Hogan Reviews

It’s time to look at a new series of the ever-popular Star Wars show The Mandalorian, and once again it was a really fun trip with great action and plenty of lore nods, though I will say there were some moments that felt like the show was going on fast-forward, like it had been cancelled so they had to wrap up as many plot-threads as they could in one season, even though it’s far from cancelled! Still good fun though, so let’s take a look.

The series once again focuses on Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu, who have been reunited during the course of the “Book of Boba Fett” series if you were wondering, but as the show progresses it widens its focus on all Mandalorians and their fight to reclaim their home planet. In the first few episodes Din is convinced he needs to bathe in the waters of Mandalore in order to be accepted back into his cult-like order and he enlists the help of Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) to reach the surface of his, well, sort-of home planet. Although initially not interested after she lost control of her own group of Mandalorians when she lost the Darksabre to Moff Gideon and then again to Din but she soon goes along with it and helps him dip in the waters (and even sees the mythical, um, Mythosaur in the waters, which has a lasting effect on her mentally.) To her surprise she is also welcomed into the sect by its leader The Armourer (Emily Swallow) though the idea of never removing her helmet doesn’t appeal she doesn’t immediately say no and in fact helps Din and large Mando warrior Paz Vizsla (Tait Fletcher) rescue the latter’s son from a local creature.

This must have been really confusing to anyone who is just watching “The Mandalorian” and skipped Book of Boba Fett!

This group of Mandos then help free the planet Nevarro from space pirates and get offered a piece of land, which they accept but this is where things started to feel like they were on fast-forward as The Armourer of all people tells Bo-Katan to take her helmet off and then leads her out to her own people and says that the individual rules don’t make them Mandalorians and that they should reunite and take back their home planet. They’d only JUST got a new home! In the next episode Din and Bo-Katan track down her old group of Mandalorians and the latter is given the Darksabre because it was taken during a brief time when Din was captured and taken back by Bo, thus making her the rightful new owner. After she beats down her former second-in-command Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides) she takes her group and unites them with the Din’s cult and before you know it they’re jumping down to the surface of Mandalore! I’ll get the rest in the Spoiler section but as you can tell the whole Mandalorians plot just jumps into overdrive across the season.

There were a couple of side-steps, I loved an episode focusing on ex-Moff Gideon Imperial scientist Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) being used by the New Republic via an “rehabilitation program” but he is slowly convinced to restart his cloning experiments again by fellow ex-Gideon puppet Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian) who turned out to be a New Republic spy posing as a simple rehabilitated soldier… and also a spy for none other than Moff Gideon himself (Giancarlo Esposito) who was freed from captivity before he even made it to prison. She seemingly fries Pershing’s brain for one reason or another, and she also spies on some New Republic officers when pilot Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) talks about the Mandalorians, and I have to mention Teva also talked to a fantastic looking live action Zeb from SW: Rebels (still voiced by Steven Blum!) in a scene before this one. Love seeing that series continue to get so much attention.

Kalleran Beq is told the only way off-world is to team up with Jar-Jar Binks.

The only other non-finale-spoilery thing to talk about is Grogu, who sort of doesn’t do much during the series this time beyond a bit of Mando training but there’s a fun flashback to when he was rescued from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant by a Jedi Master called Kelleran Beq (Ahmed Best) something that was lost on me at the time as he played the character in non-canon children’s competition show, but I do appreciate the man getting a second go at it after he was unfairly blamed for the mass of hate that was Jar-Jar Binks, who he plays and voices. We don’t know where Kelleran went from there, but it’ll be fun finding out.

Overall Thoughts:

So many cool helmets… and Grogu in his hovering ball. Still, so many cool looking helmets…

Mandalorian Season 3 was still a fun eight episode ride and there were some great continuity nods for a big fan like myself, but I couldn’t help but feel the season felt rushed, like they for one reason or another had to tie up pretty much all loose ends and reset the series for Season 4 so had to quickly rush through them. It’s the first Mando season not to get a full 5, but it’s still far from bad TV.

The two-part finale sees the Mandalorians arrive on Mandalore and find Moff Gideon has set up a base there and trained a whole squad of Stormtroopers how to use Mandalorian tech including Beskar armour and jetpacks, while he himself is also Beskared up (but in all black, naturally). I will mention before that Episode 7 opens with Gideon joining a secret meeting of the Imperial “Shadow Council” a group of Imperial remnants that act independently but are actually waiting to reunite when the time is the right, and during the call not only to we get Brendol Hux, the father of the Hux from the Sequel Trilogy (and played by original Hux’s brother Brian Gleeson!) talking about “Project Necromancer”, but we also get Captain Pellaeon (Xander Berkeley) straight from the pages of Heir to the Empire, talking about waiting for Thrawn’s return. Lots of great continuity stretching out in all directions with that scene.

Paz Vizsla’s last stand. Love how the Praetorian Guards are somewhere between the Royal Guards from the Original Trilogy and the Praetorian Guards from the Sequel Trilogy. Plus I’ve always loved the Royal Guards right from my first time seeing Return of the Jedi!

Anyway, back to the Mandalorians vs. Moff’s group: Paz Vizsla is killed by some Praetorian Guards while Din is captured, but that latter is almost immediately undone by Grogu piloting IG-11’s body (long story!) and then we get lots of teasing about betrayals: first the Armourer seems suspicious, then Axe is very suspicious but in the end they all unite together and take out Gideon’s army while Din, Grogu and Bo-Katan take on the man himself in a fight that sees the Darksabre destroyed by Gideon before he’s seemingly killed, our trio being saved by Grogu’s Force powers. I say seemingly because you don’t see a body, he was wearing full Beskar and in a scene just before this Din destroyed a whole bunch of seemingly complete Gideon clones, so… plenty of ways out should they want him back. Then we get more quick wrapping up of stuff as the united Mandalorians relight the Great Forge, Grogu is formally adopted by Din and becomes an Apprentice so our main duo are told to go on the apparent classic “journey” that all Aprrentices go on, Din walks up to Carson Teva and offers his service on a case-by-case basis to the New Republic and then we close on Din and Grogu hanging out on Nevarro, seemingly already settled into their new roles.

In just a few episodes the Moff Gideon, Darksabre, Mandalorians being scattered, Mandalore being reclaimed and Din and Grogu being directionless storylines / issues are all dealt with, setting up a more standard “Din and Grogu get up to some fun adventures” slate for Season 4. Fair enough, but still felt really rushed!