Mando needs money, and he’s willing to take significant risks to get it in episode six, “The Prisoner.”

Perhaps what makes him most uncomfortable is the risk he takes when he leaves an unsupervised Baby Yoda in the hands of a droid. For those watching the show closely, it’s one big inside joke. Mando is starting to adore the cutest child in this galaxy far, far away. And he hates droids. (We still don’t know why.)

The episode tackles a side-quest, which requires Mando and a team of mercenaries to break a prisoner out of a New Republic jail. When they find the prisoner, we realize it’s someone Mando left behind on a previous job. The crew suddenly turns on Mando — which they clearly planned all along — and throw him in the same cell as the prisoner they just freed. But Mando quickly breaks out of his cell, stuffs the other mercenaries into a different cell and takes the prisoner back to his employer to collect his fee.

Here’s what else we learned in this episode.

Mando, the thriller.

Strobes. Red, flashing lights. Darkness. As the mercenaries betrayed him, Mando suddenly seemed like the monster in a horror movie.

This was probably the most gripping episode we’ve seen so far. There have been episodes with a twist (like when Baby Yoda appears in episode one) and episodes of exposition and even romance (episode five). But this was a stressful and suspenseful chapter as Mando dealt with backstabbers and deadly droids on the New Republic prison ship. Even Baby Yoda got wrapped up in the tension, as the droid who was piloting Mando’s ship plotted to kill him. (GASP!)

Because this show is starting to feel like one tangent after the next, episodes can take different tones each week. This felt starkly different than last episode’s romp around Tatooine.

Mando isn’t a cold-blooded killer.

It’s unclear if Mando has always avoided killing people or whether this is a new development. But on multiple occasions in this episode, he avoids killing people when it would have been convenient for him to do so.

First, he attempts to save the life of a New Republic prison worker, who Mando and his crew didn’t expect to see. That attempt failed when Mando’s ex, a female twi’lek named Xi’an (Natalia Tena), killed the guy after Mando struggled with negotiations.

Next, Mando chose to imprison — not kill — his betrayers, which may prove unwise in the future. They probably want him dead. And though he had the opportunity to kill almost all of them, he let them live.

“Didn’t take you for the type,” Xi’an says after seeing what she believes is a pet (in Baby Yoda). “Maybe that coat of yours has made you soft.”

Maybe.

Or maybe Baby Yoda has helped the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes.

Mando has an ex?!

How does one have a relationship (and relations) with a Mandalorian who refuses to remove his or her helmet? This episode makes it clear he and Xi’an were romantic. Though, I can’t imagine much romance took place. It’s all very weird.

We know why Mando uses his retro ship

In the first episode, Mondo’s bounty target asks him if his ship is pre-Empire. It is. But Mando doesn’t seem to be whipping around in the old-school spaceship because he likes the way it looks. It’s apparently practical.

“It’s a ghost,” one of Mando’s mercenary comrades says.

His ship is apparently a hard one to track, because of the time period in which it was manufactured.

The show isn’t in any rush to deliver more details about Mando’s past, but episode six gave us a good view into the kind of guy he used to be.

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