#mayfeld

There are a lot of unforgettable moments in The Mandalorian. Maybe your favorite episode is the season 2 finale, with those iconic Chanel boots. Maybe your favorite episode is The Jedi, with Ahsoka and her Thrawn teaser. Maybe your favorite episode is the finale of season 1, with IG-11′s sacrifice. All valid choices! But my favorite episode is S2E15: The Believer, and I’ll tell you why.

From the very first episode, Din’s relationship with being Mandalorian and the Code is framed as religious. He kneels in front of the forge while the Armorer makes his pauldron, he speaks formally to her, and lays the beskar and the payment for his last bounty out like an offering. 

It’s also not difficult to see parallels between covering your face and some real-life religious tenets (though these are imperfect parallels and be careful how you use them). As someone who follows a specific dress code due to my faith, I definitely immediately related to Din as a religious person.

Din’s devotion to his faith is, for the most part, positively framed in the show. The Creed’s emphasis on protecting and raising foundlings is a large part of why Din decides to rescue Grogu from the Imperials. In the prisonbreak episode, Xi’an suggests that it might be his Code that has made Din soft. In S1E4, Omera is tremendously respectful of Din’s faith even when it means he has to turn down her affection.

 His devotion to the Creed is what sets him apart from other bounty hunters. Sure, he’s a brutal, harsh man more than capable of violence, but he also has a strict code of conduct by which he lives his life.

Then we reach Chapter 6,  an episode that felt painfully familiar to myself and many other people of faith, I’m sure. The way Mayfeld asks Xi’an if Din ever takes his helmet off, as if Din isn’t right there in front of him. The way Xi’an mockingly parrots, “This is the Way.”

My situation obviously isn’t exactly the same as Din’s, but these scenes remind me of the prying questions, the teasing pressure to break my religious commitments, the mocking of beliefs I hold sacred. It really hit home.

Then things get complicated in season 2 when we find out that other Mandalorians consider Din and the Death Watch a cult.

I appreciated this in the sense that it demonstrates the wide variety of beliefs even within the same religion--but at the same time it had me worried. Was this going to be yet another “losing my religion” story? Was this going to be a tale of disillusionment and breaking free of Din’s restrictive past? I’ve seen a lot of stories like that before, and I was hoping to see something different.

Even before Din meets Bo-Katan, we see him gradually softening his adherence to the Code. He starts off meeting Cobb Vanth by challenging him to essentially a battle to the death for wearing Mandalorian armor, then cooperates for the rest of the episode with him to defeat the Crate Dragon. They part ways as friends.

In S2E6, Din is upset when Boba first demands the Mandalorian armor, but he’s not very difficult to convince to accept Boba as the owner of the armor after they fight together.

As a viewer who loves baby Yoda, we’re happy to see him make exceptions to keep Grogu safe. But as a person of faith, I was a little worried about where this might be headed and how it might undermine what I saw as a very positive message in season one. Then we get to Season 2, Episode 7: The Believer.

Right off the bat, Din sees himself forced to stretch the limits of his adherence to the Code in this episode. He goes with Mayfeld into the Imperial facility, covering his face with the helmet of an Imperial driver. Mayfeld immediately picks up on the inconsistency.

He picks right back up with the mockery and not-so-subtle digs.

Then we get a bit of a peak into where Mayfeld’s derision is really coming from. Yes, Mayfeld is speaking aloud the insecurities that Din is facing himself--the doubts about whether it actually means anything to live by his Code, the question of if his chosen way of life actually makes any difference. But Mayfeld is also revealing the source of his own derision as well.

See how the focus switches to Mayfeld? How his voice gets soft and he’s looking off into the distance? This is a man who is talking to himself. This is a man who’s trying to convince himself that every bad thing he’s done in his past is fine because everyone is equally guilty.

When faced with the terminal that requires a facial scan, Mayfeld actually tries to protect Din in his own small way by not even asking him to scan his face.

Mayfeld then hesitates to help Din when Din’s having a hard time with the terminal. He peeks in on Din, and you get the sense that he’s actually hesitant to disrespect Din’s code by looking at his face. Of course, when Din is confronted by the Imperial officer, Mayfeld steps in to help.

Then they talk with the Imperial officer who actually believes what Mayfeld acted like he believed before. That they’re all the same. That all moral codes--or lack thereof--are equally flawed and that therefore nothing matters. This is when we see the guilt that Mayfeld has been trying to hide all this time--the guilt that Din and his strict Code constantly remind him of.

This is the moment that has been haunting Mayfeld--one of perhaps many atrocities that weigh heavy on his soul. And as a viewer you can see how differently this event sit on his heart versus how it sits on the officer’s heart.

This is very reminiscent of what Mayfeld said earlier in the episode, but we can see that this officer genuinely believes it, while Mayfeld does not.

And this is where Mayfeld reaches his breaking point, where he can’t keep pretending that he doesn’t care or that everyone is equally bad.

And this is when Mayfeld turns from critic into ally and protector. He respects Din’s integrity, he understands that being imperfect doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. And this is what I was so happy to see. I was afraid that as soon as Din took his helmet off, the story would suggest that he’d finally seen the light and broken free of his restrictive Code. And yes, Din is likely going to be more liberal with his adherence to the Code in the future. We see this when he takes his helmet off in the next episode to say goodbye to Grogu. But he isn’t throwing it away.

So what’s the message of The Believer? To me it’s that faith is messy. Faith often involves evolution. In fact, faith generally requires evolution. But just because you mess up, just because you’re a hypocrite, just because you can’t always live up to your ideals, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have them.

And we can separate this from faith, too, if you want. Think about what’s right and wrong, examine the way you live your life, develop a moral code. It won’t necessarily be perfect, and you won’t always live by it, but at least you’ll have something. It’s always better to try than to give up.

And in Mayfeld’s immortal words: