Loved Grogu laughing as he was running on the lights away from the Praetorian Guards.

It's utterly amazing how invested we get in Grogu without noticing it. I was near panic mode when the praetorians had him cornered.

Big shoutout to Mandos stunt guys. The fights between the ray shields were lights out.

Bo Katan in mid flight igniting the Darksaber will be my ensuring image for this season.

Grogu pulled a Kanan at the end.

Nothing will ever match the season 2 finale, but I'd put it on par with the last episode of season 1.

Felt like the Search for Spock in the caves.

I like the open ending. No doubt there is a season 4.

C@LAg said:

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looking forward to TCTTS's hate boner for the episode. *** my prediction ***
(which I agree with)

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He didn't like the Luke episode. He's probably on his way to Skywalker Ranch right now to burn the place down

So is Din the family name and Mando's first name was Djarin this whole time?! I am now dying to know.

While the finale at least featured easily the best action - and was the most action-packed episode - of the series, yeah, that pretty much sealed the deal in terms of overall suckage.

The Armorer to Mando: "According to Mandalorian Creed, you must journey to the Mines of Mandalore."

The audience: "Hell yeah! We finally get to see Mando & co retake Mandalore!"

[Mando & co retake Mandalore.]

The Armorer to Mando: "According to Kennedy Creed, you must now leave the Mines of Mandalore."

The audience: "What, what?"

I get that the mandate is "the adventures of Lone Wolf and Cub," and that for whatever reason Kennedy will never, ever allow it to stray too far from from that, but it's still a huge bummer to see the show reset to square one for the second time now in three-and-a-half seasons. They simply WILL NOT let it evolve, to the point where Mando can't even stay with his own kin, and his and Grogu's further adventures can't even be with them. His character can't have a real arc, he can't find his faith or a larger family, nor can lose his faith or a larger family. He can only remain The Loner, with Grogu forever at his side.

Seriously, it's all so stupid, and the writing is beyond juvenile...

- Also, how do they do not tease another threat of any kind? No post credit scene or anything?

- Speaking of, Gideon better be dead. I love Giancarlo Esposito, but Fevreau has never given him much to work with, so Esposito was left with no choice but to ham it up in cliched fashion with stilted dialogue and paper-thin motivation for three seasons, so I'm beyond ready to be done with him and on to someone else.

- No double-crossing spy? No traitor in the bunch? Not even Cyclone and Skinny Pete, who lived in the same, basic vicinity as Gideon's base yet never once heard or saw a TIE Fighter? I guess anything beyond super-straightforward, junior-high-level storytelling is too much to ask.

- No Mythosaur riding either? Only that last, lame glimpse? Bo just... saw it... and that was it?

- Pedro Pascal isn't going to take his helmet off not even once this season? I guess he straight up doesn't have to come to set at all anymore?

- Mandalorians can just fly with jet packs in space now? Without any kind of compression suit?

- No Pershing return? That entire episode with him was merely to set up further cloning that we never saw in-action, the results of which (Gideon's clones) were easily blown up by Mando, almost as an after thought? That whole thing wasn't a thread to Palpatine's eventual return or Snoke? Only pointless Gideon clones?

On the bright side, at least this season is finale over. Bring on Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and The Acolyte, each of which I'm genuinely looking forward to and legitimately encouraged by. Same as Andor made up for the train wreck that was TBOBF, hopefully one if not all of these next three titles can make up for what we just witnessed the past eight weeks.

The Porkchop Express said:

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C@LAg said:

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looking forward to TCTTS's hate boner for the episode. *** my prediction ***
(which I agree with)

---

He didn't like the Luke episode. He's probably on his way to Skywalker Ranch right now to burn the place down

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Ha, now you're just making stuff up. I remember not being super into the first half of that episode, but I absolutely loved the Luke of it all, and even teared up at the Mando/Grogu goodbye. It was so good, that was WHY I was so pissed that it was retconned less than two episode later, on a completely different show.

(Granted, I also remember not loving the Luke CGI, but at least it got better the next year.)

C@LAg said:

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i do not think you really hate it that much since you only made 6 edits to your post.





so far.

you put more effort into that than they did in plotting all of season 3.

but seriously. this is their flagship show.

They spend approx $12MM-$15MM per episode and we are not even getting full hour episodes.

They have all the resources available to them, but are spending 99.9%of that money strictly on FX and salaries and not actual storytelling. It does not have to be Shakespeare, So many other serialized shows across all genres are able to do much more with much less money.

We deserve better.

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For the record, it's at seven edits now.

