by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
Having felt that The Mandalorian was at the top of the Star Wars television mountain after Season Two, but not really enjoyed The Book of Boba Fett, and been utterly perplexed at The Mandalorian interlude episodes, I was curious where Season Three would land for me.
Unfortunately, in a real hero to zero development, as I found this newest season to be closer to Fett than the previous two seasons of its own series.
Having been previously reunited with the internet’s favorite 50-year-old child, and exiled from his cult, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) sets out to reclaim his Mandalorian-ness, all while trying to make a Mandalorian out of Grogu. The entire season has a very underdog feel to it, as the final faction of Mandalorians are trying to stay one step ahead of the space fascists.
In the previous two seasons, a lot of the appeal was the mission of the week. That didn’t really hook me this time around, likely based on my lack of investment of Din trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his cult. I did see the underlying story they thread throughout, but that story development takes us away from our core crew for an episode. In doing so, it wastes our time with a storyline that does a much worse job at getting me to care about a cloning storyline setup for Episode Nine than the concurrent season of The Bad Batch. Instead of the underlying story enhancing the missions of the week and giving us the best of both worlds, both suffer.
It really doesn’t click into some sort of form until the final two episodes. For some reason I couldn’t really put my finger on, from the moment the season started, the love was gone — and I’m not exactly sure why. When the show really works (again, mainly in the last two episodes), the action really sings in an almost John Wick way, and the thread that lays underneath everything pays off successfully. For too much of it, though, I watched largely what was happening with indifference. Much like with Fett, I can’t say I liked a season of TV if I didn’t get hooked until the penultimate episodes — and even those weren’t without their hiccups.
Even some of the returning cast members have lost some of their power for me. Din Djarin doesn’t quite have the same swagger that made us fall in love with him. As a general statement, the fact that Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan returns and essentially becomes a third main character is fine by me. I’ve enjoyed her in other Star Wars properties. Like with most of the season, however, my investment just wasn’t there. Even Grogu wasn’t a cheat code this season.
When it comes to the visuals, it’s by far the worst looking season of Star Wars TV. There is something about this season that feels cheap. I don’t know if it’s the visual effect backlog finally coming to breakfast, but I finally felt the cracks in The Volume. The worlds look more fake than they have in the past, and the visual effects more noticeable. After the Power Rangers-inspired speeder bikes in Book of Boba Fett, I was not expecting an actual Power Rangers villain to show up. The “Pirate King” looks ridiculous. He’s by far the worst pirate I’ve ever seen, and I refuse to give anyone in a Disney property that title non-ironically who’s not named Hondo.
To detour with to a brief positive on the technical side, much like in The Rise of Skywalker, a bright spot continues to be the piece of music that has slowly solidified as my favorite piece of score from a galaxy far, far away (“The March of the Resistance”). The score as a whole continues to be a real area of strength for this series, with Joseph Shirley joining Ludwig Göransson in composing duties for Season Three.
One of the more glaring points of irritation is the seemingly inexplicable need to shoehorn in people as bit characters or cameos. Even Amy Sedaris’s returning character gets a bit tired. However, the worst examples are the back-to-back episodes of Chapter 21 and 22. A Star Wars: Rebels character is literally used as just a LeoPointing.GIF moment, Tim Meadows is distracting in Episode Five, and it’s followed up with the unfortunate triumvirate of Jack Black, Lizzo, and Christopher Lloyd. Listen, I love Black, too (and I didn’t even really have a problem with Lizzo in Star Wars on the surface), but it all comes off as distracting from what should be focusing on creating more engaging missions of the week. It’s like they expect us thank them for cramming all these gratuitous cameos down our throat, be able to say, “You’re welcome,” and skip on their way.
I mean, could you imagine someone just trying to cram in a bunch of distracting references for the sake of their own entertainment? How annoying would this review be if your brain just kept getting distracted by random House of Mouse references inserted throughout with the sole purpose of me amusing myself?
Ironically, it is the cameo that wasn’t initially obvious to me that worked the Best — and good for him.
For me, Season Three marks a pattern of intermittent creative hiccups when it comes to Star Wars storytelling. The sky is by no means falling, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t starting to become a nagging mental concern for me. So come on, Disney, get your head in the game.
Score: 5/10
The Mandalorian is currently streaming on Disney+
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5/10 is way too harsh. I suppose it’s a bit relative to what you’re comparing against, but this season was a solid 7 at least.
I don’t disagree with your commentary about shoe horned cameos. And Lizzo was terrible as far as her acting, but ultimately it all tied together and I enjoyed the season thoroughly.