The Mandalorian Season 3 is a Waste of Time 

This video was sponsored by my son's infuriating eating habits.

Personally rewatching Andor to remind myself that good writing in star wars is still possible.

The mandalorians in this show acted more like cosplayers than legendary space warriors.

There are so many simple changes that could have made it a lot better: - Start with the boba fett/season 2.5 episodes and cut out some filler to compensate. - Have Moff Gideon attack Nevaro rather than pirates and establish the threat instead of ignoring him until the finale. - replace the evil mirror version of the heroes trope (the stormtrooper mandalorians) with the darktroopers as they've already been established to be a lot more intimidating and are an actual unique concept. Ultimately, nothing will fix the obvious lack of an actual story they wanted to tell. It'll still feel like something churned out because it has to be, but they missed a lot of opportunities to actually care.

The sequence of that dragon coughing up the kid is all I can think about as a sort of metaphor for the entire show.

There was so much throughout the season that just blew my mind. - The first alligator fight: what was their plan if Din hadn't shown up with a spaceship in the nick of time? They were losing people hand over fist because of their weak tactics. They didn't know he was coming so they weren't buying time or anything. - First episode being two recaps (one for people who didn't watch Book of Boba Fett & one for people who forgot the last season of Mando) wrapped around a low stakes pirate fight out of a Saturday Morning Cartoon was a weak start. - Third ep was fine but it was weird that they let Pershing, a war criminal with a parole officer, do a TED talk *ABOUT HIS WAR CRIMES* to a packed house. - I thought for sure Kane was going to be burned as she was the only person in the room with Pershing and the mind melter while the mind melter got turned up to 11 & melted his mind but apparently nobody cared? She's still walking around gainfully employed later in the season. - Timeline on the bird attack felt weird. Bird ate a kid, carried him around in its throat for several days and he's just fine on the other end? Not digested or anything? Bird babies were fine with not being fed for however long two days is on that planet? - I thought they were going to do something with the bird hatchlings but I guess they just ate them when the clans came together. - How did the Mandos get to the Land of the Lost in the first place? They needed Bo-Katan's little fighter-transport to get to Nevarro but nobody else had a ship? - The timeline on the pirate return to Nevarro felt odd. Salad the Hutt shows up in a single ship, blockades the town (which is I guess the population of the whole planet), Carl Weathers calls Teva who flies from the base to Coruscant, he gets rejected by The Ladies Man Tim Meadows, flies to go get the Mandos, convinces them to come back to Nevarro then they fly to the rescue. How many days have the pirates been in charge of the town? How long have they been hunting the townsfolk? - Carl Weathers gives the Mandos a land grant but we all know they don't want it & won't use it because they're retaking Mandalore. - The whole retaking of Mandalore felt pointless. I didn't feel like the show spent enough time letting me know what the stakes or the difficulties were. After Din established the planet wasn't toxic (just full of some weird wildlife) I couldn't understand what the obstacles were to just moving there. - There are so few people in the combined groups, is that the sum total of all the Mandos in the galaxy? Gideon seemed to think so, he kept talking about completing the purge of Mandalore once he killed them all but there doesn't seem to be much of a point of this tiny group trying to occupy an entire planet when they couldn't fill an apartment complex. - I felt sure the survivor Mandos were "The Spies" from the episode title because they led the group right into Gideon's base! Did they not know it was there? Why didn't anybody notice or remark on the lights being on or the architecture suddenly looking very Imperial? - Where was the Armorer in between leaving Mandalore with the refugees & returning with "Lady Kryze, your reinforcements have arrived"? - How did Gideon crush the Darksaber that Bo Katan was holding without injuring her hand at all? - Giancarlo is 64 years old. How was he going to train a bunch of clones of himself to use the Force in any meaningful way before they're all in their 80s? Why did he think he knew how to train them at all? How was he planning on stopping a bunch of clones of a ruthless backstabbing warlord from stabbing him in the back? - Why didn't anybody mention Viszla's sacrifice? Even when *BAPTIZING HIS SON*? - Why was Din wet in that scene? He set Grogu down then they cut back so he could ask for the kid to be upgraded to Apprentice and suddenly he's dripping. - Why didn't anybody react to the Darksaber being broken? It would have been cliche to have Gideon say "You Mandos are nothing without your trinkets" then have Bo say "I don't need trinkets, I've got FAMILY" or whatever then have a bunch of Mandos land & curbstomp him but it would have been something. - Also Gideon's "trinkets" line was so silly considering he's wearing the Mando Stomper 2000 Armor with Kung-fu Grip. - How did Gideon attend the Evil Zoom Call of Evil from Mandalore, a planet surrounded by communication blocking thunderstorms? - That Imperial's line about people welcoming back the Galactic Empire because they were tired of the rules of the New Republic made me laugh out loud. Famously not known for their rules, the Galactic Empire. Also not known for blowing up entire planets. Remember how everybody hated the Imperials for Operation Cinder from the only good episode from Season Two of Mando? - How did Axe use a jetpack to get from Gideon's underground base to orbit when the same type of jetpack couldn't muster the speed or longevity to chase a bird? - Armorer making up a rule on the spot that let Bo-Katan take her helmet off, Din handing over the Darksaber on a technicality & everybody agreeing to bump up Grogu to Apprentice on a technicality felt more Mandalawyerian than like people who really believe this Creed stuff. - I thought Din had already adopted Grogu, what was the point of the Armorer declaring them a Clan of Two? - What was the point of Grogu getting that dinner plate from the Armorer? It didn't do anything or come in handy at all. - I hate the NX-01 for long haul travel. No bed, no toilet, no food. My favorite type of ship in Star Wars is the kind of mid-range RV like the Razor Crest, Millennium Falcon, or Fondor Haulcraft. It takes days to get from planet to planet, I bet Din's butt is asleep the entire time. I'm surprised he wasn't limping when he hopped out to talk to Bo-Katan. On & on & on.

