Josh Reviews The Mandalorian Season Three

After a way-too-long two year hiatus, The Mandalorian returned with an eight-episode third season that I thought was a tremendous amount of fun (even though I admit it didn’t quite deliver everything I’d hoped for).

This was an unusual season of television, with lots of twists and turns that continually surprised me.  I loved that about this season!!  At the same time, those surprising choices meant that I never quite felt the season fell into a narrative rhythm, or achieved the momentum that I think great TV seasons can achieve.  I’m finding it a little hard to judge this season, because, on the one hand, I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these eight episodes!  There wasn’t a stinker in the bunch.  Each episode had a number of incredible moments and sequences, and I loved how different the episodes were from one another.  Many fans online have complained about some of the choices made — they didn’t like a full-episode spotlighting the formerly-Imperial scientist Dr. Pershing, or the police-detective episode featuring famous guest-stars Lizzo, Jack Black, and Christopher Lloyd — but I loved both those episodes!  The Mandalorian began as a show with stand-alone, episodic installments, and I love that’s still the type of storytelling the show was giving us.  However, at the same time, when I look back on the season as a whole, I’m not as blown away by the overall story as I’d wanted to be.  The story of the Mandalorians’ return to Mandalore (years after their planet and people were destroyed by the Empire) felt like it should have built to something more epic than what we got.  And the show has once again failed in developing Moff Gideon into a sufficiently threatening or interesting bad guy.  These eight very-different episodes never quite gelled for me into a satisfying larger story for me.

Now, that’s OK!  An episodic TV show is OK!  I don’t want or need every TV show to be an eight-hour movie.  I really did love all eight of these episodes, and I was continually impressed by the quality of these episodes.  The production design and visual effects were extraordinary; this is absolutely movie-quality work being done for a weekly TV show.  It’s incredible and not to be taken for granted.  These stories gave me what I’m looking for in new Star Wars adventures — on the one hand, we got lots of fun callbacks and connections to Star Wars lore, while at the same time we got lots of interesting new characters and situations and environments.  And the tone was perfect.  The stories were fun and exciting and appealing to all-ages without getting too kiddy or too dour.

Part of the problem here is that the two-year wait was just too long.  Putting this show on hold for a year to make The Book of Boba Fett last year was a mistake (despite our getting two complete Mandalorian episodes smushed into the middle of that show).  After two years, it’d be hard for anything to live up to our anticipation.

I also think the show’s short eight-episode season-length makes telling stand-along episodes a challenge.  As I wrote above, I loved episode six, “Guns for Hire” (the one with Lizzo, etc.), but even while I will staunchly defend that episode, I also admit that doing out-of-left-field episodes like that works better in an old-style 20-plus episode season.  When you’re only making eight episodes (and when we’ve waited two years for these eight episodes), it can feel frustrating for the fans if every episode doesn’t feel Very Important.  I felt this way too!  This is a part of what I was describing before, in how I enjoyed all the episodes but at the same time didn’t feel like the season as a whole came together in the way I’d hoped.

Still, these were eight mostly-terrific episodes of Star Wars TV.  I loved them and I’m very sad the season is over.  I can’t wait for more.

Let’s dive in more deeply to my episode-by-episode analysis!  Beware SPOILERS:

