ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - MANDALORIAN Season 3 Episode 8 REVIEW: WTF was that Season?

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Ary. And let's talk about season three of The Mandalorian and especially that finale. So for some, the season was confusing. Others think it was awesome.

But it was definitely different from the first two seasons. A little later, I'm going to be joined by Matt Singer and Star Wars super fan Pete Fletzer. But first, here's my take on the season and the finale. So first of all, I'll admit, the season was a bit clunky. But also, there was so much fan service in his last two episodes that I almost didn't care about that clunky season. Like, I'm into the entire story that Star Wars is telling. So for me, I get way too excited about mentions of Project Necromancer, Thrawn, and the rise of the First Order. And I've been following the story of the Mandalrians through four presidential administrations.

So seeing them finally retake their homeworld was incredibly satisfying for me. Also, Bo Katan wielding the Dark Sabre leading hundreds of Mandalians into battle? Awesome. Didn't and Grogu happy ending? Awesome. Grogu talking to the Mithosaur, a very cool nod for what's to come for him down the line. Plus, I like how a lot of characters got a little moment that tied the season together. R5 was mostly a pointless Easter egg, but the show did give him a moment to be brave and conquer his fears.

R-IP this Moushroid, though. And then we get to this happy ending where Gideon is finally defeated. Or is he? We'll talk about that in a second. So, Mandelor is united and reclaimed, and Den gets to live on a farm with Grogu. So this is a happy ending, but did this season actually earn that happy ending? In other words, did the season do a good enough job making us care about Bo Catan and the Mandalorians to give this ending an emotional payoff for us.

So you have to admit, guys, this was a weird, weird season of TV. Yes, yes, yes. The episode structures were way off and felt almost boba fetish. What do you mean by that? Well, in most shows, and even in Andor, when there are several plot threads, you kind of interweave them throughout the episodes. You have an A plot, a B plot, a C plot. In Andor, the transitions between these plot lines are done beautifully,

so the stories all tie together thematically. We actually did a whole video about that where we compared it to the the book of Boba Fett. Because in the book of Boba Fett, they were running two storylines that took place in the past and the present, and these storylines rarely interacted with any sense of design. Same thing in this season of The Mandalorian. Almost half the episodes were stories that were bookended by completely different stories. Now, the Mandalorian has always had this kind of cool, self-contained adventure of the week structure that all ties together in the last couple episodes. But if, for instance, that Pershing episode was sort of baffling. We begin with Den

and Boca-Tan going back to the cover. But then we cut away to Pershing on Corrassan and then just cut to Boca Tan arriving at the covert. Now, the episode was called the Convert. So in a way, I guess that also meant Pershing and Bo Katan were the converts, but the thematic link would have been way better linked together had there been just a little bit of intercutting between the two. Because the Pershing storyline doesn't come back into play for two episodes. And even then, it's just when Carson Teva wants to help pirates and Eliacane shows up. And then, of course, Teva recruits Mando and then finds Gideon's ship after the pirate battle. So it's a kind of sequel to that episode, but really doesn't follow up on Pershing or the Amnesty Program or the New

Republic at all. So that's yet another episode that has a weird bookend. Episode 6 might be the most divisive of all time with Jack Black, Lizzo and a law and order noir detective tale about droid rights, but that bookended structure kind of worked. Den and Bocatan arrived on the planet, then they had a side quest that was on their way to the Mandalorians. You actually could have cut that story out entirely, but then we would have missed out on all the fun. If you didn't think that story was fun, then you'll probably hate the episode. The founding episode used the bookend structure pretty well because it told parallel stories of different foundlings being rescued. We had Den and we also had Ragnar. But just to go back to that Pershing episode, I think it showed the best

and worst of this season. I like the story itself and I was interested in Pershing's story. And the show, the Mandalorian, is trying to widen its scope from being a cowboy space show to showing the wider universe. But I still think that the episode should have tied in more directly with the finale. But didn't the episode show that Gideon squander the resources to clone the emperor by wiping Pershing's mind? Sure, if that's what he was doing there, but, you know, we're just not sure. We just don't know. So the Bad Batch had a couple episodes where they went to Corrassant. In the first episode, they introduced the politics and this problem.

