The Mandalorian SHOW discussion - Spoilers Allowed for all aired episodes

[Knight of Ren 789]

What a great episode! It felt like a fitting conclusion for the whole season, but could also be a nice series finale in case they weren't continuing with it.

 

My biggest issue was the way the handled Gideon's clones, which seemed like an important part of the show, but they just killed them off rather quickly, and it would have been great to have a bit more to explore on that. Perhaps they will reveal more about this on other shows? What if the Gideon they killed at the end was just one of his clones and the real one is out there or something like that? I don't know, I think there's some great potential with that and I hope this is not the last we see of Giancarlo Esposito, as I love his portrayal of Moff Gideon. I really liked his confrontation with Bo and Din, and it was great to see Grogu do a bit more this time, taking part in the battle againts Gideon and his Praetorian Guards.

 

The air fight was so cool, and as a Clone Wars fan, it was so great to see Bo leading with the Dark Saber a flying mandalorian army againts Gideon's troopers with the Dark Saber. I thought the Mythosaur would come around at some point, but as they hint near the end, it's probably going to be an important aprt of the rebuilding of Mandalore, which will be probably explored in the following season, or perhaps in another show?

 

Anyway, I liked that the resolution was a callback to Season 1, with Grogu saving his family from the fire and the end with Din and Grogu relaxing on their new was satisfying, but as they imply with his conversation with Carson Teva, their adventures aren't over, and I guess they will appear on the Rangers of the New Republic show or somewhere else?

 

Shirley's music was so great, and it had some cool variations on both old and new themes, and I particuarly liked the theme for the Praetorian Guards, and how he confronts it againts the heroes themes during the final confrontation. I cannot wait to hear the second volume!

 

In case anyone's interested, feel free to check out my analysis of the soundtrack for this episode on my blog. Enjoy!

Chapter 24: The Return

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

Interesting (series?!) finale. There was so much exposition from Gideon about his plans in these final two episodes... Why not space it out reintroducing him earlier? And a bit of an anticlimatic way for him to go, eaten by the mythossaur was in my mind, since that was something with no pay off yet. Mando kicking ass one more time was great, but he just... escaped, why make him get captured then? If Grogu could go to him, they could have just walked there.

 

On 12/04/2023 at 12:46 PM, A Farewell to Kings said:

@Gabriel Bezerra I'm thinking the titular spies were the Mandalorians on the planet in this episode, ala the hebrew spies in the old testament who investigated the promised land.

No spies, so the biblical definition was probably right! Did Din came to Mandalore in his N1? 'Cause where the heck did R5 came from?! The fights were great, and the music was great too when it stopped reusing from the Season 2 finale, and the return of the Sanctuary motif was a great way to end it, with a closing wipe too, is it the end of the show?

 

I'm way more satisfied with this episode than I was the entire season, I think starting out with the Mando episode in Boba Fett would have tighted things, starting out focusing on the Dark Saber, the redemption and how isolated the Mandos really are, to end with them all together, would have worked.

 

The Luke part could have happened after the Mines of Mandalore and they could have revealed Gideon's hideout there too, instead of showing up in Tatooine, Grogu could've showed up in the covert... Argh, it was a mess of a season honestly, and shoving everything in the last two-episodes wasn't that bright, though it made them enjoyable.

 

Don't know what they'll do in Season 4, because they basically ended Din's stories with ways of bringing him back in another show.

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Loved the finale.

 

The best thing was the aerial battle. That is truly some of the coolest stuff I've seen in Star Wars. It started with The Armorer dropping the mandalorians from the ship and then jumping as well.

Then their formation and the moment Bo-Katan took out the Dark Saber I was actaully jumping. It was sooo cool.

The fight in the air itself was so well done, especially considering how much happened. I still think it's cool that The Armorer doesn't use guns, but only her hammers.

 

The fight with Gideon was also great. I do think that they couldn't done more with his clones. Maybe let more of them fight in unison or something.

