The MandalorIan Season 3 Episode 1 Review
Credit to: Disney and Lucasfilm3’s a lucky number, you know
Welcome back, y’all! This time around, we’re taking a look at the premiere episode for Star Wars: The Mandalorian season 3! As quite a few of you would know if you’ve been around for a while, this is pretty special for The Wolf Den. We weren’t around for the first or the second season, and we didn’t talk about The Book of Boba Fett due to the hiatus, so this is pretty new for us. However, I’m no rookie to the Mandoverse. I’ve been keeping a close eye on this project since the teaser reel of the very first episode shown at SDCC. Star Wars has always been a big part of my life, and The Mandalorian is what got me feeling that old nostalgic love for the franchise. I’m super excited to be talking about this series with you guys, so let me cut myself short. Without any further ado, let’s just jump right into it.
Chapter 17: The Apostate
Pros
The very first thing I noticed was just how similar this first episode felt in relation to the prequel and original trilogy. It’s fun, it’s got action, and it just feels like Star Wars. The first thing that really got my attention was seeing Mando and Grogu in the brand new N-1 starfighter. Of course it’s Mando’s ship, so it shouldn’t be this big thing, but this is the first time we got to see it in real action. We saw it take down something big with ease, we saw it dogfighting, and we saw it blast off like nothing the way it did in The Book of Boba Fett. I don’t know what it is, but this ship feels so right, the way Luke Skywalker and his X-Wing do. I do miss the Razor Crest, and honestly I’d love to see Mando get a new one to use for different things, but this N-1 isn’t bad, not at all. The Crest is just the OG, and it feels like his very own Millennium Falcon, so maybe that’s what makes me want him flying one again. Plus, it was his and Grogu’s one and only proper home. Anyway, moving on. Piggybacking off of the nostalgic feeling, there are a couple of things we see in this first episode that made my heart warm. There’s creatures in the trees of the planet of Nevarro that are a staple in the universe, so it’s great to have seen them, even for just a moment. There’s familiar types of droids that coexist with newer ones we’ve only just recently seen that fit very well in the universe, there’s familiar aliens, there’s the classic troublemaking pirates, there’s even a species from (please don’t start a war) the sequel trilogy that pops up here, and they’re actually pretty funny. I’m not a fan of the sequels myself, but the way they were used here was actually great. Everything just reminded me of why I’m a Star Wars fan. We actually got a couple of things that reference things we’ve seen in the animated shows too, but I won’t spoil that for y’all. Overall, I enjoyed everything we saw. Nothing felt like it was too much, or oversaturated or anything like that. It was just really great.
Something else that I found to be a huge pro for me, is the fact that we see the state of the galaxy through the characters we visit. We see big changes on Nevarro, we see the Armorer with Paz Vizsla and quite a few new characters, and we see one specific character in their solitude, still salty about what happened at the end of season 2 on Moff Gideon’s cruiser. There is a time jump season 2 to The Book of Boba Fett, as explained by Jon Favreau, so of course these characters have been up to quite a bit. It’s my guess that this season is only days, weeks, or months from then, so that’s allowed even more time for these characters to grow, or lose progress in one character’s situation. For Mando and Grogu, while not explicitly said or shown, it seems like they’ve gotten closer. They’re in a much tighter ship which makes it easier for Mando to show the kid a couple of things about flying, but it also forces them to be physically closer which we see as Grogu squeezes his little body between his father’s arms in one scene. The father-son bond is on full display, and that doesn’t change at all even when in the presence of others. Mando fully accepts his role as Grogu’s adoptive father, as he delivered him to Luke Skywalker expecting not to see him for a really long time, and there he is, back in his life again. The two truly are inseparable, and I love it.
Cons
There’s something that I do have a problem with, and that’s the fact that this episode didn’t make much progress at all. It really would’ve benefited by having a longer runtime, as we really hopped from one place to the next and the next and the next without really doing anything with that. Sure, we got some really cool action in one part, and a badass moment on Nevarro, but other than that, it’s almost like we did all that hopping around just to say “Hi” to some old friends. It kinda felt like a video game. We start up an open world RPG, we start from one area where we receive the main quest, go to the next area, explore, talk to an NPC and experience a cutscene, accept that NPC’s side quest when the cutscene is over, go to the next area, explore, talk to an NPC, experience yet another cutscene, finish that side quest only to get another side quest attached to the first side quest’s storyline, go to yet another area where we engage in a skirmish with a couple enemies seen in one of the cutscenes, then go to yet another area just to watch another cutscene, save the game, and turn the console off. That’s basically what happens here. While I loved what we saw, I just think this episode would’ve made a bigger splash had they really fed us more than this.
Final Thoughts
I’m so happy to see The Mandalorian back for more. I know my con for this episode was pretty harsh, but it is a genuine criticism. I think progress can be made in every episode, even if it’s small. It would’ve been nice if we had seen Mando and Grogu bonding a little more, maybe talking a little more about what it means to be a Mandalorian? Something. Anything, really. Let me not get carried away, because I did still really enjoy myself. It was great to see our old friends again, we got some cool new things to see, some nice little nods to other projects, and an overall good time. This was a pretty good episode, can’t complain too much. But what did you all think? Let us know on our Instagram, and make sure you follow us there to stay up to date on the latest and greatest entertainment news and reviews. But that’s all from me, this has been The Wolf Den!
