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The following contains constantly updated spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 3, which premiered March 1 on Disney+.
The Mandalorian was Disney+'s original Star Wars series, and its success catapulted the franchise into the realm of live-action television. Since then, series like The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor have kept the Star Wars content coming. However, The Mandalorian is still the fan-favorite series.
Between the adorable Grogu and the badass Din Djarin, it's hard not to love The Mandalorian. Now, the hit series is back for round three, and fans are ecstatic. Featuring more Mandalorians than ever, the first live-action appearance of Mandalore and rising tensions, Season 3 promised to be the best season yet. So, here's all the latest news, reviews, Easter eggs, theories and rumors from The Mandalorian Season 3.
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The Mandalorian Season 3's Cast and Crew
For Season 3, The Mandalorian utilized its well-established cast and crew, while adding a couple new faces. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were back as writer/producers. As far as cast, Pedro Pascal, once again, headlined as Din Djarin. Joining Pascal were Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Amy Sedaris (Peli Motto) and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Captain Teva). All of their characters had relatively small roles, but as usual, they left an impact on the series. Emily Swallow's Armorer character was also be a big part of things. Giancarlo Esposito also returned as the villainous Moff Gideon, though he didn't appear until the last two episodes. Meanwhile, Katee Sackhoff returned as Bo-Katan Kryze and practically took over the series.
Chapter 17 showed that Disney oped to not recast Gina Carano as Cara Dune. Instead, Dune was seamlessly written off of the series. Chapter 19 featured the unexpected return of Omid Abtahi as Dr. Pershing, along with former Communications Officer Elia Kane (Katy M. O'Brian). Meanwhile, Chapter 20 had a massive reveal. The episode revealed that Grogu's savior was a Jedi named Kelleran Beq, who was played for Jar-Jar actor Ahmed Best. Most fans loved his return to the Star Wars galaxy, and that was a well-deserved bit of justice for him.
Chapter 21 also had a great cameo. Steve Blum returned from Star Wars Rebels to voice the first live-action appearance of Zeb Orrelios. Then, Chapter 22 featured a number of prominent real-world figures. Lizzo played the Dutchess of Plazir-15, while Jack Black played her husband Captain Bombardier, and Christopher Lloyd played Commander Helgait. Some people loved their cameos, while others thought that they distracted from the overall narrative. Chapter 23 also had a clever cameo. Charles Baker, who plays Skinny Pete in Breaking Bad, showed up as a Mandalorian. To learn more information about the actors and characters in The Mandalorian Season 3, take a look at these articles.
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The Mandalorian Season 3's Story
Star Wars fans who missed The Book of Boba Fett might have been a bit confused at the beginning of The Mandalorian Season 3. At the end of Season 2, Grogu was going with Luke, and Din Djarin was going out on his own. However, a two-year time jump and the events of The Book of Boba Fett undid that. As Chapter 17 opened, Din and Grogu are back together as the best father/son duo in the galaxy.
The Book of Boba Fett also introduced the central plot point of The Mandalorian Season 3. Din Djarin had removed his helmet more than once, and it finally came back to bite him. He met up with the Armorer, and she declared that he was an apostate. Thus, he needed to travel to Mandalore and cleanse his sins in the Mines of Mandalore. Chapter 17 jumped right on that plot. After informing the Armorer of his intentions and making a detour to Nevarro to deal with some pirates, Djarin set out on his quest to Mandalore. On his way to Mandalore, Djarin stopped off at a moon called Kalevala. He wanted to join Bo-Katan in her efforts to retake Mandalore, but she was a shell of herself. Everyone abandoned her because she didn't have the Darksaber anymore. Bo-Katan also hinted that Mandalore had been poisoned by the Empire's bombs during the Great Purge, which looked to complicate things for Din Djarin.