The best season 3 review I could have hoped for. The worst part is that you managed to find even more illogical plot holes than I did :D Like the shot where Bo angrily slaps the door with her fist instead of using the darksaber. My god I though that Filoni and Favreau would protect their baby better than this! BTW my favorite plot hole you didn't mention: Paz Viszla uses the "There's too many of them, go and I'll hold them off!" trope and then he just KILLS ALL OF THE ENEMIES except 3 guys. Implicating that if the others didn't abandon him, they would have easily won the fight. But the script said he has to have a warrior death at that exact moment so yeah. 😂

You summed up all my problems perfectly. This season was boring with no stakes and very sloppy writing. It reeks of corporate directives and is unrecognizable to the creative vision it once had.

Such a shame. The Mandalorian culture has so much potential. It’s a pity they could not at least show us some great action scenes

This show ruined the image of mandalorians, now instead of thinking of episode 2 Jango going toe to toe with every Jedi he encountered, hell even S1 and 2 Din. We now have mandalorians getting gunned down by storm troopers and eaten by big alligators.

Great summary, the last two episodes just felt so out of nowhere and unearned. Moff Gideon crying about his clones dying after he must of walked past them on the way to the hangar despite tracking Din coming towards the control room just really hurt a character that had successfully been a competent adversary to the hero the last two seasons 😪

I am still wondering why Thrawn has not made an appearance despite being somewhat teased at the end of mandalorian season 2. Or why they chose to, showcase clones of moff gideon, instead like in the comics, showing that thrawn is the one that has been pursuing clone technology and utilizing it.

There are two other problems with the clone scene. One is the line "You killed them before they drew their first breath." Which ... isn't how the extensive depiction of cloning has worked up to this point. Clones grow, age (sometimes faster than normal), and have to learn things like basic motor functions and combat training to be useful. Assuming internal consistency with the rest of Star Wars, those clones were already useless as replacement. If this has changed, then that whole "show Gideon's plans" could have been explaining why his clones are different ... though that still would have been a hard sell. The other problem is the cold-heartedness with which Djarin just murdered a half dozen unarmed and helpless men. He's not above killing, but I would be very surprised if that creed he goes on about would allow for that. And, to top it off, a not insignificant chunk of the audience is aware of Clone Wars and Bad Batch and know that clones aren't the same individual -- they're their own people who could have made their own choices. So that's bad plot, since we didn't know their significance until after, bad worldbuilding, since it contradicts what we know about clones without offering an explanation, and bad characterization, having a warrior with a code of honor casually kill a dozen men without context.

Also what was the reason for mando beeing captured? Gideon didn’t need him or grogu he had already achieved his goal. If it was for some type of revenge yould think he’d fulfill that revenge after mando was captured and not just leave until he freed himself again. They also had zero reason to leave him in his bulletproof armor or at least remove his helmet so that they could give him a headshot if he would try to escape. Thickest plot armor in all of Star Wars.

Someone has to explain to me how, in episode 6, the fact that they have a system that can take piloting control away from someone, and remotely control their ship . . .And they only use it for automatic parking??? Seriously?? How was that not used by the big evil Empire, every single time they needed to stop escaping rebels. Like, why bother with tractor beams at all, if that exists?!?! That's argueably more lore-breaking than the Holdo-Manuever.

