The Mandalorian | March 2023 for S3

[Ozymandias]

Season has been very middling so far but with this episode its now teetering on dogshit territory.  Shame because seasons 1-2 were quite enjoyable adventures.

[WorkingonaName]

The Midalorian

[thajdikt]

Okay so I´m a bit behind on S3, just watched episode 2 and did anyone else have problem with the lighting? It was so dark I couldn´t see anything.

[thajdikt]

All caught up now - and it´s kinda meh for me. Liked season 2 more

[John Marston]

wow things must be really bad if The Hollywood Reporter of all places is publishing an article like this

 

 

 

[Porthos]

So I really do have to wonder...

 

Spoiler

Might fortunate that The Armorer just happened to bail when she did. 

 

Very very fortunate. 

 

===

 

Anyway, have to agree with the buzz that came out of Celebration that this was the best of the season, and I'm not even damning with faint praise here as it's up there with the better episodes of S1 and S2.

 

Still a couple of very minor issues but I expect this to be well received.

 

I see that this was co-written by Dave Filoni which does make me wonder if him being busy on prep for Ahsoka meant that he wasn't around to give quite as much polish as he could have with the rest of the season.  But then again, I detest this sort of tea leaf reading most of the time, so consider it just an idle wonder and more or less a half baked thought.

 

Either way, if they stick the landing then I think this season should be well received overall, bumps along the way notwithstanding.  We'll see if they do indeed stick that landing or not.

[CloneWars]

Damn! That was one hell of an episode. The episode could have easily been a season finale. Next episode is gonna be lit.

[BadOlCatSylvester]

That was honestly one of the best episodes of the entire series, right up there with the best of the excellent first two seasons. Everything about this worked perfectly. The pacing, the acting, the action and the stakes were top notch. This episode fully brought back the magic and the hype I had for this series during the previous two seasons. And for the first time since Season 2 I am incredibly hyped for the next episode. The wait is not going to be fun.

[thajdikt]

What an episode! This was incredible!

[SnokesLegs]

Hopefully that episode puts an end to most of the bitching and moaning. Easily one of the best episodes of the entire show, and shows that it WAS building towards something and not just aimlessly wandering like some have claimed.

[Porthos]

Alright, I know my track record on this sort of theorizing isn't the best, but dammit, Imma gonna go down with the ship on this one.

 

Spoilers intermixed with speculation regarding The Armorer:

 

Spoiler

I just can not get it out of my head that The Armorer is playing a larger game here and if not completely aligned with the Imps, she is using them for her own ends.

 

Let me start off from the top.  Since she was introduced, she's just about the only Mando inside the covert (not counting our titular hero) who thinks for herself and seems to have... a flexible attitude toward her creed.  Where everyone else is dogmatic, she's willing to look for alternatives or even set aside alleged involatile customs.   She's been often compared to a cult leader and for good reason.  For someone who believes in "the old ways" she sure is casual and easy going when push comes to shove.

 

Before I get too deeply into this, there is a major problem.  She's been written as a Reasonable Authority Figure and any issues with inconsistent beliefs/actions could just be down to shitty plotting not-as-adroit-as-it-could-be writing.  Indeed, this is the biggest branch I could be going out on. So I want to point it out immediately.

 

On the other hand, we finally got the long suspected Death Watch name drop in this episode in a non-denial denial sort of way and while that might just be a Filoni Easter Egg, any vets of TCW know that Death Watch were not exactly The Good Guys.  

 

For folks who don't care about all of the details, Death Watch were a terrorist group way back in the prequel days who were pissed off about then-current Mando leadership and felt they as a society had lost their way.  So they decided that an insurrection was the way to restore Mandalore to its old glory.  Unfortunately for them they chose... poorly when it came to seeking allies (again, it's a looooong story).  More to the point, most of them were more concerned with power, and especially personal power, than more high minded concerns about Making Mandalore Great Again.