The Bad Batch don't even appear in it. But then there was a second episode when the Bad Batch arrived to help and tied directly into the story the season is telling. I guess I was just waiting for the Pershing storyline to involve the main characters on the show. But I'll admit, that's a bit of a nitpick. And you can't look at a show and criticize it because your fan theories were wrong. But still, Gideon's final plan to clone himself and make force sensitive people. It's kind of a letdown because it's sort of introduced and then just doesn't happen. The biggest problem with the season, and I'm going to talk about this later with Matt and Pete,

is that we didn't really understand what the characters wanted. What do you want? Season two ended with Den and Grogu being a part, but then they're reunited almost immediately on a different show. Season three begins with then going on a quest, which is then resolved almost immediately. Boca Tan ends season two on a quest at retake Mandelor, which fails off-screen almost immediately. So when we meet her in season three, like casual viewers haven't seen her backstory, and they don't know what is. She wants. God damn it, what do you want?

She never tried to retake the Dark Sabre from Den. She only won it on a technicality. Now, I could have gotten behind a season that begins with Boca Tan leading her troops against the children of the watch to retake the saber. And then the season would have started with a civil war between these people, a civil war that needs to be healed in order for the heroes to win at the end of the season. Now, in episode 7, we got some of Boca Tan's much-needed backstory. I met with Moth Gideon.

The ISB had reached out to me to negotiate a ceasefire. And we heard about all of her self-doubts. I don't know if I can keep everyone together. And most importantly, Den is the one who makes her believe in herself again. Your song is not yet written. I will serve you until it is. Episode 7 gave casual fans the emotional connection to Boca Tan that they needed to have all season long. There were lots of scenes that should have taken place earlier in the season,

like learning how these two groups hated each other. There's too much animosity. And this blade is all I have. I have to unify our people. Or that some Mandalorians don't even care about the dark saver. To be honest, it means nothing to me or my people. And the finale also wasted a few side characters like Costco Reeves, who is a professional wrestler in real life and has no lines in the show

and also doesn't get to wrestle on the finale. Now, the season did have a lot of storylines that I'm looking forward to seeing playing out in the future. The Return of Thrawn, Den and Grogu's Adventures for the New Republic, and there is a fan theory that Gideon didn't actually die, that it was one of his clones that burned alive. But I really hope that's not true. Death needs to mean something in these major franchises.

Five minutes later. What do you mean by that? Okay, so, like, or Dens' arc to rebuild IG-11 seemed pointless in episode one. But the resurrection did pay off with him becoming a sheriff of Navarro. The machines replaced car, dude? Yes. They took our jobs.

But now his resurrection completely undermines his sacrifice at the end of season one. characters need to start dying for real in blockbuster shows and movies. In the MCU, it was a big deal when Pietro died and stayed dead. Because, like, look at all the dead heroes who've come back, Vision, Colson, Fury, Groot. And in the Fast and Furious movies, Han was shot in the head, and now he's eating snacks again. And I guess now with the multiverse, this is the new rule. No one's ever really gone. And to bring this rant back to Star Wars, Osokitano should have died many, many times.

Cadbane was, like, still alive at the end of the Book of Boba Fett. Heck, Boba Fett is still alive after the Sarlac Pit. I'm sure even Max Rebo made it out of the bar in the Book of Boba Fett when it exploded. Like, okay, in The Mandalorian, I was briefly worried that Den might die in this last episode because there were rumors that Pedro Piscal was leaving the show. But like, I never thought Bo Catan was going to die because she's not a character. She's valuable intellectual property. See, it used to be that nobody was safe in the final episode of a season or of a show.