I liked some of the stuff in the last episode with Mando fighting those Beskar Stormtroopers (only time in the show where he’s back to scrappy fighting instead of just following Bo), but none of it felt earned. I think the writers - which were almost exclusively Favreau and Filoni, no real guest writers like in the last 2 seasons - want to just write self contained episodes while still having it look like they’ve got some grand story to tell. You can see this same problem with Bad Batch. People put these guys on a pedestal, but I feel like they’re getting caught up in all the nerdy, Marvely bs.

Once I realized you had spoilers (I only made it to episode 6), I closed the tab... then reopened it cause I realized I didn't care enough to actually watch the rest of the season.

Yeah, after this season it's official, Andor is the best SW TV show. I was so bored during this season, writing is all over the place, action remind me too much about kenobi show. I mean, why the hell would imperials post guards between bunch of ray-shields and than wait patiently while Mando kills them one by one in plain site? Why gideon's clone capsules had explosive glass? Why opening up the capsules triggers a bloody flood? It makes no sense! Not to mention Grogu and Mando was pushed to supporting roles in their own show. Ugh, it's Book of Boba Fett all over again. So annoying.

Some of the stuff in the finale was really dumb, like Axe Woves FLYING FROM THE SURFACE OF MANDALORE ALL THE WAY TO SPACE or the Armorer flying around beating up armed, flying opponents with literal hammers.

Hey @Master Samwise, First off, I want to express how much of a fan of your work I am. I started following you recently, and you make the kind of content I hope to make. Your takes are articulate, thoughtful, and well-reasoned. And while I may not agree with every last one, I feel like your conclusions are sound. So, yeah. The Mandalorian S3 was a huge letdown. And to be honest, I felt similarly about S2 as well, and even parts of S1. The biggest problems with this show are fundamental: Bad storytelling. The pacing, stakes, character development, plausibility, and dialogue are all lacking and feel shockingly amateurish. This season exemplified the greatest weaknesses of the show. It felt at once aimless and rushed, serious and lackadaisical. Feelings of danger and tension were all but absent. The stakes were blurry. There was hardly any central conflict. It's so frustrating, especially when it's compared with the absolutely bombastic and extremely polished storytelling of Andor. It's like comparing a fan film to a professional production. I have a hard time believing that these came from the same studio. But, oh well. At least we have Andor.

Just to add something that really, really annoyed me about the last episode: Grogu is literally standing there in his mech, watching his guardian get captured, and he does nothing other than tilt his head like he's vaguely curious. It's not like the transparisteel between him and Din was Force-resistant. He could've Force-choked Gideon, shoved the troopers away, lifted them in the air like the mudhorn in the first season... But, nope. Nothing. And then when Din is trying to protect him from the pretorian guard, he only shoves them gently, like you said. But at the end, he can protect himself and two other people from an exploding spaceship. I really hate how he's only as Force-able as the plot requires at any given moment.

2:37 I have to argue with you there, Mandalore was a wasteland long before it was bombed to hell by the Empire. The whole reason they lived in domed cities was because of how bad Mandalore was outside. I don't think you can really hold that against the show.

The worst thing about this episode for me was just the wasted potential. They set up a really compelling plotline for me where Din is the one to use the darksaber and he has to slowly master it over the season. Then he almost never uses it and Bo takes it instead. Each season he has a signature weapon: The rifle in season 1, the spear after the rifle is destroyed in season 2 and then he literally gets rid of the spear *so that he can wield the darksaber* and the way it's given to bo katan is sketchy at best. It was previously stated (admittedly by moff gideon) that the darksaber had to be won "in combat". Although you could argue that it makes sense as Din didn't want it anyway, it doesn't make sense from a plot standpoint. My personal favourite way for it to go would be Din cursed by the darksaber, a constant target for mandalorians, and alone as he is exiled from his own tribe. He would then have to slowly master it in order to survive and as said in the video, Din is just there. This is The Mandalorian, but the main character is Bo Katan. For some reason.

7:25 you forgot to mention that all of said ships just disappear

I can't help but feel like Gina Carano getting fired and her character subsequently being removed played a considerable part in how bad this season was. From what I've heard, she was supposed to play a bigger part in S3, but because of her getting fired, Favreau may have been put in a writing pit they ultimantly couldn't get out of, leading to the half-baked season we got.

The writing felt like they fed all the worst aspects of any Star Wars movie/show to chatgpt and then slightly edited whatever came out. Why is Din on buddy terms with R5 when we know he hates droids? What was the purpose of the Pershing story in relation to the whole show? What exactly was the central conflict of the show? Why is Disney working with incompetent writers?