But we didn't get that, but what we did get was cool. I was genuinely concerned for both Din and Grogu. When the Pretorian Guards attacked Din I thought they would kill him and their chase with Grogu was actually very tense. And I'm glad that Grogu was part of the action outside of IG-12. The way Din and Grogu worked together in the fight and later with Bo-Katan against Gideon was very well done.

 

What I couldn't believe was that they deatroyed The Darksaber. It has been such a big part of Star Wars for almost 10 years now. It'll be interesting to see if they bring it back somehow.

And it was also nice that the fire came back in a similar manner as the finale of S1.

 

I like how Din and Grogu ended up. It's nice that they got their own little place where Grogu can play with frogs. But I do hope that in a next season we get to see those adventures The Armor talked about. That would be cool.

 

And as has been the case for most of the season. Shirley's music was terrific. Can't wait to listen to the 2nd volumes. The Pretorian Guards motif is really one of my favorites.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Very cool finale. I dont know if they could make more seasons, as grogu is going to barely age in din djarin’s lifetime. So there is little character development for grogu.

 

gideon can return as a force sensitive clone. Surely he has at least one clone stored in his secret retreat….

[crocodile 8,017]

The last two episodes were really fun. Episode six had me bit worried. It's not a masterpiece or anything but definitely, coupled with Andor, the best Star Wars in ages.

 

Karol

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Final poster

 

 

[Gabriel Bezerra 302]

What are the odds this will be Vol. 2's cover?

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

17 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Final poster

 

 

"Turned you all green I have" - Grogu, not quite Jedi Master.

[GerateWohl 4,371]

The Mandalorian season 3 is the best live action Star Wars since Rogue One. Despite of its 6th episode.

[1977 1,743]

Great fun after a bit of an uneven season. Loved the battles and the score. Just wondering why we needed virtually a whole episode for Dr Pershing when he ends up being offed and nothing else really comes of the whole sub-plot. This season could easily have been 6 episodes. Thought they also could have made more of the destruction of the dark sabre, unless they're going to go the TLJ/TRoS route and have Bo fix it somehow (in which case why bother destroying it)?

[SilverTrumpet 638]

Poorly executed dramatic effect?

[Andy 4,141]

That was so WIZARD! 
 

To those who couldn’t find enjoyment, I cannot help you. Perhaps a long soothing bath in the Living Waters of Mandalore will provide illumination. 
 

Great use of the Laser Gates from TPM!

 

Arfive flies now?  He flies now. And why not?

 

No way they did a whole episode on the Clone Dr just to set up Gideon’s babies.  That’s story being put in the slow cooker for later.  (That was the only episode I was meh about this season)

 

Rocketeer aerial battle was a dream come true.   Guys, I remember reading Marvel’s early SW comics when there was one movie called Star Wars.  If what I saw with all those Rocketeers battling had even appeared in a 1978 comic page, I’d have wet my shorts.   Anyone developing a Disney Rocketeer script watching this probably just went, “Well, shit.”

 

Nice relight of the Forge and the wonderful camera down to the Mythosaur.  The perfect fairy tale touch as the series has now established its own rightful legend status. 
 

Din is a Bounty Hunter again!  This felt like a very soft reboot, to allow the MandalorianS and Din to again go their separate directions.  When next we see him, I imagine it won’t be with Bo Katan and the legion.  But we’ll see. 
 

IG-11 returning to be Marshall of Nevarro and then a perfect happy ending with Them Din Boys in their ranch.  I half expected to hear Mando crack a Beskar beer can open. 
 

Im delighted and happily entertained.  

 

 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

I'm rewatching The Mandalorian Season 1 and uh - what the fuck happened. I just got to the end of episode 2 and it's a night and day comparison in quality to the current state of the show. The visuals have this nice gritty but not desaturated tone to them and the cinematography is pretty strong with some stunning shots, it is more visually convincing as Star Wars.

I wasn't expecting there to be such a glaring difference in terms of the quality of the music as well, in terms of the composition and how it is spotted. It is significantly more effective here, but that may also be because I'm actually managing to get invested in the world and characters (so far).