Episode 01: The Apostate

• It was great fun to be back in the world of The Mandalorian, back with Grogu and Mando and Bo Katan and Greef Karga and other familiar characters and places.
• It’s wild to me that the show doesn’t make any attempt to explain the events of The Book of Boba Fett.  How many Mandalorian fans out there, who skipped that show, were left scratching their heads as to why Grogu was back with Mando, where Mando’s new ship came from, etc?  I’m impressed at their boldness in just plunging ahead, even though I wonder if that was the best decision for the show’s general audience.
• My main nervousness watching this episode was that it seemed to fall back, in a very obvious way, into giving Mando lots of mini-quests to achieve.  That has been the general structure of this show so far.  So in this episode, not only do we have Mando’s new quest to redeem himself in the eyes of his people by bathing in the waters of Mandalore (a task most Mandalorians see as impossible, because the planet Mandalore was annihilated by the Empire), but also various sub-quests, such as his needing a droid to accompany him, and then needing a specific part so that IG-11 could be repaired.  This all felt like set-up to kill time and stretch out the story to me, and I rolled my eyes at that a bit.  (Thankfully the episodes that followed went in unexpected directions, which made me very happy!)
• Wow, the Mandalorian group has gotten a lot bigger since we last left them!  (How much time has passed??)  The episode’s opening did a nice job of tricking me — I thought it was a flashback to Din Djarin taking the creed, but nope, we’ve caught up with the colvert in the present day.  We get an awesome action sequence with an enormous sand crocodile monster.  Very cool.  (But the Mandalorians look a bit dumb for not being aware they’re living near an enormous sand crocodile monster!!!)
• I squealed with joy when, while traveling in hyperspace, Mando and Grogu glimpse the space-whales flying along-side them.  It’s a beautiful moment on its own, one that suggests the vast, beautiful strangeness of the Star Wars universe.  It’s also a deep-cut reference to a critical moment in the climax of the animated Star Wars: Rebels show, and something I suspect will be relevant when we catch up with the Rebels crew, and Grand Admiral Thrawn, in the upcoming Ahsoka show.
• It’s fun to see Greef Karga happy and prosperous now, and it was surprising to see how much Nevarro had changed.  (Again, how much time as passed??)  Karga seemed surprisingly unprepared for what to do when trouble inevitably came calling, but I can roll with that.  I loved the little droids that rolled behind him, carrying his cape.
• I liked seeing the space pirates.  Silly but fun.
• I loved seeing the little Babu Frik aliens (introduced in The Rise of Skywalker) working on the IG-11 droid.  I loved the scene in which Karga translates between the little critters and Mando.
• We get another great action sequence as Mando takes on the pirates.  The action on this show is terrific!!
• I enjoyed seeing Bo Katan again (though how long was she sitting posed like that on her throne before Mando walked in?), but I’m a bit confused by the geography.  She’s on another planet in the Mandelore system, right?  So I’m not sure why Mando is dragging out his quest — can’t he just pop over to Mandalore himself in two seconds and take a look?

Episode 02: “The Mines of Mandalore”

• Many episodes this season surprised me (pleasantly!) with their storytelling choices, and the first big surprise came here in this great episode.  I thought the whole season would be about Mando’s quest to get back to Mandalore and bathe in the “living waters”, but wow, by the end of this episode Mando has already accomplished that.  I love that!
• I groaned a little when Mando went back to Tatooine.  It’s fun to see Peli Motto again (I laughed at her con-act scheme with the Jawas) but I’ve had enough of Tatooine in Star Wars, especially after The Book of Boba Fett.  It’s a big galaxy out there!  Time to leave Tatooine behind for a while.
• After all the build-up in the previous episode with Mando wanting to resurrect IG-11, I was surprised he so quickly gives up and accepts a different droid, though it was fun to see R5-D4 (the busted droid Uncle Owen almost buys from the Jawas, instead of R2D2, in the original Star Wars).
• I enjoyed Mando’s whole adventure on Mandalore.  The planet looks like it’s been turned into Kryptonite.  The visuals are great as we explore the surface of the planet and then what lies beneath.  It was very cool to see the ruins of the Mandalorian domed cities that we saw filled with life in the animated Clone Wars show.  I loved seeing the mutated creatures who attack R4 and Mando, and then I really loved the bizarre-looking creature/machine (some sort of creature-droid hybrid, reminiscent of General Grievous) who captures Mando.  I love the design of this creature, and in general I love this show giving us lots of new alien creatures.  (That the creature is draining Mando’s blood is a very creepy touch!!)
• It’s fun seeing Grogu be able to pilot the N-1 Starfighter back to get Bo Katan’s help.  (Though how much time did it take Grogu get back to Bo’s planet?  It feels like it took five minutes in the episode, but even if they’re both planets in the same system if seems like it should have taken at least a day, right?  This also gets me thinking more about why, if Bo was hanging out on a planet so close to Mandalore all this time, did she never bother to take a peek back at Mandalore herself?)
• Either way, it’s fun to see Bo ride in for the rescue and wreak havoc with the Darksaber.
• It’s fun to get some more Mandalorian history from Bo, as she tells Mando about the history of the mines of Mandalore and talks about her father.
• I loved that Bo sees an actual mythosaur!!  It’s cool to see this creature, whose symbol we’ve seen on Mandalorian armor, “in the flesh”.  I really hope we see Bo (or Mando) riding a Mythosaur by the end of this season!!