Season 3 was comically bad. It's like it was written by lazy temps who didn't care about anything. Nothing made sense, the show kept breaking its own rules, dialogues were terrible, the pacing was all over the place, the villain was absent from the story up until the very end, there was no conflict, no tension, no meaningful character growth, no nothing. Just 8 episodes of pure nonsense and irrelevant filler. I can only imagine how amazing this season could have been if it was written by people who made 'Andor'. We could have a very interesting conflict between Moff Gideon and the Mandalorians. We could see the tension between the Armorer's cult and Bo Katan's crew. We could see Din finally ditch his dumb religion to become his own man... But no... The writers decided to undo all of the progress, revert Din back to season 1 state, bring back Grogu (whose arc fkin ended already in Season 2) and waste time on complete BS. They had Giancarlo Esposito! An excellent actor who played Gus fkin Fring in two of the best shows of the last 15 years. And what did they do with him? Nothing. He was boring af, had zero charisma and was such a non-threat, there was literally no tension during the final confrontation with him. Such a waste!

THANK YOU! I gritted my teeth and worked my way through Mando S1 & S2 in the hopes that there would be a satisfying payoff. I hate-watched Book of Boba Fett, and endured Obi Wan. I finally stopped watching Mando after S3 E5, because I just couldn't take it anymore. Your analyses made it clear I didn't miss anything. Aside from Andor, these live action SW series are such a let down. I don't have the time or energy to treat all of this like homework. And I shouldn't have to in order to follow/enjoy/appreciate them. Favreau and co. are out of their depth and it shows.

Tbh you have a lot of good points, especially in the plot. The entire final plotline of the season doesn't happen unless the following just happens A: Gideon magically knows that because two Mandalorian clans form a alliance immediately means the race is universally united in retaking Mandalore despite having no established inside knowledge on their groups B: the Imperial Remnant immediately decides that if Mandalorians reunite it'll be followed by them hunting the remaining Imperials C: the Mandalorians don't go to the Capitol and instead a random forge Gideon just happens to be set up exactly there D: all this happens because Gideon's mando kill boner is so unexplainably strong he's being irrational and going out of his way to restart wars with the mandalorians

It would’ve been so awesome to see a season of the mandalorian be about… yanno… the mandalorians… we should’ve gotten a whole season about them retaking mandalore and having the small scale guerrilla fights. Also, ditch Grogu

I spent the entirety of my time watching the crocodile attack in the first episode asking why the covert set up shop in a place where stuff like this apparently just happens sometimes and then still bothers to do ceremonies outside with no plan for if things go wrong, and then the show had the gall to have the same thing happen again later when the foundling gets taken by the flying thing

It’s pretty insane how 8 years ago Star Wars was still a respected property with good books and a great animated show. And how quickly and throughly the property has been completely destroyed. Literally everything being destroyed one after another until there’s nothing left but garbage and painful mediocrity. I used to like Star Wars and looked forward to it. Now I literally just want it to stop and there to be no more content for it.

Without that buildup, Gideon's seeming heartbreak the actor conveys in the scene where he laments that he won't experience what he could be with the Force, the scene falls flat and seems infantile, just because we haven't really gotten much for Gideon that would make us even remotely empathetic.

The scene where Mando hands over the darksaber contains some of the worst blocking and editing I've seen in recent memory.

"You haven't earned the spectacle." Is the most concise and clear critique of the current era Star Wars I've ever heard.

Gideon was a suuuper weak villain in this season. Immensely weak. For all we know, he survived, and will return perennially. Another Palpatine I suppose. Can't wait.

☝️🤓 Paz's Jetpack powered his gun so when it overheated it stopped working

Correction : the entirety of the Mandalorian is a waste of time. Never bought the hype since Season 1, and now I feel vindicated.

You can't even say Mando is a good splice of life type of series, because the plot in each episode is never explored and the actions they take is always questionable. God bless the writers of Andor, they really do a good job of making me not want to completely dismiss this fledgling IP

I think there were some decent moments of action but I wouldnt be surprised if they have as many flaws as the throne room fight that distracted me with pretty colors the first time I saw it in theaters. Paz Vizsla's fight was pretty epic. I also thought mando had some good moments, some of the red laser wall scene was really interesting.

It’s real strange to go from Andor to The Mandalorian.

