Spoiler alert!
The end of this season has arrived, and as always, we will give you a very honest review.
The Mandalorian capped off its uneven third season with a ho-hum finale that technically wrapped up its myriad of crisscrossing plotlines neatly, yet did so in the most anticlimactic ways. It’s been an odd season of the Star Wars offshoot show: when it’s good, it’s GOOD; when it’s bad, it makes you question how this is made by the same creators.
Admittedly, the goods are bountiful. Bo Katan finally faced off Moff Gideon; the united Mandalorians banded together to battle Moff’s Stormtroopers – on and above the ground, Grogu and IG-12 had a showdown with the Praetorian Guards, and Mando formally adopted Grogu as his son (he’s Din Grogu now – and we thought Djarin was the surname all this time). Still, you can’t shake the feeling that their conclusions weren’t all that satisfying.
First off, at 38 minutes long, the finale was simply too short. With everything they had to conclude, each plot beat did not have ample room to breathe before the show moved on to cover the next thing. This is a problem because heading into the finale, the show introduced so many plot threads. What happened was the thrilling actions moved at 2x speed and it was over before we felt truly engrossed in it. We couldn’t fathom that this was made by the same writer and director responsible for last week’s well-paced masterclass of an episode – which was almost twice longer than this episode.
Even more disappointing, the finale left out many unanswered questions about the plot-hole variety, not the leave-you-wanting-more kind. Who were the spies (plural) mentioned in last week’s penultimate episode? What’s the deal with all those Moff Gideon clones, who were introduced so menacingly and then destroyed so swiftly? What became of Dr. Pershing? Was that all it took to kill Moff, the Big Bad of THREE seasons? What’s the point of the Mythosaur at all? You won’t find the answers here.
Truth be told, the finale’s problem was emblematic of the entire season. The whole thing felt like a collection of great ideas that never coagulated together. They threw in everything cool they could think of and cobbled the story later on. Then they kept building up the suspense of potential conflict, only to cut it short with the most absurd conclusion. Mando needed to redeem his honor? After all, the planet was safe sans a few mildly bothersome critters. Bo Katan needed legitimacy to unite her clans? Mando handed her the DarkSaber just like that. There was never a point where our heroes were in real critical danger. Therefore, it wasn’t all that triumphant to see them win. What a stark contrast to last season’s finale, when Luke Skywalker’s arrival completely changed the game!
The show ended with Mando leaving his bounty hunter trade for a safer job with the New Republic (he’s a dad now, must settle down), but there’s no way this is the last we’ve seen of him and Grogu. So, if later it’s proven this half-baked finale is just meant to segue into upcoming series like Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew, then we need to have a severe talk with Lucasfilm: This is not the way!