But now, there are no more final episodes. There's always another show, another comic, or a movie, so the characters need to stay. stay alive. It's like the difference between seasons 3 and 8 of Game of Thrones. Season 3 killed off half the cast. Season 8 had characters repeatedly escaping against all odds because the writers wanted to keep them around for one more story. Now to bring this back around to the Mandalorian, I thought the finale lacked stakes because it was so very unlikely that any of these characters would ever be killed. Now we did lose Paz Vizla. Very sad. But he was a side character. And now if Gideon comes back, it means there will never be any stakes for anyone because somebody

could always come back as a clone, and we can never trust any death in Star Wars ever again. Oh, actually, wait, sorry, Star Wars already did that. Somehow Palpatine returned. Now, overall, I think John Favro had a very specific ending in mind for this season, and he wrote backwards from there. The problem with that is, when you're dealing with the story as big as Star Wars, you really have to hold the hand of these casual fans. Give them a reason to have an emotional connection with Bo Catan at the start of the season. But when you work backwards, you tend to put story ahead of character, and I think that's what happened to story in this season. Now, in the final fight, I was on the edge of my seat when

Den and Grogo were fighting. Their relationship will always be at the heart of this show. And I think a more basic storytelling structure next season will help the show do world building in a more organic way. Now, that's just what I think, but I am joined here by two of the best. We have Screencrush's own Matt Singer and Star Wars podcaster Pete Fletzer from Around the Galaxy podcast. Matt, I want to start with you. We've talked a lot this season about how uneven and wonky it is. You heard what I just said, but what were your thoughts on the finale? And does it does it cap the season as a whole well? Does it cap the season as a whole well?

In a sense, yes, because I feel like the whole season was so kind of muddled and mixed, and I feel like the conclusion was a little muddled and mixed. So it's sort of a fitting conclusion in that sense. I think that if you just watched this episode on its own, there are parts of it that are very satisfied. that I really enjoyed. I thought like the action in this episode, all the stuff with Mando kicking butt, super cool. And as someone who has been like wondering, like, when is Mando

going to do stuff on this show this year? He did a lot of stuff on this episode. So I appreciated that about it. And I thought just generally like the sort of, just, I mean, the show always looks great. And there's so many talented artists and designers and effects people who work on it. It always looks good. And I thought this episode looked particularly. good and just had a lot of cool visuals and moments where I was like, yeah, this is, you know, kind of what you want out of this show on a technical level, visual level, that kind of thing. But after it was over, I did sort of like sit there as the credits were rolling going like, well, why did we do all of this? What was the point of this season if the end of the season was

going to be basically sort of where things were at the beginning of the season? Like, yes, everything has changed for all of these Mandalorian characters over here, who are now sort of over here. And I assume we will see them again, of course. But it's like, at the end, the big ending was you have to adopt Grogu as your son when they've been acting like father and son for the entire season. Like, I didn't even really think that they weren't father and son. I feel like people refer to him to Grogo.

as his son, as his kid. Think your dad was the only Mandalorian. Go save your kid. And then she says, well, now you have to go off and have your adventures on your own. Which, again, as someone who doesn't know Mandalorian lore outside of the show, maybe I'm supposed to know that. I was like, wait, we just spent this whole season building this new Mandalorian society. And now we're just going to leave because of reasons? Why?

And so what you get at the end is kind of what on a previous video I feel like I complained about, which was like I miss the original concept of the show, which is kind of where it wound up. So then I'm left going like, why did we do all of this to get back to a place where the show is about Mando and Grogu having adventures on their own? And I guess I just don't understand why we did it. And there were parts of it that I really enjoyed. but I feel like this could have been like the first episode of the season, almost, and we could have seen them doing the things that presumably they will do, as opposed to spending all this time where this season was really not even about them.

It was ultimately about Boca Tan and the Mandalorians reclaiming their planet, starting this new society there, which our hero and his sidekick are not going to be a part of, at least in the immediate future. So I'm left going, well, why wasn't that a Bo Catan show? Why wasn't, you know, with maybe a guest star appearance from Mando and Grogu? Because that's kind of how they felt a lot of the season. They felt like guest stars in her story. It's not even a show that I dislike.

It is a show that I at times really enjoy. And other times I am totally baffled and puzzled by. I feel like in so many things I've written this year, baffled is the word that I use. I just sit there and I go like, why are we doing this? What has this got to do with anything? Where are we going and why? And that is sort of how I felt at the end of the year, at the end of this episode. It's like, there were some really cool parts about that.

