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Previously on The Mandalorian: This is the Way.
The third season of The Mandalorian starts off the episode titled ‘The Apostate’, which naturally refers to the eponymous character, or Din Djarin, or ‘Mando’, or what have you. The nature of his religious cult has been a little vague even until now but he’s been called an apostate simply by the crime of removing his helmet. I believe the only two times he’s voluntarily done it are when he had to use face recognition at that Imperial place and when saying goodbye to Grogu (which quickly became negated in one of the storytelling annoyances I had with the Boba Fett show).
We see a bit of this little cult at the start of the episode as they bring a new young boy into the helmeted version of their tribe, which seems pretty young for never showing one’s face. Despite words of ‘This is the Way’, a giant gator monster attacks them all, and there’s a lot of fun little action, but it’s ultimately a losing battle, it seems — until our Mando shows up in his ship and blasts the gator.
Although the Armorer lady (who seems to be a leader of sorts of the cult) is initially resistant of Din rejoining them because of the helmet thing, he offers the idea of going back to Mandalore and the ‘Living Waters’ to redeem himself (symbolic only or mystical? Who knows yet?). A bit of evidence starts off our first Quest mission — the ultimate goal being redemption.
But first, the duo heads on their first mission, which is to get some help — it’s a classic Quest mission in that storytelling. Back on the planet of Nevarro things are now prosperous and the former criminal Greef Karga is now the High Magistrate and keeping things legitimate and hopefully on the upswing — Din mentions a lot ‘has changed’ but we have absolutely no idea how much time has changed between seasons (even Jon Favreau’s interviews about this have only confused the issue).
After driving off some pirates that work for some guy named Pirate King Gorian Shard (voiced by Nonso Anozie), a character we’ve never seen before, Mando tells his old buddy he actually wants the IG-11 to help him — the only droid he can trust. It’s an amusing moment when we cut away from the statue now disassembled, but it doesn’t work — the droid has lost his protective reprogramming and shouts out ‘Terminate the asset’ while crawling on the floor with red eyes in what is clearly a direct reference to the Terminator at the end of The Terminator.
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Din initiates Sidequest Two, which is to find a replacement memory part for his old droid pal, at the behest of the diminutive alien droidsmiths ‘the Anzellans’, seen last in the not great movie Rise of Skywalker with the decent character Babu Frik (a highlight I suppose). It’s one of quite a few references which was fun to see — there’s a whole tree of the alien creature that sat in Jabba the Hutt’s lap back in Return of the Jedi. I had to look up the alien name which is ‘Kowakian’, but I certainly didn’t have to look up that character’s name, which was the delightful stupid Salacious B. Crumb (one of my favorite dumb Star Wars names along with Jed Porkins).
But we also have Sidequest Three, which is to Defeat the Pirates, in a fun little sequence with a clear ‘this ain’t over’ ending. They certainly aren’t that scary so far, but I’m sure that’s going to change if the show is handling it well. Instead of completing any of these Sidequests, Din instead tries to complete his first one and find help by tracking down Bo Katan.
The former leader has been abandoned by her followers after losing the Darksaber to Din, and she seems despondent and insulting about the Mission — she directly insults the Cultists, which I can’t really argue with. But she does offer the location of the mysterious Waters and mocks their potential magical power — and also has the last line of the episode with her ‘Goodbye, Din Djarin’.
But is that really meant to matter? I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of any of our gang of characters here. Also, the problematic nature of the actress fired from the show is handled with a ‘Poochie returned to his planet’ line about Dune getting recruited by Special Forces. So she’s offscreen forever!
It’s a fairly straightforward, if entertaining episode — the structure of the season seems pretty clearly laid out so far, but there’s always room for interesting twists and turns. The show remains a great show to look at, with an impeccable score and Grogu is as funny as ever in his sociopathic manner. Hopefully the show only gets better from here — maybe even hit the highs of Andor and avoid the problems with Boba Fett, but I’m optimistic.
What did you think of the season premiere? Sound off in the comments below!
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