Warning, this contains spoilers for Season 3 of The Mandalorian. Continue reading at your risk.
That’s it? All that build up to end in Mando and Grogu hanging out in a cabin in the countryside? Seriously? The ending of this season was entirely underwhelming. It’s hard to know where to begin on this mess.
Too Many Loose Threads
Nothing got resolved about the Mythosaur, it’s as if it was never part of the story. IG-11 is “miraculously” put back together to be the new Marshall. The Darksabre is destroyed, which implies it was never that important. Who the hell knows what’s happening back on Coruscant, even though it was important enough to dedicate 1/8th of the season’s story to it (seriously, it could have been a 10-second sequence). Oh, and what ever happened to those giant chicks they got? Did they become dinner in some subsequent episode? And where’s the pirate gone? Is Moff Gideon really ash, or did his super-duper armour protect him?
Yeah, yeah, stuff for Season 4. If there is one. If Disney decides to end it here, I’d be fine with that. The only good season was the first. The second was okay, although the “let’s set up another spinoff” thing was getting a bit wearisome. This third season was a pointless mess.
It all wraps up so Mando and Grogu can go off on new adventures. Yeah, this is such a satisfying end (spoiler alert: it isn’t).
All Filler, Little Content
There was, at best, 2-3 hours of actual story in this season, and 5-6 hours of useless filler. All the stupid side quests did nothing to advance the overall plot, and weren’t a way to introduce any new meaningful characters. As cool as it was to see Uppa back in his X-Wing, and as amusing as it was to see him show just how incompetent the New Republic is, again, it added nothing overall. This whole season could have been a movie, and then it might have been more satisfying.
If there is a Season 4, maybe getting back to a more episodic form might be better. Although a different title might be in order (maybe The New Adventures of Mando and Grogu?). It might be entertaining. But part of Star Wars is that there is a grand arc, a bigger story that the stuff we watch (or read) is part of. The entire franchise is premised around it. And as bad as Lucas might have been at dialog, he had a knack for telling stories within stories. Season One of The Mandalorian fit within that. The next two started to drift somewhat.
All I can say now is thank goodness for Andor and The Bad Batch. Maybe we can get some stories about the Adelphi Rangers?