I still do not understand why that was the third season of The Mandalorian. And maybe Pete or Ryan, you can explain that to me. I would love to know. Well, it's a, like I said earlier, I do think it's the kind of thing where they started with the ending and they worked backwards from there. And I would not be surprised to find out that Lucasfilm forced the Dengrogu reunion early. Because again, I've mentioned this before. I don't like to talk too much about what's not in the show, but you can't help but wonder if the two of them were still separated throughout this entire thing, the whole season,

or for half the season, whatever, we'd be thinking, oh, gee, when are they going to be reunited? And that last shot, you know, with the Irish shot of them at the end, would have meant so much more if we had them apart for longer. Again, I know we didn't get that. I'll let it go eventually. I just really think they should have spent a few episodes apart. Pete, what about you? What are your thoughts on the episode and on the season as a whole? Did we get a satisfying conclusion? I think overall, I really enjoyed the season as a Star Wars nerd, somebody who knows all the Clone Wars backstory, all the all the all the the lore that goes along with it. But my concern was that maybe people who don't know all that, aren't able to follow that. And I think what happened at the end of the season,

at the end of this episode was it didn't matter. I think there was concern that if I don't know Bocatan's story, I'm not going to really feel for what she was all about. Or if the armor doesn't turn out to be Rook cast, we've been ripped off because this is what the expectation is. But the reality was, if you go in as I reference on my show all the time, I reference my father, He's the 75-year-old Star Wars fan who watches the movies, the live action, doesn't watch any of the animation, doesn't know anything about the comic books or the novels, but enjoys it, right? He's the guy who liked the Rise of Skywalker and didn't have the problems that people like me were like, why would, why did they call it a Wayfinder, not a Holocron? Like all those sort of details. If you take it from that big perspective, that big fun approach, it was easy to understand.

Boca Tan was one-time royalty, gave her people up in an attempt to save them, was dealing with guilt, and was driven to save them. The armor was the leader of the extremist version of their society and was driving din in another direction. So they played different and opposite sides. But ultimately, I think at the end of the day, this was a story that was driven from episode one, starting on Navarro, collecting the bounty, and ending on Navarro with the bounty as his son, which is a really fun arc. To the point that Matt was making, though, why was all that other stuff in there?

You could have done this in four episodes, and I will freely admit that. However, I think, and again, as you were saying, Ryan, it's very difficult to judge and make assumptions about what's going on behind the scenes, but I feel like the news that Dave Faloni is doing a movie is a big insight as to why this,

this season went from adventure to adventure to world building. And I feel like it was important. It was the biggest missed opportunity in season three was it couldn't decide if it wanted to be the Adventures of Dinn and Grogoo or if it wanted to be world building for the larger Star Wars universe. And as a result, people, again, if I bring it back to where I started, people like me who love the lore and who spend way too much time with it, it was great. But it also led to my expectations being different than where it went. For people who just wanted to see more of the story that we started, it was great. Like I said earlier, I think a lot of what they told us in episode seven is information that for the casual fans should have been introduced much earlier in the season. For instance, the divisions that exist between the Mandalorians, the fact that these people are sworn enemies.

Very important. The fact ends people don't care about the Dark Sabre. the fact that Bo Catan surrendered to the Empire and all that. That is all stuff that, like, as we're getting to know Bo Catan, for people who only watch the live action, that really should have been in episode one or two. I don't know she could have told Den all that. Who knows, right?

So I think that kept a lot of people, maybe like Matt, from connecting to her as a character. And what you're saying, and Matt, what you've said really makes me appreciate Captain America's Civil War. Because even though it's a poor adaptation of the Civil War comic book and how epic that was, that movie did a great job of upending the stakes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at that point while also making us want to see what happened next

and introducing characters we wanted to see more of. That movie introduced Spider-Man and then introduced Black Panther who then spun off into their own films, and it did it in a really cool, compact way. So, Matt, my question for you is, is more of a casual fan who hasn't been in animation, did anything from this season make you go, well, shoot, yeah, I want to see more of that in the way that maybe season two did with Asoka? Not necessarily because it seemed, you know, the difference would be like whereas on season two of the Mandalorian,

these characters would come up for like an episode and then disappear. This season, those, it wasn't like one episode with the Mandalorians. They were the season. You know what I mean? And I feel like we got the story, right? I mean, I'm sure there are other stories you could tell. But we followed them from this disparate people on different worlds to now they're all back together on,