It's also so much more restrained and actually lets scenes breathe, and the dialogue is a lot better and not very exposition heavy at all. If you think right now the show is what it's supposed to be, I invite you to check out those first few episodes because it's pretty clear what they were going for in terms of target audience and tonally at the beginning. There's been some serious revisionism into 'Saturday morning cartoon' in that regard.

[JohnTheBaptist 57]

I mean sure, the first season was better, but it's always been a mediocre show made for people who post minions memes on Facebook.

[GerateWohl 4,371]

I am so happy, that they moved away from that endless chain of "somebody sends Mando somewhere to do something, where he meets someone else, that tells him to do something to get what he was send to get etc. etc".

At last we got a story going on here.

 

And the action in season 3 was much better than all action scenes in TLJ and TROS together.

 

[Dr. Know 326]

Absolutely loved the whole season. It is just incredible to me how much $$$ is put into visual effects.  Looking forward to volume 2 of Shirley's score.

[Faleel 5,359]

2 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

I mean sure, the first season was better, but it's always been a mediocre show made for people who post minions memes on Facebook.

Totally different demographics, this snide comment was a fail. Improve your material.

[Jurassic Shark 12,080]

2 hours ago, JohnTheBaptist said:

I mean sure, the first season was better, but it's always been a mediocre show made for people who post minions memes on Facebook.

 

 

[Andy 4,141]

Did Mando ever show his face at all this season?  I don’t think he did. 

[Jay 37,371]

Nope

 

Pedro was likely never on set, off filming The Last Of Us S1 instead

 

His 2 doubles (Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder) were credited at the end of the Co-Starring cast for all 8 episodes.

[Brónach 1,302]

oh that's rough

[Jay 37,371]

It's a nice paycheck!

 

[Brónach 1,302]

it's like the greatest possible paycheck for sure

[Andy 4,141]

I adore the show, but he should never have shown his face. Ever. Not even on the Series Finale.   I don’t even like knowing his name, but that part became impractical with the other Mandalorians introduced. 
 

But we should’ve never seen his face. 

[Datameister 2,044]

I thought that was a decently fun finale to a decently fun season. I'd say I liked it better than S2, which was so defined by its incessant reintroductions of outside characters—Boba, Luke, Ashoka, Bo-Katan, etc. And it's certainly head and shoulders above the shoddy Book of Boba Fett. Still can't hold a candle to S1's viscerally cool (and less talky) space western vibes, or to Andor's more adult storytelling. But it was enjoyable.

 

Except the last iris out. It was a perfectly cute final shot and then they ruined it. It was such a poor fit tonally, like something out of a cartoon.

[Brónach 1,302]

11 hours ago, Andy said:

But we should’ve never seen his face. 

 

this is silly. weird sect mandalorian becomes a normal mandalorian is fair game. and those previous scenes were really effective.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

19 hours ago, Brónach said:

 

this is silly. weird sect mandalorian becomes a normal mandalorian is fair game. and those previous scenes were really effective.

It's what I wanted very badly to be his arc, him moving away from the ridiculous restrictions of the cult and being comfortable with having his helmet off in front of others

[Tom Guernsey 2,286]

4 hours ago, DarthDementous said:

It's what I wanted very badly to be his arc, him moving away from the ridiculous restrictions of the cult and being comfortable with having his helmet off in front of others

I don't know if Robot Chicken is still a thing, but there's definitely a 3 minute sketch to be made about the day to day problems of wearing a helmet all the time as a Mandalorian... maybe Family Guy will do it as a cutaway.

[Jay 37,371]

The Mandalorian 3x08 The Return

 

Oh I loved this finale!  Very fun and satisfying!

 

Din escaping custody and disposing of his captors was a good action scene, then got one-upped by a long and fun series of escalating fights with all those other guards being the shield door thingies.  It was fun seeing R5 fly around to take care of that, and him interacting with the mouse robots, etc.  I just realized - do we know if R5 survived the episode?

