pay off, it’s been entertaining enough to keep me coming back each week. Plus, I’ve noticed in recent years that TV shows tend to have lackluster second seasons. The first season is always ground-breaking and exciting but once it’s picked up for a second season, the writers seem to put on the brakes to extend the story as long as they can. Marvel’s Daredevil, True Detective, and even The Boys all had second seasons that tended to slump a bit. Personally, I blame Heroes for starting this trend. Regardless, I’m willing to give Mandalorian the benefit of the doubt because it’s in its “terrible twos”, so to speak.
And at least I get to see Paul Sun-Hyung Lee really bolster his IMDB credits.
But there’s been one thing that I’ve not been a fan of since The Mandalorian started and that’s Baby Yoda. I admit it, yes, it started as an aversion to the Baby Yoda memes clogging up my Facebook feed and hearing the grown adults I interact with on a daily basis say that this obvious muppet is “soooooo cuuuute”. Ugh. He’s not even that well puppeted and looks legitimately fake on camera. But I digress.
But it wasn’t until Chapter 10: The Passenger did I have any real objection to Baby Yoda. Until then, he was the comic relief. He was a passive observer. He was the reason a SWN’s girlfriend put up with watching the show. But when The Mandalorian agreed to transport . . . um . . . did she have a name? . . . let’s look it up . . . really? Ok. When he agreed to transport Frog Lady to whatever planet she needed to go, that’s when Baby Yoda turned heel.
As most of the Internet has already made a big stink about, Frog Lady was carrying her eggs that she stated was “the last of (her) life cycle”. They were her children awaiting fertilization from her mate and Baby Yoda was popping them like Tic Tacs. He was EATING HER CHILDREN!!! Ok, so maybe it was supposed to be funny. Maybe it was the writers trolling the audience trying to see how far they can push the Internet’s love for Baby Yoda. I can get passed it.
But what if I told you that Baby Yoda is a racist and may be a murderer?
I know, I know, it sounds like I’m Rudy Giuliani spouting off conspiracy theories. But I’m willing to do something that ol’ Thompson’s WaterSeal-head won’t do: publically provide evidence.
In Chapter 12: The Siege, while The Mandalorian goes off on his glorified escort mission, he seats Baby Yoda next to a school child in a droid-led classroom. He’s a guest in their safe haven. As we find out later in the episode, he’s being hunted for his blood to make an army of Force-sensitive super soldiers (that’s a guess btw but considering the show’s place in the Star Wars timeline, we already know that doesn’t happen so that plot point would be moot anyway.) How does Baby Yoda act in this scenario? He steals a sleeve of teal cookies from someone he just met.
Now, we have seen how Baby Yoda treated Frog Lady. He obviously believes that he is more important that the lives of another species in that case. And look at this scene. All of the children in the class are human. Another separate species different to that of Baby Yoda. He asks for a cookie and is denied. The cookies are not automatically Baby Yoda’s just because he wants them, just because he asks for them, or just because he’s adored online in meme form. They do not belong to him. But that doesn’t stop him, does it? No. He believes that his species is far superior to any other and therefore he is entitled to their children and their food.
Do you know what we call someone who thinks they are better than someone else based on what they look like and acts negatively towards their believed inferiors?
But do you know what? It gets worse. Later on in the episode, we see Baby Yoda sitting in the cockpit of The Mandalorian’s repaired ship eating the cookies. Now, we all saw him Force-pull the sleeve of cookies towards himself in the classroom scene but we’ve also seen how fast he wolfs down everything he eats. He once swallowed a whole live frog which was almost as big as he is in a matter of seconds. Eating that whole sleeve of cookies should not have taken him that long.
Also, The Mandalorian’s assault on the Empire’s research facility took quite a long time even in in-universe time. This means that the something must have happened to prevent Baby Yoda from finishing the sleeve of cookies during that long period of time until The Mandalorian picked him up.
Take a look at the looks the kid and Baby Yoda give each other after the former steals the cookies:
Oh yeah, there was a fight over those cookies after class for sure. Obviously, since we see Baby Yoda with the cookies later in the episode, he won. But how far did the fight go? We know Yoda has Force powers. Did he use them to beat up, bloody, and leave beaten an innocent child who was only standing up for himself when his afternoon snack that was lovingly packed for him by his hard-working single mother was stolen – neigh, literally ripped from his hands – by a heartless, disgusting example of a lifeform who just appeared out of nowhere and assumed his right to anything he wanted?
Or did Baby Yoda just kill him quickly with a Force Choke? We never saw the kid again. He could be no more. Notice how Baby Yoda waited until the law enforcement of the planet was busy while he committed known theft and possible assault or homicide.
Baby Yoda has been showing his true colours in Season 2 of The Mandalorian. And when it’s finally revealed that Baby Yoda is responsible for the re-birth of the Sith, just know that you heard it here in this purely satirical article first.