Mandelor. The main thing I wanted to see more of after the season was the Mandalorian and Grogu. That's what I felt like I didn't get enough of this season because it did so often feel like they were afterthoughts. You know, like their big storyline was reuniting on the book of Boba Fett. And then they were just sort of along for the ride here. Like, I often found myself wondering, like, what is Din thinking in all of this? What does he want out of this? Does he agree that all the Mandalorians should get back together? Does he, you know, when she's, when the armorer is saying it's okay to take off your helmet, Bokitan, is he thinking, yeah, I would like to do that. Can you, can I take off my helmet or not? Like, I just,

they were just introducing all these sort of aspects that I felt like you could potentially use to dig into the character. And they just, and they really didn't, you know, and he got more to do, physically on this episode, but he really was not the focus, I mean, for most of the season, especially after, I guess, episode two, where he does his sort of Mandalorian baptismal in the Living Waters. It was kind of like, you know, like, when they set that up in episode, one, you think, okay, well, this season is going to be about his quest to redeem himself, but it ultimately really wasn't, I mean, and so. Do you think that's because of expectation? Do you think we,

ultimately what they did was they we all believed i think i think every if you were to talk to anybody who watched the first two seasons your expectation was even if even with the fact that assume that you knew that grogou and din got back together during book of boba fat which i'm still i'm split on my my feelings about that i think we all walked in and said this is going to be the adventure of din getting redeemed and they took a a turn on us is it because of the expectation because I still think it was an interesting story. The way I was describing it earlier to a friend of mine was it feels like they were taking it an epic tale

and trying to shove it into an adult novel, right? And I think that we have to remember sometimes that Star Wars works on those multiple levels. And so, again, I keep, I don't, I think it's a challenge that I have to keep saying as a deep lore nerd, I got something different out of it because that is going to be a challenge from a marketing perspective moving forward.

As long as that bolus, that top level, that 80% of the market understands that who, Bo, and the armor were basically, if they were enjoying the ride, and it sounds like, and Matt, it's fair, you might not have enjoyed this ride. This might not have been the ride you were expecting. And that's a totally fair perspective. And I think, I guess what I'm going with this is it is that expectation. It's what I brought into episode eight. Like, this is what's going to happen.

I was tweeting about my predictions. My show last week, we did nothing but predictions. every one of them was wrong. And that's, that turns, that sometimes changes the way we can enjoy the content. I guess, you know, if you want to say that, um, my expectations were that the show called the Mandalorian would focus on the Mandalorian, then yes, my expectations were not met. But that doesn't seem like an outrageous expectation to me. You know what I mean? Like, and I wasn't sitting before this season started going, oh man, this season is going to be about his. quest for redemption. That's what the first episode of the show this season was about. The show

set that expectation for me. And then they resolved it in episode two and we went off in this other direction. And it's not that, oh, my expectations weren't met. It's that they told a very, again, not necessarily bad, but baffling story where they introduced the stakes, resolved the stakes in episode two, and then continued for six more episodes kind of floating around this character following this other story, which wasn't, again, not necessarily bad, but just I did never really sort of fully understood why we were telling this story. And even by the end, I don't. Like, I can go, okay, well, because I know they're making this movie, that they, I can assume that inevitably this planet that they've now reestablished will come into play, whether that is in a Bocatan show,

or within this movie or in another season of another show down the line, I can sort of understand that this setup that they have created will play out somewhere else. But it felt to me like a setup. It did not feel like a tale of the Mandalorian that he was essential to. And it even ended with him leaving. It would be one thing if at the end of the show, it was, okay, well, now we have Mandelor is back. And Din, you're the president or the vice president. or the sheriff of Mandelor

or you are going to be on the council that rules this place and we have reset the status quo where all of this was really important and it makes sense within the context of the show and where it is left and again who knows maybe season four

will be about all that and they'll throw away this cliffhanger ending that they gave us and they won't be hanging out on the western frontier on their little space homestead maybe that's what's going to happen but what it seemed like

they said at the end was this is your journey with the mandolarians is done for now go off on your own have your own adventures just the two of you basically return to the format and structure of the earlier seasons and good luck may the force be with you that's that was what i got out of all of it yeah and based on what you're saying it feels like they they put world building in the middle of this and they completed the three season arc and put world building in the middle of it which again, is not everybody's cup of tea, which I think is where the different perceptions

come from on this. And again, there's no wrong way of looking at it. I think you're both dancing around kind of the same point, which is no story really works if you don't know what the character wants. As Ivana said, every character should want something even if it's a glass of water and you can't emotionally connect with them.