 

The other major problem here is... Bo-Katan herself was part of Death Watch, though she broke away and actively fought against them when things got too crazy (long story and fairly unimportant for this post).  Thus the Armorer being someone of importance/well known within Death Watch becomes a bit of a problem as Bo-Katan really ought to recognize who the frack this person is, if she was at all important back in the Clone Wars.  If she was some nobody who took charge/founded her creed after Bo-Katan split off, then this becomes less important of an objection.

 

Still, Death Watch being specifically name dropped in this episode in conjunction with The Armorer suddenly peace-out'ing right before Team Mando walks into an ambush is mighty sus, as the youngin's like to say.  The Armorer has been straddling the line between dogma and pragmatism from her very first appearance and her being on friendly terms with (what's left of) the Empire would explain a few things. Why she was still alive at the end of S1 and how the hell Moff Gideon knew who the hell Din Djarin was to name a couple.  It does break down more than a little in that it doesn't explain why The Armorer would help Mando blast Baby Yoda outta jail get Grogu out of the clutches of The Client in the first place way back at the start of S1.... unless she is playing her own game here and is more using the Imperial Remnant to her own ends and helping them when it suits her purposes and hindering them/not caring about hindering them when that suits her purposes.

 

So what is her game, presuming she has one?  Well, at the start of this episode, I thought her ultimate end goal was to challenge Bo-Katan and take the Darksaber off her cooling corpse.  And maybe that's still it.  It could also be that she feels that no matter how long Moff Gideon cosplays as one, he'll never be a Mandalorian and thus she is setting herself up to be the one to take him down eventually.  Emphasis on eventually.  Though why help him in the first place is an even harder question to answer than the one I raised about helping Din Djarin back in S1.  Not impossible as I have a few half-baked thoughts, but I'll leave them for another time.

 

 

In the end, I'm just... suspicious about her.  She's someone that has been shown as being an ultra traditionalist, but is willing to shit all over her beliefs set them aside for a greater good.  She takes the word of Din Djarin being bathed in the waters of Mandalore all too readily and seems to try to smooth out issues within her clan, but is not around at their greatest hour of need.  She maneuvers people around her like pieces on a chess board and I just can't get over the sense that she is using people around her to some unseen end.  She was one of the ones who was spreading the notion that Mandalore was cursed and should be stayed away from in the first place.

 

To put it a different way, if her clan is a bunch of people hooked on drugs, she doesn't seem like she's high on her own supply all that much. Or at all, really.  Hence the comparisons to a cult leader — one who will talk about dogma but set it aside/massage it when it is convenient to her own ends.  She just acts different, in a way that's hard to describe, than nearly every other member of her covert.

 

She's enigmatic.  As such, she could still be nothing more than what she's always been portrayed as: A Reasonable Authority Figure who holds her cards close to her vest but ultimately is working toward the betterment of her people.

 

On the other hand, who the hell are The Spies of this episode?  Plural implies multiple.   Elia Kane, the imp seen at the beginning, is obviously one. So who is/are the other(s)?  Could be the rando Mandos we ran into in the episode.  Awfully convenient they knew where the hell the Great Forge was, and them surviving all this time on Mandalore is a little sus as well.  And we haven't found out just who busted Gideon out of jail in the first place.  Following that train of thought it could be Axe Woves who hasn't exactly been written as an angel this year and has tried to undermine Bo-Katan multiple times.  Though if it was him, one would think he would have turned when shit hit the fan...

 

But I gotta tell ya, I've been on Team Armorer Is Up To Something ever since she first stepped onto the stage, and, well... In For a Penny, In For A Pound.

 

(I'm not the only one, either, for the record)

 

Mind, this could easily blow up in my face.  Not even sure what odds I would put it at.  Not 100 percent, that's for sure.  Maybe not even 50/50.  But not zero percent, either.

 

Guess we'll find out one way or the other in very short order.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Porthos

[Menor the Destroyer]

Easily the best episode of the season and in the top tier for the show. Awesome.

 

@Porthos I wasn't sure about that theory earlier but you have convinced me.

[Knights of Ren]

What’s the Din/Bo ship name?!

