I’m going to cut right to the chase here:  Tommy Cutlets is making the Giants worth watching.  Sure they’re terrible, but this is a local folk hero in the making.  I mean, it’s not exactly Linsanity, but it’s at least making me feel less pain for shelling out $400 for NFL Sunday Ticket to watch what is otherwise a trash season.

Speaking of trash… I really will cut to the chase here:  this HK-87 stinks.  It looks good on paper, but the end result leaves a lot to be desired. 

This droid first appeared in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, when Din Djarin visited Corvus to find Ahsoka Tano.  There, he was confronted by a couple of HK-87 Assassin Droids as well as well as Cobb Vaanth, Cobb Vanth’s evil clone.  Then we see five of them attack Ahoska Tano on Arcana in an early scene of Ahsoka.  Then later, Shin Hati takes a couple more to Lothal to find Sabine Wren.  I believe they appeared briefly in other scenes in the series, but these were the ones where they feature most prominently. 

As far as I can tell, the “leader” of the 5 HK droids that ambushed Ahsoka on Arcana was the only one that had all red armor.  The other droids that are seen have variations on the armor.  So it’s a bit odd that we got this one.  As such, it’s only screen accurate to have a single one fight Ahsoka.  It could mean that Hasbro has plans to repaint this sculpt and release it separately, perhaps even as a troop builder pack.  Again, that sounds nice on paper, but in reality, I’m not hoping for more versions of this sculpt.

The figure looks nice in the packaging, but once you tear it open, you’re left with soft, rubbery Gumby figure.  The shins on my sample came out of the package warped, so it’s difficult to stand.  Additionally, I believe the center of balance isn’t great to begin with, so you’re mileage may vary here.  The hip articulation is very limited due the sculpting of the armor on the upper leg.  This may be accurate to the character model, but it doesn’t translate well to a poseable action figure.  This limits the ability to pose the figure in various aggressive battle stances, which is a shame because the droid is very agile on screen.  So agile, that it actually does climb walls, unlike 8D8.  So it does have elbows (even with the relatively thin arms), but as seems to be common in the most recent figures, they don’t bend past 90 degrees - and neither do the knees for that matter.  The wrists are basic swivel joints, which again, seems more common recently. 

Along with the hips, the other frustrating aspect of the figure is the hand sculpting.  They grip the electropole in such a way that the figure is unable to hold it vertically at rest while standing guard.  This is because the open grip is angled sharply.  If the elbows could bend to, say, 45 degrees, or even like 60 degrees, you could position the arm in such a way as to compensate for the weird hands.  Alas, this is not possible, so the “basic” resting stance of the figure is not possible to achieve. 

The soft goods cape looks fairly nice, and is made of a very thin fabric which is similar to the shmata worn by Ashoka.  Both are also similar to the soft goods used on the TVC Magnaguard.  The problem with it is that it is so thin that over time, it loses it’s shape and tends to curl sharply.  So I assume this is going to happen to HK-87 and Ahsoka, but time will tell. 

The sculpt (articulation aside) is very good.  The figure does look great, but is mostly frustrating otherwise.  I also believe the red is too bright and vivid, as I felt the actual model on the show was a bit darker and more muted.  I had this same problem with the red Battle Droids from AOTC sourced-figures.  I never saw them as fire engine red like those hideous Sith Troopers, but apparently Hasbro/LFL chose this for the action figures.  Also, I’m colorblind, so maybe this entire paragraph is nonsense.

So I’m not happy with the restricted range of motion of several of the joints, the swivel wrists, and the dumb hands.  I also don’t like the coloring, and actually would have preferred a different color variant of the droid altogether.  All this along with the soft plastic spindly limbs, and I’ve got a figure that just isn’t very fun.  In fact, it’s actually just frustrating.  I would put it among the worst figure in TVC2.0.  Not a fan.  5/10.