Like, the fight in this episode is awesome. Bocah, Jetpack, Dark Sabre. It was great. The best fight, though, was when Den was going off to save Grogu, and when Grogu stepped in between him and the Praetorian Guards. Because there's rumors, you know, that Pedro Pascal wants to leave the show or this or that. So you're genuinely, like, the stakes are raised because I connected with those characters. The problem with Boca Tan this season was, when we meet her, she's despondent. She doesn't know what she wants, which is fine for a character to be there, but it's hard for us to connect to if we don't know the reason why.

You know, the fact that the typical fan does not know this backstory, and she was given the Dark saber and lost this and she lost Mandelaar twice and all this stuff. She's just somebody who like we hear, oh yeah, off screen, I wanted to take back the planet, but I couldn't because I didn't have the saber. You have the saber, but I don't care anymore. She seems like somebody who doesn't want anything, which makes it really hard for us to connect with her on an emotional level. Now, we got there eventually. I think episode seven, the best scene was her and Den talking on the, or Jaron, whatever his first name is, the two of them talking on the boat and him saying, Your song is not yet written.

I will serve you until it is. You know, that really got me. That's the only, like, non-Grogu thing that really connected with me this season. So, where are we at there? Like, was there a connection with these characters toward the end? You know, I think there was,

I think by the end, to your point, there was certainly a connection to Bo, to Dinn, to Grogoo. I still am not sure how I feel about the armor. I've gone so back and forth. And I can't disagree. I think it started in a strange place. And part of that journey this season was getting to understanding what Bo really wanted and what it was all about.

So did we get that connection? By the end, I would put this one, I always wonder, the best way for me to feel like if I care about a character is to worry if they're going to be killed in those situations. I was worried we were going to lose Bo. and that made me realize, okay, I came across in that. The rumors, there was a chance we were going to lose Dinn. There's no way we're losing Grogu that thing prints money, so that he was not going anywhere. And I was actually more concerned about Axe Wove's than I expected to me.

So I think I connected more with him than the armor, and she's been around for three seasons. And that's kind of a, that's reinforcement for the comments you guys were making, and I can't disagree with that piece totally at all. Matt, is there any interest in seeing anything going forward from this apart from the continuing adventures of Denigrugu? I don't know. I mean, if the fourth season of this show is going to kind of be what the last scene promises,

like, I mean, it's kind of exactly what I was asking for a couple of weeks ago. I, like, wrote a whole piece of, like, this show has kind of gotten away from what it originally was and why I liked it. Like, that, they pretty much ended it being like, yeah, okay, maybe. Maybe that's the show we should get back to. So I would be sort of looking forward to that in terms of other stuff. I don't know. I mean, Ryan, to your point about the characters, like, I feel like we are kind of saying

the same thing. Like, when I'm saying, like, Din was kind of lost in all of this season, it's like, and I'm saying, like, I don't know what he felt about all of this. It was like, you know, there really wasn't stakes for that character necessarily. or at least I didn't understand them, you know, and I didn't really understand a lot of the time what Boketam wanted or the armorer wanted. I still don't know that I guess I understand that. I guess maybe I do that they just wanted their planet back and to be altogether. But then again, like, why did they have such differences that couldn't be resolved before? It doesn't really seem like they did anything to work through, you know, I think Ryan, you might have even said, like these people hate each other and they've been fighting for centuries and all that. Like, I didn't really understand. I didn't really get that from the show,

and I couldn't tell you why they were or why they kind of got back together. So... Yeah, and some of the things you've mentioned were, like, they did explain in the show why they didn't return to the planet, because they thought it was radioactive. They did explain, like,

