“The Mandalorian” is the first live action “Star Wars” series on Disney+, and it begins five years after “Return of the Jedi” (1983) and the fall of the Galactic Empire. It consists of three seasons or twenty-four episodes with eight episodes per season. After the second season and before watching the third season, you should switch to “The Book of Boba Fett,” which only has one season that is seven episodes. If you do not want to watch the entire season “The Book of Boba Fett,” then you only need to watch episodes five through seven before starting the third season. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder dos Santos), sometimes nicknamed Mando, a Mandalorian bounty hunter, has a job to find, grab and give a child, initially known as Baby Yoda, but named Grogu (puppet), to the hold outs of the Empire. When he succeeds, he worries about what will happen to Grogu, so he violates the bounty hunter code to protect Grogu, decides to discover Grogu’s origins and return him to his people, but along the way, they become an unlikely family. Will Grogu choose to forgo this attachment and resume his past path or follow the way of the Mandalore?
If you are like me and just watch the movies, you may not know about the Mandalorians, but the animated series, comics and books featured them plus Boba Fett wore their armor. You do not need to do homework to watch and understand “The Mandalorian,” but here is a quick summary. Mandalore is their home planet, which the Imperial Empire destroyed and resulted in the people being scattered around the galaxy and hiding. It is also a religious, warrior faith, and their weapons and armor made of beskar steel, which is resistant to lasers and light sabers, are crucial to the practice, but there are differences of opinion on how to practice the faith: helmet on or off. Din Djarin is a helmet on kind of guy, and he was a foundling adopted into the culture so like most newbies, he is a bit of a zealot. At the beginning of the series, he did not even realize that helmet off was an option. It costs money to get more armor, and they tithe so others who cannot afford it can have armor too. Apparently the Mandalorians and the Jedi used to work together but then became enemies. While the Jedi forgo attachments, the Mandalorians are the opposite though you would not know it to look at Din Djarrin’s lifestyle, flying around on his ship and just working. His only connections are to the Armorer (Emily Swallow), who seems to not only hold that title practically but as a high priestess, and her right-hand man, Paz Vizsla (Tait Fletcher), who are both helmet on folks.
While all people may not love Pascal, most do, and his voice acting is what makes everything work: an unflustered badass, calm dude who can handle anything. During the first season, I kept asking if he was really in the armor on screen or just knocking out an entire season in a well air-conditioned recording studio. One true believer claims that if you compare Din Djarin’s walk to Joel’s in “The Last of Us,” it is the same walk, and you know what, I’ll take it until I watch the latter because it is the best answer. There is a point when I no longer cared. Either way, it is still impressive to make an audience root for a character without a visible face who is acting with a puppet, and the puppet is a powerful baby. Who says mime is dead? That is bonkers!
“The Mandalorian” improved as it unfolded, and the last season is the best, but most would disagree with that sentiment. The first season feels like an elaborate scavenger hunt with more empty, low consequence fight scenes. Very few people died. “Star Wars” fans were probably geeked out with the rush of alien species. It did not get interesting until the fourth episode with the introduction of Cara Dune (Gina Carano), a mercenary and former Rebel shock trooper because they were complimentary equals. My feeling about Presidon’t are no secret so you know this is the truth: Carano made the series better, namely as if there were real characters, personal dynamics and stakes. Everyone else was one dimensional whether good or bad, beloved (Amy Sedaris as Peki Motto) or not (Werner Herzog as the Client). Carano owes no one anything, but it is a darn shame to see that she decided to conform and look like everyone. She gave up her special sauce, and now, it would be a challenge to pick her out even if she was standing with her name on a piece of cardboard at an airport. What is the point of standing up for your beliefs for other people and not yourself?
The second season of “The Mandalorian” starts to cook because Jedi become a crucial part of the plot; thus, the movie followers could have some fun too. Din Djarin is looking for more Mandalorians to find Jedis so he can return Grogu to them. One early episode feels like a sidequel to the “Alien” franchise, which is a great thing, but it also feels as if the creatives are losing their juice when the homages feel so obvious. The introduction of other Mandalorians leads to the introduction of the fandom’s favorite actor, Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze, a helmet off leader who wants to reunite the Mandalorians, but starts off a bit contemptuous of the fundamentalists, which means that she will not be able to succeed until she is willing to reassess her leadership style and motivation. Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) is introduced, and the series does a really excellent job of conveying how terrifying it is to meet a Jedi with light sabers and who can wield the Force. Each time one is introduced, it is like meeting the boogie man until they talk. There are also reintroductions of characters who shallowly appeared in the first season but feel revamped with added gravitas and purpose. The second season showed that it understood how to move forward more substantially. The last episode has amazing fight scenes and introduces the lore of the Darksaber.
The third season of “The Mandalorian” was delightful, well-paced and perfect because maybe I’m slowing down, but I did not know that the series was heading in that direction. Because it started slower with the world building and establishing personality dynamics, when it started to answer the question of how do you build a society in the wake of the fresh destruction of fascism, while it may not have answers, it showed what the obvious warning signs are, what the strengths are ,and had nonstop, well-choreographed action. Though I enjoy it, I’m not a “Star Wars” fan, and even I was impressed with the pageantry.
While I only watched “The Mandalorian” to prepare for “The Mandalorian and Grogu” (2026), after the first season, I did not mind. I’m annoyed that it appears to be a gateway drug and will force me to watch the other “Star Wars” television series, but if they are the same quality or reflect the same slow build to excellence that this series did, then a little manipulation was worth it.
