The Mandalorian, Season 3 (Disney+ Series)
The greatest Star Wars anything ever. There, I said it. Fight me!
★★★★★
Massive Spoilers
Directors: Rick Famuyiwa, Rachel Morrison, Lee Isaac Chung, Carl Weathers, Peter Ramsey, Bryce Dallas Howard
Writers: Jon Favreau, Noah Kloor, Dave Filoni, George Lucas
Reading how people are complaining about The Mandalorian Season 3’s final episode, their hearts must be frozen cold to be able to idly dismiss one of the greatest Star Wars battles ever put onscreen involving Mandalorians and Stormtroopers with jetpacks, or that they felt nothing when Bo Katan charges forward with the Darksaber in hand alongside the Armorer and dozens of Mandalorians behind them. Their souls must be made of rock if it mattered not to them that the three deadly Praetorians who dispatched Paz Vizsla last episode were hewing down IG12 with Grogu in it while the blast doors closed behind a wounded Din Djarin who could only watch in horror.
But my favorite moment of the episode wasn’t even any of these, or Bo Katan fighting a Beskar-ed Moff Gideon, or Din going full John Wick on a bunch of Stormtroopers with just a f***ing dagger, or even when Grogu saved Din and Bo with the Force while his emotionally soaring theme played in the background. No, the scene I loved the most, that got me all welled up, was during the initiation scene at the Living Waters of Mandalore, when Din finally, officially adopts Grogu as his son. The orphan who lost his family now becomes the father of another. It didn’t happen in this episode, but I’m looking forward to the upcoming one where he no longer calls Grogu “kid”, but “son”.
Stay bitter and aloof all you want. Feel proud of your refined cinematic palate that The Mandalorian somehow failed to appease. Pick the series apart for its plot holes, lack of logic, and cameos of people you detest to your heart’s content. But I will continue to enjoy the heck out of the 24 glorious episodes of the best, most faithful, exciting and heartwarming Star Wars show since the original trilogy, and more if we’re lucky. This IS Star Wars. This IS the way.