Needing to test Mandalore's air quality, Chapter 18 started with Djarin making a pit stop on Tatooine, where he acquired R5-D4 from Peli Motto. Then, he went to Mandalore, which was not poisoned after all. So, he and Grogu ventured underground, where they encountered quite a few hostile Alamites. They weren't a problem, but Djarin was captured by a giant cyborg-spider-creature. Grogu went and got help from a reluctant Bo-Katan, who saved the day and escorted them to the Mines of Mandalore. There, Djarin bathed in the waters before sinking to the bottom. Bo-Katan saved him again and saw a legendary Mythosaur while underwater.
Chapter 19 picked up right where the last episode finished, but Bo-Katan kept the Mythosaur a secret, though she eventually told the Armorer. After leaving the planet, they were pursued by Imperial TIE-Interceptors, which made for an awesome dogfight that George Lucas would have loved. They won the initial confrontation, but more enemies quickly appeared, bombed Bo-Katan's castle and forced them to run. The pair ended up back at the Armorer's covert, where they were considered redeemed. That was the most exciting part of the episode, but it primarily featured Dr. Pershing, as he tried to rehabilitate himself in the New Republic. It was going fairly well, until former Communications Officer Elia Kane set a trap for him. She made nice and convinced Pershing to try and continue his cloning research. For that, Pershing was arrested and put through the trials of the mind flayer, a type of electro therapy. Kane secretly made the therapy much worse, which indicated that she might still have a connection to Moff Gideon.
Chapter 20 didn't give any more details Dr. Pershing. Instead, it focused on Grogu's past and future. A Shriek-hawk kidnaped a foundling, named Ragnar. So Bo-Katan, Din Djarini and a crew of Mandalorians went off to rescue him. While they were gone, Grogu stayed with the Armorer, who forged him a rondet. While doing so, she explained the importance of the Forge, which triggered an Order 66 flashback. Grogu remembered that Jedi Master Kelleran Beq had saved him, which was a huge revelation for fans. After the flashback, the Mandalorians succeeded in rescuing the foundling, who happened to be Paz Vizsla's son. That seemed to solve conflicts between Bo-Katan and Paz, but there's a rivalry brewing between Grogu and Ragnar.
All of that focused on the Mandalorian's covert, but Chapter 21 went back to a larger scale. The episode opened on Pirate King Gorian Shard attacking Nevarro. With no one to protect his people, Grief Carga sent a message to Captain Teva, asking for assistance. However, the New Republic was in over its head and couldn't send any resources. So, Captain Teva tracked down Mando and asked him to help Nevarro. Mando proposed helping, and the entire Tribe decided to help. So, they liberated Nevarro, killed Gorian Shard and found a new place to live. As the episode ended, it left fans with an unrelated, major problem. Captain Teva was on patrol, when he found the New Republic prison transport that had been carrying Moff Gideon. As some people expected, he was on the loose, and shards of Beskar in the wreckage indicated that Mandalorians had rescued him.
Rather than giving more details on Moff Gideon, Chapter 22 took an odd detour. Bo-Katan and Din Djarin went to recruit the Mandalorinas who had been under Bo-Katan's rule. Along the way, they ran into some interesting, controversial characters on Plazir-15. The Duchess and her husband had a droid problem that Din and Bo-Katan were able to solve. After that, Bo-Katan defeated Axe Woves to reclaim her fleet, and she reclaimed the Darksaber on a disliked technicality.
Chapter 23 jumped right back into the action. Bo-Katan rallied her forces and went to reclaim Mandalore. Unfortunately, Moff Gideon had a secret base on the planet and ambushed them. He had been mining beskar all along, and he had a whole group of beskar-wearing Stormtroopers, along with a new Dark Trooper suit for himself. Right at the end of the episode, Gideon captured Din Djarin, and Paz Vizsla sacrificed himself so everyone else could try and escape.
The finale picked up right where the penultimate episode left off. Axe Woves made it to the Mandalorian's fleet and set reinforcements to Bo-Katan and company. When they arrived, there was a massive fight between the Mandalorians and Moff Gideon's forces. Meanwhile, Grogu helped Din Djarin escape, and together, they survived an encounter with Moff Gideon's Praetorian Guards. After that, Din Djarin engaged Moff Gideon in combat, and he would have lost if Axe Woves hadn't crashed the Mandalorian's capital ship into the Imperial base. The crash apparently killed Moff Gideon, but Grogu used the Force to save Din Djarin and Bo-Katan. As the episode ended, Bo-Katan kicked off a new age for Mandalore, and Din Djarin adopted Grogu as his own child. For more details on The Mandalorian's Season 3 plot, check out the articles below.
