In late 2020, The Mandalorian capped off an engaging second season that put some much needed faith back into the Star Wars franchise. The uber cool cameo aside in the season finale, the series wrapped up both the storyline between Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu/Baby Yoda. It was a bittersweet finale, yes. But it also paved the way for a new chapter for The Mandalorian especially with a Season 3 already green lit.
Unfortunately or fortunately – depending on which camp you’re in, fans didn’t have to wait that long for an idea on where the new season would take the intergalactic bounty hunter. In fact, the answer was revealed across two episodes of The Book of Boba Fett. Those two episodes (The Mandalorian Season 2.5, perhaps) were dedicated towards reuniting Din Djarin and Grogu. However it did so at the expense of Boba Fett, who was reduced to a mere cameo in his own series. But hey, cuteness sells right?
So with the ‘father and son’ now united again, we now know where The Mandalorian Season 3 is all about – back to its basics. It’s formulaic to say the least but then again, so is the Star Wars franchise. Add a dash of cameos, a couple of Easter eggs for good measure and a link or two to other series and you basically have a Star Wars show.
Same Old, Same Old
Although we’re into episode one of the new season, we’re already seeing shades of that formula come into play. Familiar faces fill the premiere episode of the third season. We see Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and even the IG-11 droid (Taika Waititi), who perished in the season one finale. And we have Grogu and Din Djarin traversing the universe looking for a new adventure, one that is tied into redemption.
That adventure of course is what will likely see play out in The Mandalorian Season 3 as Din Djarin searches for atonement on the poisoned planet of Mandalore. Although that’s all well and good, the tone of the new season seems more polished and action packed. There’s an epic space dogfight and a Mandalorian warrior beat down with a monster croc-like creature.
However these big special effects laden scenes, although making for spectacular viewing, do come at the expense of the spaghetti-western look and feel that made the first two seasons a success. That said, we’re only 40 plus minutes into chapter three of The Mandalorian. One hopes that the series course corrects itself over the next seven remaining episodes. If it doesn’t, it may just risk the prospect of being a pale shadow of its past. And this shouldn’t be the way.
The Mandalorian Season 3 airs Wednesdays on Disney+.
(Images: Disney+)