THANK YOU!!! I was wondering if I was crazy for thinking the season wasn't good cause I got so much hate for it whenever I'd voice my opinion. But the "And then" storytelling you described is the precise way to explain why this doesn't work. I kept making the argument that the show didn't feel like it had a goal in mind. We as the audience all wanted the Mandalorians to unite and retake their homeworld but the characters didn't make that clear that that was the main conflict until halfway through the season. This literally feels like they had 3 other shows they were working on that they just jammed into Mandalorian On a side note, I was furious that Mando got next to no character development (again, got a lot of hate for this), but then the last episode decided to act like he was the main character again. It was the exact same problem with Book of Boba Fett, where they're acting like this character went through this great change but they didn't show any of it. You know what might have been interesting? Bo and Din working on him utilizing the darksaber. Maybe talking about what it means to be a Mandalorian, what they can agree upon, what they can't. Maybe talking about what the future of the Mandalorians is, what mistakes were made in the past and how they can work from them. Maybe Bo talking about all the mistakes that she made that led to Mandalore's destruction, culminating in the reveal about her surrender to Gideon. Maybe explain how she had her chance and squandered it, and Mandalore needs a new ruler. Maybe after learning everything about this, Din makes the argument that she is still the best person to lead the people (I can't actually think of a good reason here. This excuse that she's walked both ways is flimsy as far as I'm concerned) hence why he turns over the Darksaber to her using the logic of the Mandalorian rule to his advantage (if she surrendered it to Gideon, doesn't that technically mean that he wasn't the rightful ruler? We're still in gray territory here since Palpatine should technically be the ruler after defeating Maul, meaning Vader becomes the next in line for defeating Palpatine, then either the Darksaber has no owner or Luke is the owner, this transitive property ruling kind of made everything more confusing). Maybe we get to see this loyalty develop between them, not as a romantic pairing (what's wrong with you people? She's at least 15 years older than him) but as a team

This episode was kinda the Rise Of Skywalker of the Star Wars shows. It was so incredibly patchy, and Gideon his whole function was to be be band aid for an incoherent plot. It all feel like the writers knew what they wanted without having a plan how they wanted it. I mean Moff Gideon actually had a decent plan from a material point of view: Mandalorians have good gear, get their gear and equip Stormtroopers with it. That'll make them unstoppable right? (Forgets that it also requires skill and training to use that gear). And Oeh I think I'm much smarter than everyone else so I think I'm going to be the new Vader Palpatine. So I pretend to be helping the first order for their funding but instead use it for myself. Palpatine wants a force sensitive Clone right? Oeh I found a guy who can make that work, but instead I want that power for myself because the only difference between me and Palpatine is that he had the force right? (Forgets that just having a high midichlorian count doesn't by default make you good at the force). So to prevent the rest of the Empire from finding out, I have to make sure that Doctor Pershing is eliminated. Oh I also worked on cool robots that were nearly unstoppable, let's augment my special Darth Mando armor with that so I also have incredible strength. Okay but how will I make an entrance? Umm so the New Republic is incompetent and fails to respond to threads, so let's create an artificial thread by funding pirates to take over this backwater planet so that I can swoop in and save the day. (Forgets that that planet used to be the home of a Mandalorian cult). Oh no Bo Katan and Din Djarin want to go back to Mandalore which could potentially throw dirt in my food, so let's just bomb her house and intimidate her with a crap ton of tie Interceptors. And as soon as he had all the material needs, he just blindly assumed that he already won. And he accidentally reunited the Mandalorians and prevented Palpatine from ever creating his perfect force sensitive Clone. Gideon was a villain who did good in his attempts to do bad. Which kinda makes him an interesting villain but they really messed up with the overal execution.

That shot you had at 14:47 where you compared the first episodes of season 1 to season 3 really hit me. The first season was very well made and had so much promise.

The story refused to let a man be a main character and hero (Mando just becoming useless and Bo-Karan getting the dark saber) and they will not let go of their marketing and toy cash cow (Grogu). It was successful because the higher ups weren’t ruining it by shoe horning in useless things.

To answer your question of what to watch next : Andor. Again

To answer the question at the end I really recommend The Expanse, if you haven't watched it yet. Andor reminded me a lot of that show, and I would really be interested in what you think about it.

Disney buying marvel and Lucas film is possibly the worst decision the company ever made because every step of the way they have tried their best to ruin these properties with abysmal writing, bad directions, terrible special effects and they would waste millions to make a movie that looks like shit.

At least we had the excellent Picard season 3 showing how things can be turned around. Please watch and learn Star Wars creators

No Whistling Birds in this season. Strange.