Also, agreed. 100%. So often complaints here are met with versions of "This isn't Andor" or "It's a kids show, what do you expect?"

Well, at bare minimum, I expect basic, competent storytelling. Even kids deserve that.

You're right, for all the money they put into this thing, it will never, ever make sense to me that it doesn't have a writers room, or that there aren't at least higher-ups or a story group or whoever performing *some* kind of bare minimum quality control.

It's just so incredibly baffling.

I'm just glad the armorer didn't turn out to be a traiter after all. That would have been the most idiot thing ever imho.

Fun episode. Pretty awesome jetpack all out brawl.

Mando working with the New Republic in the Outer Rim will no doubt put him into contact with Grand Admiral Thrawn somehow.

And TIE Interceptors are sick.

sburg2007 said:

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The lack of a spy kills me. How do you title an episode "the spies" and give us nothing? I enjoyed it and glad we got some force wielding Grogu but, I could write an essay on things that bothered me.

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Thr spies are the imperials who have a hidden base on mandalore.

As a stand alone episode I thought this was pretty good, but as a finale it was weird that they left so many things they hinted at unaddressed, much less unresolved.

I may be in the minority, but I like the setup for the fourth season. I'm much more interested in Mando/Baby Yoda on bounty hunting missions than staying on Mandalore and potentially not being the main characters again. Plus I like they have a home base where they can cross paths with Carl Weathers from time to time. Hopefully they develop a clear season long arc from the beginning, hopefully involving Thrawn, to begin a push towards a movie I'm just going to call The Last Command for now.

C@LAg said:

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The Porkchop Express said:

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C@LAg said:

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looking forward to TCTTS's hate boner for the episode. *** my prediction ***
(which I agree with)

---

He didn't like the Luke episode. He's probably on his way to Skywalker Ranch right now to burn the place down

---

this is in response to your post above as well. not meant to be snarky or whatever in spite of what is written, ust asking the question.

as a book-writer, are you really not bothered at all by the bad dialogue, poor pacing, slapdash (at times) editing, nonsensical character actions, the out-of-nowhere ridiculous reveals etc., and just want something.... better?

I get you are a fanboy and all. I used to be a die-hard one too. But over the last 5 years they have made it so very hard to be one.

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I've tried to write this post a few times and can't get my feelings quite right so I'll just sum it up and not turn this into a super-long diatribe that nobody wants to read.

Star Wars is super personal to me. A huge part of my family's shared experience.

The three OT movies are my favorite movies of all time. Everything that has come since is just shading in the edges. And by everything, I"m talking about hundreds of pieces of media - the other movies, TV shows, novels, graphic novels, comic books, the video games, and the animated stuff. I inhale them all and find things to enjoy on almost every one of them. Each episode of the Mandalorian is just another drop in an enormous bucket of intertwined lore that I love revisiting, analyzing, and sharing with other fans.

When I am watching a Star Wars show, I am very rarely thinking "this is poor pacing" or "I deserve better." I am 100% invested and I take what's happening on the screen as another bit of the Galaxy Far Far Away, not someone's agenda or Kathleen Kennedy's meddling hands. When I talk to my 4 favorite people to talk Star Wars with - brother, dad, daughter, and best friend - none of us ever say "I didn't like the dialogue in that scene", we talk about the characters like they're real people, wonder about what they're thinking, talk about our favorite stuff, and what we hope happens next. I imagine for some of you, that makes me sound like the stupidest person alive, someone that Disney loves because I'll just swallow whatever they feed me.

Star Wars is a joy for me. Always has been. If that makes me seem stupid or simple or a cow in the herd, there's nothing I can do to change that opinion, and I don't even want to. I know what it is for me and I feel lucky to be able to keep enjoying it when I thought it was all wrapped up in 1983.

I agree with a lot of what TCTTS said in his initial post for this episode even though I actually enjoyed it a lot. Especially where Din has to now go on solo adventures so Grogu can earn his beskar, or whatever. Like, seriously, mf-er, did you not see him save the day like 3 times?

I have to say, a lot of shows/movies do this, but I kind of hate when a bad guy is too strong to be defeated straight up and you need to crash a ship into the planet to kill him in an explosion of fire. A villain like Thanos, sure...make him really hard to beat. A 2nd tier Imperial wannabe? Just f-cking kill him.

A few things I was surprised didn't happen, but ultimately aren't a huge deal to me. No spies, no mythosaur...bummer, but oh well.


Again, I enjoyed it all for the most part. Probably give it a solid B or B- for my taste. If it were me, I'd have cut the trip to Tatooine and the Jack Black planet, and paid off the Mythosaur somehow.