Ever since Disney+’s Star Wars franchise series The Mandalorian gained immense popularity by showing viewers ‘the way’ by exploring an unlikely parent-child relationship with a journey/adventure motif in the backdrop, studios haven’t stopped their efforts to ape the success. While the efforts have not always culminated in success, Netflix’s animated series, My Dad The Bounty Hunter, is the story that has partially managed to crack the code. Perhaps due to the fact that the animated series borrows liberally from the aforementioned tale of cosmic adventure, as indicated by the presence of an emotionally stuck-up galactic bounty hunter father accompanied by an annoying yet lovable kid(s),

The uniqueness of My Dad The Bounty Hunter comes from the inclusion of African American family experiences, and the relationship dynamics between the key characters keep the series from being a Star Wars pastiche. The first season of the series was released in February this year, and with a few hours to go until the release of the second one, let’s briefly discuss the story progression so far.

Spoilers Ahead

Who Is Sabo Brok? What Assignment Was He Given By EHC?

As My Dad The Bounty Hunter begins, we are introduced to an intimidating, tactical, and persuasive intergalactic bounty hunter, Sabo Brok, and his AI droid assistant/spaceship KRS. However, beneath the Mandalorian-like armor and all the fancy gadgetry, Sabo’s real identity is Terry, an average human being, an out-and-out family man who is caught in a dilemma about accepting the nature of his job. Although the high pay he receives as a bounty hunter helps him take care of his family of four, it also keeps him away from them most of the time. In the opening sequence of the first episode, Sabo hunts down a liquid-morphing alien, captures him, and steers his ship back to Earth. Sabo uses the guise of being a trucker to keep his family in the dark about the dangerous nature of his job; in fact, they are unaware of the existence of a universe filled with extraterrestrials.

Sabo’s family consists of his wife Tess, whose relationship with her husband is estranged due to his continual absence, which led to their separation, along with their two kids, Lisa and Sean. Among them, teenager Lisa is the most perceptive but has developed a mischievous gambling habit at a young age, while little Sean, much like his father, often fumbles despite having the best intentions. During Sean’s birthday weekend, Tess takes the duo to Terry’s place, entrusting him with the responsibility of making up for his previous absence.

However, Terry is approached by a ‘fixer’ or handler from Endless Horizons Conglomerate, aka EHC, the company that often employs him for lucrative bounty hunting ventures, and is given a job to capture an alien named Vex with urgent immediacy in exchange for a large amount. Despite being hesitant at first, Terry agrees to take the job due to financial concerns and has to break the bad news to his kids. However, the children secretly plan to tag along with him by hiding inside the trunk of Terry’s car and get shocked out of their wits when they discover that they have arrived in a spaceship and that their dad is, in fact, an alien bounty hunter.

What Was The Chillion Crisis?

Right after learning of Lisa and Sean’s presence in KRS, Terry starts panicking and decides to turn back to Earth. However, if he wants to do that, he needs to use the Warp Pods, which the children left in his garage, to make space for themselves inside the trunk. Due to the objects being expensive, the only way Terry can get them back home is by completing his current assignment as soon as possible, getting paid, and purchasing Warp Pods. To gather intel regarding his target, Vex, Terry brings the kids to the galaxy’s best wings place, Bucky Quanto’s. While Terry manages to extract information from his old contact, an axolotl-looking alien called Kryll, Lisa, and Sean get out of KRS, disobeying his commands. Lisa gets into a gambling game with Sabo Brok’s former partner, Glorlox, and beats him, which creates a situation when Terry comes to take his kids back to KRS. A scuffle ensues among all the customers, and as a result, Terry and Co. get banned from Buck Quanto’s for life. As Terry resumes his journey, now heading to Chillion-5, where his target is stationed, Glorlox and his crew secretly start following them, as he wants a share of his latest bounty as well.

Terry decides to make a pit stop at a galactic convenience store, where, unaware of her being Terry’s target, Lisa befriends Vex while confiding in her about her estranged relationship with her father. Later, Terry gets into a battle with Vex but has to retreat before he can capture her as Lisa and Sean get surrounded by spider aliens. The trio manages to flee from hordes of critter aliens, thanks to Sean’s assistance with the weaponry system, but the KRS spaceship gets damaged in the process. Terry once again has to make a stop, this time on planet Pulga, where the kids decide to go off on their own to enter a robot-battle. Glorlox arrives on the planet as well and engages in a battle with Terry and Co. but gets captured in a tussle himself after local aliens jump him and his associates for disrespecting their revered dog monster, Moog.

Finally free from all the hindrances, Terry, Sean, and Lisa arrive at Chillion-5, a tourism-centered planet that uses the major endangered native lifeform known as Chilla (resembling colorful cats) as a crowd attraction. We also get to know that Chilla Land, the gigantic amusement arena on the planet, is owned by EHC, the same company that has assigned Terry to capture Vex. Before getting into the mission, Terry takes his kids to explore the amusement park and engages in fun activities, making Sean’s birthday his most memorable one. However, after chasing a seemingly rogue Chilla, the trio enters a restricted area, where they witness the ugly reality behind EHC’s façade of amusement. The Chilla has been enslaved by the conglomerate to extract a special kind of mineral, which creates warp pods. They are being tortured through shock collars and overworked to the point of exhaustion by the conglomerate’s soldiers.