The funny thing is, technically Bo-Katan isn't even the rightful owner of the Darksaber Darth Sidious is

People I've met seem to have a strong tolerance for season 3. They seem happy as long as the "baby yoda" and mando playing family, and they are even thrilled with Bo Katan later joining the family as the "mommy". No one cares about the pace, monologue, character development, and consistency.

Watching this season was such a drag for me. I’m glad I’m not alone. I had no attachments to any of the characters introduced, very seldom was I ever invested in what was going on because they would just shoot themselves in the foot with it anyways. I was just so disappointed. Why can’t we have more stuff like Andor?? 😭😭

The Mandalorian feels like it was adapted from a video game which makes me think: What if Jedi: Fallen Order was a show and The Mandalorian was a game?

Pretty much summed it up. 6 filler episodes, a couple of half decent ones at the end and a villain that misses every opportunity to kill our heroes until he dies. Reset back to beginning of season 1. Some what underwhelming would be a polite way of putting it.

Got to love the three other Mandalorian bodies disappearing when Din is surrounded by imperials in the final episode. You can see at 13:55 they fall and then at 13:59 there appears to be only one waaaay away from where they fell.

They actually did get to the high ground in season one when they saved mando wich is quite ironic

People surprised Season 3 was so poorly written... like, did you not watch Season 1 and 2?? It seems so obvious to me but maybe I'm missing something. Maybe we were just blinded by the nostalgia bating, quarantine, and yoda on a stick.

I got far more enjoyment from watching my kids eat than this show

Just realized they never showed what the heck happened inbetween Grogu leaving the jedi temple to when he ended up where Din met him.

Whenever Disney know that a series will sell regardless, they half-ass it. And then when they have something new or obscure that can't guarantee clicks, they go full force into it. We have the good series which use unestablished characters previously uncared about: Andor, Rogue One, TFA, (debateably) TLJ, Mando 1&2, Then we have the shit series which use extremely well known characters that everyone loves: Kenobi, Book of Boba Tea, TLJ (debateably), Rise of Skywalker, Solo, and now Mando Sn 3. Hell, you could even potentially say the same about the prequels (easy to sell, shitty movies) and the clone wars (show about what was the least popular era of the genre at the time). From this trend, I expect Ahsoka to be perfectly average seeing as she is a somewhat popular character.

When you said, "It's like they expect you to be scrolling reddit and needing to be pulled back periodically" is incredibly true since I did just that (this season was way too boring)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go rewatch Andor and remember what a good live action Star Wars show looks and sounds like.

Best critique and review of Mando season 3 👏👏 you explained all the reasons why this season felt hollow unfortunately, even though on a surface level it appeared to be moving the story forward.

a while ago Favreau said that they don't have an ending in mind for Mando. If there's one red flag in story telling to me at least it's people openly admitting they have no final vision or end goal they can build towards. S3 feels directionless in every way

We had been suffering through season 3, and eventually our 11 year old reminded us that he didn't ever catch the very first couple of episodes of season 1, so we let him watch. Holy crap, NIGHT AND DAY. 😖 I had wondered if it was just a case of Andor being so good (which it is*), but Mando season 3 really was just awful. We had to force ourselves to watch the last couple episodes "to get it over with". * Andor is the only Star Wars show I've gone back to rewatch, and I already hanker for a third go at season 1. 😍

So refreshing, thank you for your video. I don't even know where to begin. I tried to like the show and not start with my negative cynicism that I have acquired due to the past disappointments in Disney Star Wars. This could have been an "easy win" for them, to show us that there is still great stories to be told and deep characters to be discovered in the universe. But they couldn't even do that. I am just so done with Star Wars and I hate to say it, but I just want to see the numbers keep going down so they will somehow somewhere have to turn this thing around. If not for anything else, just for the sake of profit, finally telling stories again that fans love to see.

Personally, one of the things I would have preferred to see would have been Jack Black, a former Imperial bureaucrat, be a connecting point between the A and B plots. Have him be a former economic advisor which is how he escaped punishment. His position as married royalty of a neutral planet and partial owner of a resort planet essentially allows him to launder credits and act as a semi-impartial bank for extending loans to the Imperial Remnant. His dealings with the Mandalorians can still be to recognize Mandalore as another neutral system for political gain, and then, fully knowing that Mandalore is a wasteland offer to trade foodstuffs and other necessities for the low price of that Bes'kar. This gets him three things here. First, he gets an in with the Mandalorians, which can be called in as troubleshooters. It also gets him second, a general timeframe about when the Mandalorians will be heading to Mandalore, which he can give to Moff Gideon to set the ambush for them. And Third, if all else fails and force forbids the Mandalorians win, they are still his allies, and the Imperial Remnant still gets the Bes'kar necessary for other projects. Additionally, that would have also set up great tension with the queen, who needed him because of his money to revamp her world. Could have set up the Star Wars Imperial version of Goldfinger instead... *gestures vaguely*