 

Axe flying up to the fleet and them all jet packing down while he steered the capital ship was really cool too.  Once all the Mandalorians all got together and had an epic battle again dark troopers in the sky, with Bo wielding the darksaber, was peak Star Wars action for me, and the 14 year old in me was as gleeful as can be.

 

So I guess three seasons worth of cloning subplots all comes down to Gideon was just cloning himself the entire time, and using Grogu's blood to give all his clones The Force?  Pretty convenient that Din could spend 10 seconds at a control panel and destroy them all  Once he started fighting Gideo that was a pretty good fight, and I really liked that then Bo came in to finish him off, since in the end he's more her ultimate villain than Din's.  I was a bit surprised that the darksaber was destroyed, since I get the impression it's a pretty big item from the cartoon shows, but then again I'm sure they could always do a story where it gets rebuilt.

 

The ship that Axe had been steering towards the base ultimately detroying Gideon's base was satisfying too, and it does appear that Gideo was consumed by the flames... but with cloning I'm sure he'll back back eventually.  And the clone could have a different personality, which could be fun for Esposito to play with.  Grogu using the force bubble to save Din and Bo from the flames was neat, but wouldn't the entire structure collapsing on their head be more of a concern, lol.

 

Boy, after all the action and big climax, the wrap-up was not what I was expecting!  It was so long and eventually felt more like a series finale than a season finale...... the restarting of the Great Forge (lucky it didn't get damaged by that ship crashing next door!) was nifty, as was Din officially adopting Grogu (not sure why he hadn't already, honestly).  The various Mandalorians tribes seem at peace with each other too, which is a bit too much but I'm sure they can quickly do stories about how they are fracturing again in future seasons or a different show.

 

Din finding a new career in doing "honest", but still off the books, work for the New Republic, is a decent enough idea to kick off the next season with.  The rebuilding of IG-11 was a little silly; Did they even show IG-12's body surviving the wreckage?  And he already had a head, so it was weird that that was the part they found at the bar; It's his chest cavity that was missing!  It was cute to see him rebuilt and Waititi voicing him again.

 

Din getting a cabin at the end was cute, especially since it has a pond for Grogu to torture frogs at (yikes).  I do wish, though, that when he sat down on the porch, he had his armor off and we saw that it was Pedro.  Missed opportunity there.

 

Overall, a really nice season that I liked a lot and had no problems with, so an improvement over Book of Boba and Mando 2 for me.  Looking forward version much to season 4 in a couple years!

[rough cut 1,714]

I have to confess, I stopped watching a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t miss it much, time slipped by unnoticeably, and I just watched other things instead.

 

But I guess I’ll invest my time to watch the 2-3 last episodes I didn’t see sometime, if not now than later.

 

But I hear people are happy with the finale? Even Mando-detractors such as myself?

[Jay 37,371]

It was great

[DarthDementous 1,059]

5 hours ago, rough cut said:

I have to confess, I stopped watching a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t miss it much, time slipped by unnoticeably, and I just watched other things instead.

 

But I guess I’ll invest my time to watch the 2-3 last episodes I didn’t see sometime, if not now than later.

 

But I hear people are happy with the finale? Even Mando-detractors such as myself?

If you’re a detractor it doesn’t do much if at all to course correct

[Faleel 5,359]

1 hour ago, DarthDementous said:

If you’re a detractor it doesn’t do much if at all to course correct

Depends on your detractions.

[Tydirium 1,167]

I honestly thought it sucked.

 

Paz Vizsla (one of the few named Mandalorian characters—even "The Armorer" still doesn't have a name) died at the end of the previous episode (still not sure why he had to die!), and yet there was no real reference to his sacrifice in the finale. None of the characters seemed particularly saddened by his death, not even his son at the end, which was very weird. It's almost like the writers forgot he died. (And let's be honest, the only reason his death was shown again in the episode intro was to remind the viewers of the Praetorian Guards that Din and Grogu were going to fight later in the finale.)