Episode 03: “The Convert”

• The episode opens with a thrilling action scene, as Bo and Mando mix it up with a squadron of Tie Interceptors.  It’s an incredible, movie-quality sequence.  (Also, nerd alert: the Tie Interceptors were introduced in Star Wars: Rebels as a special project of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who I expect to see in the upcoming Ahsoka show…)
• Then the episode pivots and, to my huge surprise, we get an episode-length focus on Dr. Pershing and his new life on Coruscant.  (After that awesome opening, I was at first disappointed not to get more with Mando and Bo.  I wonder if this episode would have been better without that intro?  But I also understand why they wanted to make sure Mando and Bo had at least a few scenes on their own show.)  Overall, I love this big swing of putting aside the show’s main characters and stories to give us this in-depth look at life in the New Republic after the events of Return of the Jedi.  The Sequel Trilogy left the franchise in a weird place, in that it established that our original Star Wars heroes Leia, Luke and Han basically failed after Return of the Jedi.  In The Force Awakens, the Empire is back in the form of the First Order, Luke and Han have run away, and Leia — rather than running the show as most of us had imagined she would be after Return of the Jedi — is mostly on her own with her small Resistance.  Dave Filoni spent a decade (in the animated Clone Wars show and beyond) in attempting to salvage the Prequels, better explaining the stories and situations and better developing the characters.  It’s fascinating now to see him turn, both here and in the animated The Bad Batch show, to attempt to do the same to the Sequel trilogy.  Throughout both The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch, there has been a running thread of scientists continuing research into Cloning.  We know the mysterious Imperial (“the Client”) played by Werner Herzog, and then Moff Gideon, were experimenting on Grogu, presumably trying to transfer Force powers.  This has to be building to the story of the creation of Snoke, right?  And then here in this episode, we explore life on Coruscant in the early days of the New Republic and we see that things are already something of a mess.  On the one hand, this sucks!  I grew up believing that Leia created a better version of the Old Republic with her New Republic.  But The Force Awakens told us that didn’t happen, and so it’s fascinating here to see some of the problems already apparent.  Like that impersonal, uncaring psychologist droid that Dr. Pershing has to check in with.  Does Leia know this is going on??  (I now want an animated show set in this time period to show us more of what Leia, Luke and Han are doing now and what they think about how this New Republic is shaping up…)
• I thought it was very cool to get a glimpse of life on Coruscant in this time-period.  It was almost like getting an episode of Andor in the middle of my Mandalorian!  I was delighted for Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) to get this focus.
• The whole idea of an amnesty program for Imperials is fascinating, and makes a lot of sense.  Though I didn’t understand why they’re referred to by numbers instead of names.  That seems awful and dehumanizing, very much something the Empire would do.  I’m disappointed that the New Republic would do such a thing.  I guess that’s the point, but still, I again found myself asking myself: does Leia know this is going on??
• It was interesting to see Dr. Pershing’s speech at the beginning, in what I think is the same auditorium where Palpatine and Anakin watched an opera and we heard the tale of Darth Plageuis the Wise in Star Wars: Episode III.
• At first I thought the New Republic was using Dr. Pershing’s research (in the style of the U.S.’s post-WWII “Operation Paperclip”), but it turns out Pershing is just working as a drone, doing paperwork connected to the disposal of Imperial equipment.  (It’s interesting that the New Republic wants nothing to do with any Imperial tech; considering it tainted.  Of course, they’re willing to use the Imperial “mind flayer” later on.  One more flaw in the New Republic.)
• Speaking of flaws, we learn the New Republic is decommissioning their fleet.  This makes no sense to me (as surely this New Republic would face threats), but fits with what we saw in The Force Awakens.
• Katy O’Brien is great as Elia Kane, who insinuates herself with and then betrays Pershing.
• I loved the scene in which we see the tippy top of one of Coruscant’s mountains.  (Kane convinces Pershing to try to touch it, which plays as a silly moment at the time, but when we get to the end of the episode it’s clear that was a test to see if she could get him to do what she wanted, right?)
• The extended train sequence was wonderful.  I loved this peek at a new aspect of Coruscant; I loved all the great aliens; the whole thing was a hoot.
• Seeing the inside of a decommissioned Star Destroyer was a lot of fun.  Once again, the production design on this show is absolutely terrific.
• Pershing’s end was tragic.  (Though my only complaint with the episode was the staging of the end, as it was way too easy for Kane to switch the mind-flayer up to “kill”.  Come on, the other dude just walks out and leaves her alone with the controls??)

