“The Mandalorian” seemed tonally and thematically eclectic over the last few episodes. Whether the show was a thriller in episode six or flirted with the idea of a Star Wars sitcom in episode four, the show returned to its more natural track — a space western — for the seventh episode of this series.

Mando (Pedro Pascal) returns to face Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and The Client (Werner Herzog) in this episode. Karga, smitten with Baby Yoda, joins sides with Mando to save the fuzzy, green cherub. And though they have help from Cara Dunne (Gina Carano) and Kuiil, they find themselves trapped by a battalion of stormtroopers and Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) after killing The Client at the end of the episode.

And sadly, Baby Yoda gets precariously scooped up, quite literally, by the hands of The Empire.

1. Kuiil has spoken for the last time.

What a way to end the episode. And what a shot: Baby Yoda lays swaddled, but oh-so vulnerable while exposed on the desert floor. A stormtrooper zooms in to carelessly grab the Internet’s sweet prince. Then the camera pans over to Kuiil’s smoking body — he appears to be dead.

R.I.P.

The show returned to the most meaningful element of the story: Who and what is Baby Yoda? And what do these post-Empire bad guys want with the child? And as the stakes got more substantial, so did the casualties.

2. There’s an off-chance Baby Yoda could be … bad.

When Dune and Mando arm wrestle, Baby Yoda steps in to help his “dad,” Mando. (Awww!) Sort of like a dog that intervenes when a pair of siblings wrestle, Baby Yoda used the Force to stop Dune. But Baby Yoda has a little more power than your average dog. He ends up Force choking Dune. (Awww shoot!)

At least in the movies, we’ve only seen three characters use that move: Darth Vader, Count Dooku and Kylo Ren. They’re all Sith.

Maybe it’s merely a coincidence and an effort to show Baby Yoda is immature and rash in his use of the Force. Maybe The Empire was planning on using him as a weapon. Maybe that’s why Gideon said Baby Yoda “means more to me than you will ever know.”

Darth Gangreenous … is that you?

3. Kuiil makes a guess at what Baby Yoda is.

Before he died, he make an interesting conjecture about Baby Yoda. First, Mando suggests Baby Yoda might be “Strand-Cast.” (I have no idea what that means. Maybe: Cast from DNA strand and therefore manmade.)

“I don’t think it was engineered. I’ve worked in the gene farms. This one looks evolved — too ugly,” he said. Kuiil then suggests Cara Dunne is a clone, and she doesn’t say whether he’s right or not.

But it’s hard to say why “too ugly” is a sound rationale for deciding a child isn’t manmade — and, frankly, is factually inaccurate when referring to Baby Yoda, awarded (by me) with the cover of Cute Magazine. It also casts some doubt on the theory that Baby Yoda is a clone.

3. Baby Yoda knows what’s going on.

This has been clear for a number of episodes, but Baby Yoda showed in episode seven, more than ever, that he’s generally aware of his surroundings, Yes, he’s a child — The Child — but he was smart enough to know he was in danger in episode six when the droid was hunting him on Mando’s ship. In chapter seven, Baby Yoda had the presence to heal Karga after he got attacked by a gaggle of poisonous pterodactyl-looking creatures. And lucky for Baby Yoda, that gesture endeared him to Karga, who helped out Mando and Baby Yoda later in the episode, even if the outcome was net-negative.

5. It’s a small galaxy after all.

The jumpy and ephemeral feel from episodes four, five and six may be getting at something: season two (and beyond). Some critics have grown frustrated with the show introducing and disposing of characters in quick fashion. But this episode brought back Dune, Kuiil and the original bounty droid. It seems Dune and the bounty droid might be around for more episodes. And perhaps the same will be true of the backstabbing crew of mercenaries, which Mando abandons in episode six.

This episode seemed reassure the viewers that there may be payout (or payback) coming from the characters on Mando’s side quests. In the meantime, this chapter readdressed the questions at the core of this show.

[jwplayer 3bNAaT0b-q2aasYxh]