then Bocatan saw them at the sore, and the armor was like, well, you're special, so you can take your helmet off and unite us all. Like, there were these reasons that were told, but I guess not felt in a way that was like... It was dialogue. They just sort of, yeah, they introduced. something and then they kind of like deus ex machina it away you know it's like we've spent

how many seasons about the all importance of the dark saber the dark saber the dark saber the dark saber and then in this episode someone squishes it and it breaks and that's the end of it forever apparently and i hope so i hope they don't bring it back and here is you know this is something that as someone who is a quote unquote casual fan like they've impressed upon me that this is like the most important object in this story universe right that this is the all important McGuffin and then in this episode it's literally like somebody goes and breaks it with their bare hands and then says it's gone forever and I'm just like well why did we invest so much time you know it's not like it even got it was used to kill Moff Gideon it didn't really

it could have been I think that's kind of the point of a lot of those things that that Ryan brought up the I think the point of the this piece of the story was that the old ways, the, the, uh, the superstitions are the things that caused the problems. Let the dark saber go. I mean, didn't even said that one point, I only know of this weapon what you taught me. To be honest, it means nothing to me or my people. And the whole helmet thing, that's what means something to them, uh, which means nothing to Bo's people. But when when, um, when, um, when Bo said, you know, we fight ourselves, together we're unbeatable or something like that and we're the only ones who defeat ourselves. That to me was the,

the overarching story. And that's why at the end when they all kind of said, you know what, put all our differences aside. We'll get the planet back. We've lost the dark saber. We've lost, you know, we've lost some of the, the key elements of what we are, but we're still together and we're still forming our society. So to that point, to the question that you asked, Matt, do I want to see more of that? I'd love to see more of Mandelor, but I feel like that's more of a Clone Wars type of story in that I think it's going to need to get into that really nerdy stuff that I don't think the rest of the fan base is going to care about.

I almost feel like, and this is a strange endorsement of the show, but I almost feel like I don't need a season four of the Mandalorian after this. I feel like Den with his feet up and Grogu playing with frogs is where they went. They went from being a hardened bounty hunter story and a missing child to a union and a unit that they are now. That's a happy ending, which in Star Wars doesn't happen very often. So to have that happy ending, I felt like was that's what gave me closure. That's what allowed me to, after watching it and going, that's not what I expected, to thinking about it from that perspective and saying,

this is one of the only character arcs that is complete from beginning to end. And even if he did take a sidecar in a lot of the adventures in this season, he did get his full arc, which again, I think is kind of rare in Star Wars storytelling sometimes. I take your point, Pete, about the Dark Sabre and letting, you know, go of the old superstitions and all that. I think that's fair, and it could be interesting. I guess I wish the show had actually played that up. I don't feel like, you know, that the show itself, like, you're kind of adding some text that the show could have used. There could have been a scene about that at the end between the armor and Bo Catan or the Mandalorian.

Instead, the last thing we see is them doing another ritual, the Living Waters ritual. So they haven't completely given up the old ways, you know. So I think if they had hit on what you're talking about, I might have actually really liked that. and I'd sort of like the explanation you're giving, I don't know that it's, I kind of wish it was there in the show more than it is. Well, let's be honest. What this season really needed was for the opening scene to be Boca Tans' Mandalorians attacking Den for the Dark Saber, and Den's covert for the Dark Saber.

If they would have started at a place of absolute animosity that we would have understood, then their reunion at the end would have meant a lot more. And there should have been some line at the end where somebody says, oh, are you going to reforge it? And Bocatan's like, no, for our people. And this is a curse, and it's caused nothing but harm to our people. I think that they would have benefited from that being a little bit more overt than subtle along the way. Well, I want to thank both of you for joining me. Pete, where can the people find you? They can find me on social media at ATGCast, and you can listen to our podcast wherever you find find podcasts around the galaxy.

And Matt Singer, where can the people find? find you. I'm writing every day at screencrush.com, and you can follow me on Twitter at Matt Singer. Matt's articles are a gift to Mandalorian fans and fans of anyone of anything ever. It's absolute great pieces on the site. And of course, we want to hear from all of you down in the comments below or at any of us on Twitter. Let us know what you thought of the season and the episode. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. You know,

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Thank you.