 

Heck, during the scene where Bo Katan and a few of the other Mandalorians sought refuge in the cave full of plants, you would think someone would have finally taken the chance to express grief over the loss of Paz. Btw, it was incredibly jarring that that scene was so short. They landed down in the cave, said they could stay there a while until reinforcements arrive... and then literally just over one minute later, they got the call that reinforcements were arriving, and they left.

 

Also, this same show established previously that the Darksaber was made "of a quality of Beskar I have never seen before," according to Din Djarin, and yet it got destroyed by being... stomped on?

 

And then there's Gideon's death, which I thought was laughably bad: He awkwardly threw his hands up in the air and yelled before he even got hit with the flames... He easily could have tried to move away, but he just stood there seemingly as close to the edge of the platform (and thus, the flames) as he could. 

 

Also, what is with the show's insistence on bringing Gideon in at the end of each season? Will he be back again next season, as a clone? Or will we find out that the Gideon they killed this time was a clone? Either option would be mind-numbingly bad, imo. He needs to stay dead.

 

One other thing is that, to me at least, everything felt incredibly small-scale: Where were the other Mandalorian clans? This could have been a much bigger conflict. For instance, why not have Fenn Rau leading a group of Mandalorians? His voice actor also does live-action work, and even looks like him! Just a huge missed opportunity.

 

I could go on and on (now jetpacks don't run out of fuel so quickly?!), but man, what a disappointing finale this was (to an even more disappointing season). And the Looney Tunes ending was very un-Star-Wars-like.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

2 hours ago, A Farewell to Kings said:

Depends on your detractions.

Duh?

The most common reasons to be a detractor would not cause you to enjoy the finale though since it's resplendent with a bunch of issues that have persisted across the entire series and this season in particular. So if someone is asking if things were turned around, I would have to say no

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

I dont understand why paz vizsla was not voiced by favreau in this season… I thought, hey maybe they are going to show his face and take that honor to the real actor playing the part…. And then they kill him. 
 

its doubly weird since on the other hand they even made a hasbro figure with favreau’s head….

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

1 hour ago, Luke Skywalker said:

I dont understand why paz vizsla was not voiced by favreau in this season

 

He was. Tait Fletcher is only in the costume.

[Jay 37,371]

From what I understand, Fletcher voiced him this season as well. 

[Faleel 5,359]

ScreenRant isn't the most reliable source.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

That was unmistakably Jon's voice. Wookieepedia doesn't mention anything either. There was a debunked rumor a while back that Tait Fletcher was going to fully take over the role (apparently so his face could be shown) but that was just bullshit as usual.

[Jay 37,371]

Interesting!

[Tallguy 3,401]

Hmmm. I didn't think it was him. (Him being Favreau.)

[Jay 37,371]

This article states Fletcher voice him in season 3, then just editorializes that one reason could be is that they're gonna show his face

 

https://screenrant.com/the-mandalorian-season-3-paz-vizsla-recast-story/

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Wouldnt favreau be credited in the cast if he voiced the character?

 

was he?

[Jay 37,371]

He was not credited once this entire season, no.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Then… he may not be the voice after all… :/. 
 

 

 

[Jay 37,371]

You'd think the answer would be officially and definitively stated somewhere...

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

The end credits is not official enough?

 

after all it was just a kind of cameo… no need for a press release i think 

[Jay 37,371]

He wasn't credited for doing the voice in Season 1, or Book of Boba either

[Edmilson 7,466]

Star Wars: Boba Fett Actor Claims He Was Supposed to Return in The Mandalorian but "Nobody Rang"

 

He also said:

 

Quote

"Well that Mando guy stole a few chapters of my book," the actor shared. "It was painful watching him turn up with some black new lethal sword. And the way he turned up in my Book of Boba, he just destroyed everybody. I'm sure this guy is… ah… ruining my show. But I couldn't say anything. I'm not the writer, so I have to bear it I guess."