Grant Keegan

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Season 3 of The Mandalorian ended up being a big let down. While I found most of the individual episodes to be good, when you look at the season as a whole it feels quite lackluster and falls incredibly flat. A lot of time was wasted on episodes that just didn't serve the greater narrative well-enough. This show has more or less always been about side quests and adventures with Din and Grogu, so I try not to knock the show when it does get into side quest territory. But the first two seasons also had underlying narratives with a main story and an arc that was paced throughout the season. Here, there is somewhat of an attempt to do that, but it feels contained to just a couple of episodes and the rest of the season doesn't fit together. Therefore the finale just fell so flat for me. Also, the charm of the show seems to have warn off a bit with this season. Din was an interesting character because he was this rogue mandalorian making his way through the galaxy solo, who finds a companion and they start doing this together. By season 3, we've lost a lot of that. I do get that this feels like a good progression for the character, and I don't mind that he becomes more connected with the other mandalorians, but he also felt pushed to the side this season so that other characters could shine. Those other characters are executed somewhat well, but not well enough to justify taking so much focus away from Din, in my opinion. To me, this season was off to a great start as it built intrigue and some good standalone episodes, but as it went on it became more clear that the writing just wasn't given enough care and any sense of an overarching story in the midst of the little adventures was not given enough time. The visuals were great and the direction was very enjoyable, but everything else feels meh. And while I still enjoy these characters, I felt myself starting to lose interest in them this season.

6.1 // Decent

After season two I was wondering how they could top this. Well, they didn't.

And while that in itself didn't surprise me, because bringing back Luke was HUGE, I often felt they didn't even try. This season, while still good overall, felt like an over length movie where they did forget to cut out the unnessessary scenes. My average rating for this season dropped a full two points. And that's a lot. There were few great episodes, some good but also some really weak ones.

Din was a side player a lot of the time (which was later confirmed as being intentional). I expected this season to be about his redemption but that got dealt with very fast. The story centered more around Bo Katan which I'm absolutely fine with. I also like to have more Mandalorians in general. Now, Grogu's arc hit a wall. Aside from the finale he pretty much was there to be cute and eat something. Gideon turned into another Vader wannabe, he was more interesting in season two.

Overall this was an OK season that gets pulled down by a couple of weak episodes and weak moments within episodes. The main question for me, and I'm actually surprised to hear me saying this: do I want another season ?

Well, I still like the characters of Din, Grogu and Bo Katan and would like to see them again. But there has to be a better effort in terms of the overall story because where we stand now it seems there isn't much left to tell.

That's my impression. I have spoken.