[Porthos]

16 minutes ago, Knights of Ren said:

What’s the Din/Bo ship name?!

 

ManBo???  Either that or BoDin.  

 

ManBo really does work thematically as this ain't Dune (which in that case it would obviously be BoDin).

 

EDIT::: A quick check of Twitter also has DinBo, as imported from Tumblr.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Porthos

[Potiki]

Hope everyone is doing well and looking forward to the finale as much as I am. I have unfortunately been busy with real world things so probably won't be around here for the finale but just want to say I have really enjoyed the last few episodes (yes even episode 6) and while I still feel this season is a step down from season 2 it seems like it will end strong. 

 

Last episode (7) in particular was fantastic as both a way to set the battle for Mandalore as well as setting up the larger Mandoverse/Filoniverse with some cool things being mentioned, without going into spoilers. 

[Porthos]

18 minutes ago, Potiki said:

 just want to say I have really enjoyed the last few episodes (yes even episode 6)

 

 

(it is ALSO one of the, if not THE, most George Lucas-y episodes of any of the Disney Plus live action series, IMO)

((which also might go a long way in explaining the reception of it, even when taking into account Lizzo and Black))

Edited April 13, 2023 by Porthos

[4815162342]

Spoiler

The Armorer being in some form of cahoots with Gideon would be narratively lazy, uninspired, and honestly kinda illogical with how things have gone.

 

Definitely hope that spec in the this thread isn't the case.

[ChipDerby]

IDK who the "spies" are, but I've been really digging this season, even with the ups and downs. The Mandalore storyline has been really interesting.

[Porthos]

In a word:

 

Solid.

 

Not a patch on either of the two other season finales, but it was in many ways a more "traditional" season finale of ye' olden days TV where plot threads of a season are tied together.  Much better than the Fett finale, IMO.

 

(no post credit scene either, BTW)

 

Not sure how it'll go over but for what it was, it was executed well.

 

...

 

Oh, yes...

 

Spoiler

Don't have to worry about Numbers having a bit of a fit over The Armorer after all.

 

...

 

Well, I did only give it 50 50 odds at best.  

 

[George Parr]

Yeah, that was fun. Not great, but fun.

Funnily enough, this is the third time in three seasons I preferred the setup to the finale to the finale itself

 

Overall the season isn't a match to the first two for me. At its best the episodes were a match for the very good episodes of prior seasons, though not quite on the level of the selective truly great ones. But overall there was too much average stuff to not be a drop in quality.

 

Spoiler

A few things I didn't really like:

 

The end fight felt way too much like a Marvel / DC movie to me. Masked hero fighting masked villain, both amped up through gadgets / special skills. It wasn't bad to watch, but not something I need to see more of.

 

The force-shields were reminiscent of Phantom Menace, which is a nice callback, but outside of that the whole thing made little sense. Why where thes guards standing there between the shields? And why were they completely unprepared everytime the shields dropped?

And then there is the opening. The seventh episode made a big deal out of capturing Din Djarin, yet somehow only two people end up dragging him (where exactly?) at the start of this one. Shouldn't he have been the main priority?

And then he escapes, Gideon says he will deal with him, and then he doesn't, instead sitting back in his lair waiting for him to romp through his command center, destroying his clones.

 

Didn't like getting rid of Gideon this way either. You basically don't have him around for most of the season, re-introduce him at the end, and immediately get rid of him. That's not cutting it. Either spend more time on his arc, or have him escape for use in the next season. Preferably in a way that doesn't make him fail completely either. They just entered the secret Imperial council and the papable power-struggle inside of it, and then they get rid of Gideon, ending the whole thing before it could unfold its potential. That was kind of useless.

 

Everyone flying around in jetpacks shooting at other people flying around in jetpacks - while being hard to identify - is getting a bit stale as well. It would have been more interesting if that hadn't been the go to move five times already this season.

 

 

Outside of that the episode was well shot and with some interesting ideas. It's just that the flaws keep them from being more than that. A bit of a theme for this season...