"The Mandalorian Season 3" We Waited for This???

 

    Look, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed previous season of The Mandalorian, and I did enjoy this season of The Mandalorian at times, but I feel really let down with the overall product given to me. Was the quality down? Yes, but it's a Disney+ show at this point low budget is the norm not the exception. To me, what was the real issue was the amount of good content provided. It reminds me of a high quality chip, except the bag is 90% air, so you barely get any good chips. Like don't get me wrong the good parts were phenomenal, I do love learning about Mandalorian lore, but at the same time, good lord was this season filler galore.

    Let me start with my biggest gripe, Grogu. This mother fucker does not need to be present, or exist any further in this season. I understand the need to sell toys, I understand that Star Wars can be camp, but like, his character is so useless. This is most evident in the first couple of episodes, in which he pretty much does absolutely nothing, and then it feels like there's some random "cutesy" Grogu scene because each episode is mandated to have at least 3 in order to sell some toys. Look, I don't hate Grogu, I just hate how he's pretty much just a useless prop, like if you're going to have him, at least have him do something.

    Well, at least not in the way they do it in the finale. Look, I understand, it's cute to have Grogu controlling a robot, but it was pretty ridiculous, and watching him just use it as they were trying to do a serious and epic finale was so, so goofy, and I'm glad it was destroyed in the finale. On a side note, they really tried to make Grogu seem like he was useful by having him do the most random force stuff at the end, especially when it was proven in both The Book of Boba Fett and previous season of The Mandalorian that he's not that proficient in the force. By the way, just be glad I'm not mentioning how egregious it is that Mando leaves Grogu with Luke at the end of the last season, and he just randomly gets him back because of a The Book of Boba Fett episode you had to have watched.

    The idea of him being an afterthought is most evident in the finale, because Moff Gideon does not address this little green fella ever. Keep in mind, the reason Mando and Grogu first became entangled was because Moff Gideon was obsessed with making his clones force sensitive, but then when he see's Grogu in a droid its whatever. did he just find another force sensitive baby? I don't know, I guess casual fans wouldn't mind it, but it just seemed very random, I expected some sort of interaction between them.

    Oh and don't even get me started on the finale, because once again, it suffers from typical Disney+ TV show syndrome of having way too much filler and then rushing a finale which probably could have been longer because of... reasons? I kid you not this entire season followed this one simple formula, Mando has a mission, he gets sidetracked, missioned accomplished, next plot point. Like you could plot out everything that actually happens in this season very easily, because you just cut out the 70% of the season that probably didn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things.

    Also, just because I've become accustomed to the poor quality does not mean I should let it go, and Jesus Christ some of the green screen was so painfully obvious, like it was in the most basic scene too in a hallway, was it that hard to find a plain black set that wasn't to obviously green screen? I get it was a minor scene, but when you have to go through a lot of filler, these sort of scenes become that much more noticeable.

    On the topic of the plot of many of these stories, was it just me or did it feel like this season had a lot of recall and references to past seasons. Like, it became so common that the recaps were pretty much essential for anyone who was keeping up with the show, because it'd recall the most random and basic characters/scenes from past seasons and you'd be like who? Star Wars fans are most definitely not escaping the Glop Shitto allegations with this one, because I was always watching the recap and not remember a single thing about these characters.

    Now, for what I loved, and I promise I actually enjoyed aspects of this season of The Mandalorian it was pretty much all of the Mandalorian lore. Like, by far my favourite parts of this season were the small snippets when they actually accomplished anything in their goal to reclaim Mandalore, and the reunification of all of the clans. Which is why it is only more infuriating that immediately after they reclaim it, they decide to have Mando go to some random ranch and go back to Grogu and Mando adventures so that we can have even more Jack Black cameos in Star Wars. Look I don't hate him, but the voice he was using was so ridiculous I could never even pretend he was a real Star Wars Character.

Final Score: 60/100

    I feel like this score is being a bit generous, because I really did shit on this season a lot. I promise though, that all of this hatred towards what made this season terrible, was because I really did enjoy the lore parts of this season. It was actually fun to see Mandalorians fight, for them to reclaim their home planet, but it was equally frustrating to watch side plots that took up nearly the entire episode, that ultimately ended up in nothing. Like did we need to see that Imperial scientist dude die? I might like Jon Favreau, but with the way The Mandalorian is going, I'm a bit concerned with the direction of this series moving forward.