This is probably the worst tv show I've ever watched all the way through cuz I'm basically forced to as someone who wants to keep up on star wars because I have hope for all the good series that could potentially be built off of the mandalorian. So sad

How is mando fireproof? I know he has armor which covers 80% of him but he wears a goddamn cape which after beeing engulfed in flames is still unharmed. Just like his neck his wrist his gloves. He could at least get hot…

A friend of mine said he thought the season was good. I then asked him how those Mandalorians got to that desert planet. He said "by spaceship I guess." I asked him if that were the case how come Bo Katan and Din had the only ships? And how did they expect to relocate like they said they would? He was stunned that he didn't think about that and he just went "that's right, why would they write it like that?"

Hot take the exact problem of this series is trying to have a plot. The solution is Mando and Grogu should literally be adventure of the week bounty hunters with the through line being "hey lets explore mandolorian culture and religion while having a nice father son story in the outer rim". They keep trying to tell too many connected major world affecting stories, Not everything needs to be affecting the entire universe. Just have Mando be mando!

Me? I'm gonna go watch Andor and look for details I missed the first watch through.

And like, there's so many fixes they could've done. One, book of boba fett: if they needed to bring in Mando to make the show interesting, they shouldn't have made the show. Mando can show up to help, but don't make it a mandalorian episode. Two, agency: why does Mando care about mandalore? He goes there to have a bath, and then that's it for his motivation. Have him fail, so that's when he and Bo find the imperial base, who stop him reaching the waters. Three, Mando cult: either have them competent, or dont have them. If the cult was just vizla and the armourer, fine. But if you're going to pull a legion of them out of nowhere, make them useful. Four, nevaro: look how good and prosperous it's become. Oh, moff Gideon nuked it into nothingness because of his previous defeat there. The only survivors being the mecha suit if you need that grogu toy sales. No pirates Vs cult battle, just straight up the cult shows up too late. You can still setup how useless the new republic is, so nothing changes there. Five, getting help. Why does Mando care about getting Bo's old team back? They don't have any stakes in the original that needed their help. He'd bathed and the cult had a nice home on nevaro. In this fix, the cult showed up too late at nevaro because they somehow had no ships. (How did they land on that desert mountain planet in the first place, who knows??) No says she has a fleet, from which they can take revenge and retake mandalore from the known imperial base. Six, beskar: the imperials try to make beskar items, but lack the skill and knowledge of the mandalorians, so all they manage is clunky shields, which look like raw metals.

I love your layout for the Mandolorian season 3. More time should have been spent on planet Mandalore and a few more episodes with Moff Gideon. Since they can yield, why didn’t Din just fight Bo Katan and lose? Would his bounty hunter rate go down?

Shows to cleanse your palette? Andor, even if you’ve already watched it. Going from Mando S3 to Amazon’s RoP is definitely not the answer..

thank you so much for making this. I've been waiting for someone to call out all of s3 bs

This season was pretty much my jumping off point. Anything moving forward won’t be seen because I don’t go to the movie theaters anymore and I don’t have Disney+ anymore. Good luck, Star Wars.

I think the reason the mandelorians were not allowed to fly is because if the sequels flying troopers were a surprise, despite them flying all the time in the clone wars.

I imagine a version of this story where they try with only the cult to take mandelore, stumble upon the imperial base, and take a big L as episode 3 and 4. Then have to rally allies and lost brothers to retake their home. Maybe a remaining jedi, like Kal, ends up helping out. Maybe the empire finds their hideout and assaults them along the way.

the darksaber "must be won in combat" not just taken

I gave up after Season 2. The thing that made me give up specifically was the whole battle where Boba Fett joins and Grogu gets kidnapped. Remember how first season took a step back in scale and showed Stormtroopers and such being a real threat to people? How in the final episode the heroes were held in the building by a threat of a blaster turret set up against the building? Yeah, Stormtroopers are a joke again, and a same or similar turret is set up, misses a whole volley on a character running and then gets taken out. That's when I realized that the writers and runners of the show either misunderstood what made the show good, or just gave up trying (or were pressured by their overlords). Cherry on top was the final assault where Cara's blaster stops working so she just grips it like a club and keeps going forwards to bash people with it - you know, an unarmored person rushing to bash people with guns.