What Was The Reason For The Fallout Between Lisa And Terry?

Seeing the cruelty firsthand, all three of them are shaken, but as Lisa proposes to do something about it, given that it is Terry’s employers who are associated with the entire conspiracy, Terry disagrees, stating his first priority is to complete the task at hand and take his kids back home.

All of a sudden, Lisa notices Vex at the park and decides to follow her. She gradually gets to know that she is leading a Chilla liberation movement by conspiring against the Conglomerate, along with her two associates. Lisa gets captured by Vex, but in order to keep her identity secret, she states that she is a former associate of Sabo Brok. Vex trusts her, and thanks to Lisa’s assistance, they overtake the control room. As a result, the Conglomerate soldiers are beaten, and the Chillas and the rest of the zoo captives are freed. It turns out that Chillas are sentient, speaking creatures whose speech is restricted by the shock collars as well.

However, their joy is short-lived as Terry arrives, captures Vex, and takes Lisa back to KRS as well. Lisa argues with her father about Vex not being a criminal, as she is fighting for a just cause, but the only concern Terry is invested in is securing his children’s future by any means. This creates a point of conflict, and an enraged Lisa storms off after berating her father. The conversation leaves an impact on Terry, who communicates with Fixer and gets to know that Vex was a former Conglomerate employee who decided to go against her employers after knowing the vile atrocities they committed on Chillas and on many such species across the galaxy. Feeling pangs of guilt for his association, Terry deliberately hides the fact that he is holding Vex captive and misguides Fixer.

A rebellious Lisa decides to break Vex free and takes Sean with her to escape KRS on Terry’s car, which can also transform into a space shuttle, back to Chillion-5. Terry chases them but finds out that Glorlox is in hot pursuit. During the chase, KRS is destroyed by Glorlox, seemingly killing Terry in the process, which leaves Sean and Lisa devastated. Glorlox gets hold of Terry’s car, thereby capturing the trio—Vex, Lisa, and Sean—and gets shocked after knowing that the latter two are Terry’s children.

What Secret Did The Kids Know About Their Mother, Tess?

Feeling despondent about how her last conversation went with her father, Lisa blames herself for her father’s predicament, but Vex tries to comfort her. Glorlox contacts Fixer to let him know that he is delivering their precious bounty now that Terry has betrayed them, and after getting their coordinates, Fixer heads in their direction. On the other hand, Terry is revealed to be alive and has crash-landed in Chillion-5, and after learning the Chilla is sentient and able to speak, he gets even more horrified by the Conglomerate’s actions. Learning that Terry is their benefactor, Lisa’s father, and that she and Vex have been captured by Glorlox as well, the Chillas, led by their chief, Chakalau, decide to help him rescue them.

Terry and the Chillas infiltrate Glorlox’s ship under the disguise of Conglomerate agents, but their cover gets blown, leading to a chaotic scuffle. Terry corners Glorlox, who apologizes for attacking them because he didn’t know Terry was trying to take care of his family. However, Fixer arrives in a large Conglomerate mothership in the meantime, and Glorlox’s ship is taken aboard. After Fixer refuses to negotiate the bounty amount with Glorlox, his crew starts attacking, and it is revealed he also assisted Lisa in freeing Terry and other captives as well. Sean, who stayed at Glorlox’s spaceship, shows bravery in operating it to destroy Conglomerate’s troops and Fixer, and using this distraction, Terry, Lisa, Vex, and the Chillas board it and escape the mothership. Glorlox and his crew manage to escape as well, but in a tiny, rundown spaceship.

At Chillion-5, the team engages in merriment, and Lisa reconciles with her father, but soon they get alarmed as Terry receives a text about Tess’ upcoming visit to his place, and without Warp Pods at their disposal to make an interstellar jump, they start to freak out. Thanks to Chillas, they get a number of Warp Pods as gifts and almost manage to get home just in time, almost due to the fact that Tess sees Terry in his bounty hunter garb and berates him for taking the kids to space. Lisa and Sean are shocked to learn that their mother knows about the whole story, but they get even more flabbergasted after learning that she is an alien herself.

Did Tess And Terry Put An End To The Conglomerate’s Threats?

The couple reveals to their kids that two decades ago, as a bounty hunter, Terry was pursuing Tess. When the duo fell in love, Terry left his job and decided to start a family. But financial concerns for his family, along with the handsome pay of a bounty hunter job, once again pulled Terry back to his same old routine, and to keep his family out of harm’s way, he kind of deliberately distanced himself from them. As Terry acknowledges that instead of concerning himself with their security and providing, he should have made his presence in the family a priority, a rectification he is willing to make from this point forward, Tess makes amends with him, thereby giving Sean the best birthday gift he could have ever asked for.

The family time is cut short by the appearance of Fixer, who starts attacking Terry for jeopardizing the Conglomerate’s operation. The entire family engages him in a fierce battle, and it is revealed that Fixer is a reptilian alien with T-1000-level invulnerability and persistence. Finally, after a grueling conflict involving all the family members, including the grandmother, Fixer gets destroyed. Terry has decided to leave the bounty hunter job for good, but Fixer’s last words of warning about Conglomerate eventually catching up to them for his betrayal seem to have already been put into effect, as his ship’s signal transmits to deep space to alert the agency of their operative’s death.