Episode 04: “The Foundling”

• It’s fun to see the Mandalorians all training at the beginning, and I enjoyed Grogu’s little duel with the Mandalorian foundling.  (Though I’m wrestling a bit with how old Grogu is supposed to be.  If he’s still a “baby Yoda,” he’s a little young to be training for combat, right?  He can’t even speak yet!  By human standards that makes him a baby, but we’ve seen Grogu does have intelligence and skills, as he demonstrates here.  The show is treating him like he’s around 10 years old, which is hard for me to wrap my head around.)
• That Mandalorian kid, Ragnar, then gets snatched up by a giant raptor.  (Seriously, how many huge monsters are living right next to this Mandalorian encampment???  And then they mention that this has happened before, and I’m left slapping my head at the Manadlorians’ stupidity for 1) sticking around and 2) training their kids out in the open without anyone on the lookout for the return of the giant monster.)
• The highlight of this episode is the fantastic extended flashback sequence in which we see how Grogu escaped the massacre at the Jedi Temple in Star Wars: Episode III.  I was overjoyed to see Ahmed Best, who played Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace, back in the Star Wars universe, here playing the awesome Jedi, Kelleren Beq, who rescues Grogu.  I hated Jar Jar when I first saw The Phantom Menace, and I still do.  But I don’t blame Mr. Best for that — he was doing what George Lucas wanted him to do!  And it seems that Mr. Best has had a rough time of it following the release of The Phantom Menace.  So it’s just a pleasure to see him back here in something of a redemption, getting to play this great new character.
• I loved that whole sequence; it was super-cool to be back in the Episode III time-frame, and once again the show gives us an incredible extended action sequence, with some great lightsaber action and a fantastic chase through the skyscrapers of Coruscant.
• The flashback doesn’t answer all our questions; it looks like Beq hands Grogu off to a bunch of Naboo soldiers who take him away in their starfighter… so we still don’t know what happened next and how Grogu wound up in the hands of bad guys when we first met him at the start off this show.
• I love seeing Bo Katan take the lead, as she heads up a squad of Mandalorians who go to rescue the kid (who turns out to be Paz Vizsla’s son).  (Is Bo the only one with a ship?  How did the Mandalorians get to this planet?)
• I was a little surprised they spent the night camping before trying to rescue the kid.  Aren’t they worried he’s getting eaten up there?  We’re also told that these Mandalorians do take their helmets off to eat (something I’d wondered about), but they do it out of sight of one another.  I guess that makes sense, as how else could they eat, but still, it feels like a cheat on their solid rule about never removing their helmets.
• We get another kick-ass fight sequence as the Mandalorians fight the giant raptor and rescue the kid.  (Why hasn’t the kid been eaten yet?  He was just hanging out in the raptor’s mouth?  I don’t get it.)
• I laughed when the Raptor gets chomped on by another of the huge crocodile monsters we saw in the first episode.  (As Qui-Gon said: “there’s always a bigger fish.”)
• I friggin’ loved that the Mandalorians brought back the three baby raptors!!  I cannot wait to see Mandalorians flying raptors into combat!!  (Why did we not get to see that by the end of this season??  What a missed opportunity!)
• I loved the final scene between Bo and the Armorer.  It’s interesting to see the dynamic of grudging mutual respect between these two women.

C’mon back soon for my thoughts on the final four episode of The Mandalorian season three!

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