Well said. This season suffers from a lot, and it's unfortunate because of how good the 1st and 2nd season were. I just wish die hard Disney dickriders would just knock it off with the toxic positivity and accept that this season had no care or love behind it. It was a bland, uninspiring, rushed product wheeled out to make money because Din and Grogu are very popular characters. Also, anyone else notice the awkward cut at 8.22 during the finale? Gideon looks like a CGI character that reset to a base position lol

They did show his jet pack broken and it powers his gun, so that is one thing that actually made sense

The fight scenes in episode 7&8 were great imo Especially that one scene were mando smashed a Jet Trooper in the the ground, breaking his neck and continues to shoot at him. That was hard

People will never be able to convince me that the Mandalorians who stayed on Mandalore after Bo-Katan left are not traitors to her. There's no way that you as a group, especially one as hell bent at living YOUR specific way of life doesn't notice something as major as a remnant of the Empire coming in and building a base on your planet. That would be like if a group moved into your neighborhood, knocked a few houses on your street down while your parents are away, then you have to explain how you didn't even know there was construction outside when your parents came home.

Jeez why is every season, show or movie getting bashed by some RU-vidr. Wel I liked the how....

THANK YOU. I have no idea why people have been saying they enjoyed the finale. I thought it was completely pointless. Predictable when it wasn't being completely disjointed.

My head canon is Prequels, Jedi games, Andor, Rogue One, and Original Trilogy

no comments on last episode where the silly praetorians flailing around while puppet grogu wiggles in the lights?

The writers of this season of television deserve to be fired. I'm assuming they know how to write a lot better than what they vomited onto the screen for this one. This was minimum effort bottom of the barrel storytelling

Totally agree with the poor cause and effect in the show's storytelling. So many details, big or small, had just no logical continuity or consistency. I was also so disappointed by how much potential the show had that was never fulfilled. It can be valuable to take a step away from the main plot and explore an adjacent subject like the New Republic and its inner workings (something Andor did beautifully with the ISB/Senate), but like you said, it proved completely irrelevant. Taking the time and effort to treat the retaking of Mandalore as a important galactic event, perhaps across another season to let events and character developments breathe, would have given the arc a much better pacing, continuity, and payoff. More broadly, it would have been the perfect opportunity to explore the New Republic's politics, leaders, and challenges (something Disney has given almost no thought to so far) through their negotiation of a politically complex, flashpoint conflict on their struggling borders. Considerable story infrastructure about the New Republic was already in place over the show's three seasons, but the show didn't use it for any meaningful purpose because it placed the struggle for Mandalore in an absolute vacuum, a minuscule event between maybe a couple hundred people that took no more than a few days, and that had zero apparent effect on the galaxy around it. TLDR: Scale, stakes, and cohesion with the rest of the Star Wars universe were almost entirely missing from this season.

We need a supercut of Mando S3 and Book of Boba into one great. Non-filler, well structured actual season 😢

The whole season had the same problem as TBOBF and Kenobi.. I just didnt care at all about what was happening. Okay it was fun to watch, but I didnt give a shit about what anyone did. I was only excited about the next episode because I knew it would be cool visuals from a universe I like, but nothing I care about.

i dont think a handful ties can even break a Arquitens shields that easy

I didn't watch season 3 of the Mandalorian (I have an extremely low tolerance for poor writing and like to wait to see some independent reviews first) but doesn't some of the stuff mentioned here retcon the event of the Star Wars Rebels animated show?

"He was giving his clones the force" That's not how the force works!

Didnt they say in the clone wars series or another series that the beskar deposites had been depleted? 🤦‍♂️

What's worse, this show directly followed the brilliantly written Andor series, which just makes it look even more juvenile. Honestly, after they completely discarded the entire point of the Season 2 arc in two episodes of Book of Boba Fett, I didn't have high hopes for Mando S3. Now having watched it, I found myself scratching my head as to why they felt it so necessary to bring Grogu back so quickly. The character (I use that term lightly) served virtually no purpose this entire season. So why did they abandon the most compelling part of Din's development as a character following the Season 2 finale? Even worse, they didn't even acknowledge any of that in Season 3!! This was all sloppy, lazy, pointless storytelling that does nothing to excite me for a Season 4...

Remember when in season 1 every bounty hunter used tracking device that seemingly worked on universe distance to detect the target and point you his way? Yeah that was soo stupidly overpowered, soo strong they decided to forget about it immediately so the Imperial Forces didn't find Grogu next day. In season 1 things happened because plot demanded it, Mando and Grogu walking in cave and out of nowhere people attacked them? I was soo taken out of immersion back then, i spoke with my friend and he was praising season 1 while i was not impressed at all. Something already back then didn't work for me.