The Mandalorian goes Seven Samurai

Episode 3 showed The Mandalorian has a heart for the vulnerable and the courage to help them; in episode 4 he gets another stab at being a saviour. From the opening scene, in which a poor farming community is attacked and their harvest stolen, we enter the world of The Seven Samurai and its Western remake, The Magnificent Seven. 

As usual, the poor farmers have little to offer mercenaries but our hero has his own agenda and agrees. There aren't seven, mind you, just two and a child, but they are enough.

One of the reasons The Mandalorian is such a strong show is that it doesn't try to reinvent the history of cinema, but taps into it: everywhere we look we see echoes of what has already become iconic. Star Wars is already informed by Japanese cinema and zen (think The Force, Jedi Warriors, and light sabres aka Samurai swords) so an episode modelled on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 masterpiece is an inspired choice.