Those who have followed my blog since its infancy - I salute you - were here when I heralded the arrival of Season 1 of The Mandalorian - the first Star Wars live-action television series to debut on Disney+. Now, three years later, the show's third season has drawn to a close. And sadly, while the titular hero's armor has gotten shinier, the show itself has lost its sheen.
Be aware - Spoilers lie ahead.
Coming into the newest season, the biggest question was how it would address the decision to undo the climatic dramatic event of Season 2 - Grogu leaving to be trained by an eerie CGI Luke Skywalker - in the 'Book of Boba Fett' spin-off series. This question is quickly answered - Not well at all. The events of those episodes are relegated to the quick "Previously On" segment before Episode One and are never referenced - or even remotely relevant to the plot - again. This unfortuantely sets the tone for the entire season. To put it plainly - the narrative structure of this season is a disaster.
The show’s first season primarily followed a classic “case-of-the-week” basis, with Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) going on missions and slowly getting to know Grogu. Season 2 took a more serialized approach, re-introducing a series of popular existing characters like Bo-Katan, Ahsoka and Boba Fett. Season 3 attempts to blend the two but, rather than come up with the best of both worlds, creates a narrative mess full of loose ends and plot circles that undo themselves as soon as they’ve concluded.
The Mandalorian tribe receives a new home - then immediately abandons it to retake Mandalore. Grogu gains new autonomy through a repurposed mech suit - then returns unchanged to his toddler state when it’s taken away. Din - on multiple occasions - encounters new wrinkles in the various Mandalorian codes that get in his way - then immediately trots out a loophole that erases the problem as soon as it appears. An entire episode is devoted to introducing a new character - whose only impact on the season is a 15-second scene revealing herself as a spy. This cycle repeats again and again.
If I hadn't known that every script this season was written by some combination of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, I would have assumed that it was conceived by a team of eight separate writers locked into holding cells and denied all outside contact. In this story environment, nothing is able to build, so that the final climatic conflict appears and disappears in the blink of an eye.
The most egregious example undercutting the entirety of the season, however, is the cult. Over the first two seasons, Din has had his faith in the dogma that raised him shaken as he encounters differing Mandalorian ways of thought - culminating with the emotional climax of Season 2, when he removes his helmet to look upon his adoptive son with his own eyes. But when we meet him again at the top of the season, all that growth is gone. He's desperate to receive forgiveness from The Armorer (Emily Swallow) for his bare-faced "heresy" and the helmet never comes off again. Any sense of moral ambiguity to 'The Way' is discarded, the cult reduced to generic do-gooders whose most questionable move is butting heads with their helmet-removing rival clan.
What had once been the most interesting part of Din Djarin as a character is gone completely from Season 3. My cynical side suspects this move was to allow Pascal to work on other projects, free from the obligation of actually stepping foot on set. But whatever the reason, the end result is a season that rings hollow - nothing feels like it matters, the characters reduced to little more than action figures being mashed together for weekly adventures, tossed back in the box, then retrieved for the next cool idea, regardless of what came before.
It isn't all bad. The acting is strong - especially Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan, who powerfully sells the journey of a leader struggling to regain confidence in herself. The action sequences are well-choreographed and exciting - particularly Din's weapon-gathering hallway fight in the finale. And, of course, you just can't go wrong with Grogu's adorable antics. But coming off of the incredible first season of 'Andor,' it's not enough to merely have a collection of good parts when the whole feels so thoughtless.
It's clear, in the end, that Favreau and Filoni's hearts are no longer in this work. The adventures of Din and Grogu have become an afterthought in the grand scheme of the Disney Star Wars vision. In order to recapture the magic of Season 1, some creative soul-searching is in order. It's not too late to return to the heart of what made the show so great, and I do truly hope they find their way back. Our dynamic duo deserves more than flashy fanfare. They deserve stories that matter.
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