Why Season 3 Of The Mandalorian Has Me Concerned

In a strict "thumbs up / thumbs down" evaluation, Season 3 of The Manadlorian definitely gets a "thumbs up" from me. It's the worst of the three seasons, but I still enjoyed it overall. Wednesdays were absolutely the highlight of my television week for the eight weeks it was airing, but I can admit that it had its share of issues. The quality of the season is not what has me concerned, however, but rather the content, which I think indicates a story group that is still all over the map. Why this is especially concerning is that The Mandalorian is definitely the thing that resurrected Star Wars, which was on life support.

One scene in the finale hit me as particularly jarring. For three seasons, we've been building the mystery of Gideon's cloning program. The clear vibe was that it extended deep into the overall orbit of the Empire. With mostly "James Bond villain" exposition, we learn that it was little more than Gideon's vanity project, and in the previous scene, the entirety of his efforts was flushed down the toilet with only minimal effort on the part of the heroes. I would stake my collection that if you hooked the venerable Mr. Favreau up to a polygraph, he would admit that this unceremonious dismissal of one of The Madnalorian's more consequential subplots was never the original plan. Plans change, but I found this jarring.

A lot of fans have criticized this season for feeling rushed, and I agree with that, but I think it goes beyond that. It was a rush to dead end many of the threads from The Mandalorian that extended too far into the larger Star Wars universe. Dr. Pershing, who could have played a hand in cloning Palpatine is lobotomized and effectively erased. The totality of his efforts is likewise wiped out. Moff Gideon, who might have been a player in the rise of the First Order, is similarly dispatched. His fleet and base destroyed. At the end, Din and Grogu are basically confined to their own sandbox so as to not interfere with the larger goings on.

To me this speaks to a story group that is still flying by the seat of their pants. I don't believe that the original plan was to have the events of The Mandalorian be effectively siloed (for the most part), but that's what the end result is. It feels like a pivot, and it feels like it’s pivoting from things that worked miraculously in favor of the things that didn't. Maybe I'll be wrong and Elia Kane's plan was to off Pershing to steal his "m-count" research for Brendol Hux's Project Necromancer.

---

comments powered by Disqus