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The Mandalorian Season 3's Easter Eggs and References
Star Wars is a very interconnected universe, so there will definitely be plenty of Easter eggs, references and callbacks in The Mandalorian Season 3. For instance, Mandalore made its first live-action appearance after being a crucial part of Star Wars lore for years. Unfortunately, that didn't happen in the opener, but Chapter 17 did have plenty of other Star Wars stuff. After meeting with the Armorer, Din Djarin went to Nevarro. There, he tried to revitalize IG-11, which almost ended badly because the droid ended up being a reference to Terminator and classic zombie horror. So, Djarin tried to employ a group of Anzellans (like Babu Frik) to do fix the droid. There were also Purrgil and a Bo-Katan appearance in the episode.
Chapter 18 reintroduced the droid R5-D4 from A New Hope, and the droid helped Din Djarin explore Mandalore. The end of the episode will have massive consequences because Bo-Katan saw the legendary Mythosaur. She didn't share that information in the next episode, though. In fact, Chapter 19 was mostly about Dr. Pershing. That made for a perfect Snoke connection and showed the Opera House on Correscant, where Palpatine told Anakin the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise. The episode also featured a perfect "It's a trap" quote, which helped endear the series for longtime fans.
Chapter 20 had a huge double-sided Easter egg. The episode's flashback revealed that Grogu's Order 66 savior had been a Jedi named Kelleran Beq. And to make it even better, Beq was played by Jar-Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best. In the same episode, the monster that kidnaped Ragnar was also a reference to Mandalorian culture. It was a Shriek-hawk, and it was native to Mandalore. Chapter 21 also featured a cameo by Zeb Orrelios, which was his first live-action appearance. Meanwhile, Chapter 22 featured Christopher Lloyd as Commander Helgait, who referenced Count Dooku and outed himself as a Separatist sympathizer.
Chapter 23 turned a corner for The Mandalorian. While most of the series' Easter eggs have been from the prequels and the original trilogy, Chapters 23 and 24 was littered with references to the sequels. Moff Gideon showed up as part of the Imperial Shadow Council. On top of that, there were appearances by Snoke's Praetorian Guards, Commedant Hux and Captain Pellaeon. You can find an updated list of Easter eggs here.
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The Mandalorian Season 3's Theories and Rumors
There were a few rumors circulating around The Mandalorian Season 3. While the basic plot seemed straightforward, Din Djarin had already bathed in the Living Waters by the end of Chapter 18. So, things started to scale up after that. Some people thought that he would end up following Bo-Katan, and they ended up being right. Chappter 22 showed Din Djarin giving up the Darksaber on a technicality. While Bo-Katan started to become the series' headline character, some fans thought that she will take over and reveal the Armorer's identity as one of Maul's lieutenants. However, the Armorer's identiy remained a mystery after the finale.
Meanwhile, Chapter 19 restarted the conversation about cloning. Dr. Pershing showed up and connected his research to Snoke's future. So, fans expected to see more on the cloning front, which they did in the finale. Moff Gideon had made an army of supposedly Force-sensitive clones, but Din Djarin destroyed them all before they could be unleased on the galaxy. On an unrelated note, Chapter 20 showed that Jedi Master Kelleran Beq rescued Grogu during Order 66, and he had help from the Naboo Royal Guard. So, fans started to wonder if Padme knew about the young Jedi, though no details were given on that hypothesis.
The finale was great, but it also subverted fans' expectations on a lot of fronts. Boba Fett, Sabine Wren, Ahsoka all could have showed up, but none of them did. And no one tamed the Mythosaur either. Instead, Din Djarin, Bo-Katan and their forces defeated Moff Gideon and started a new age of Mandalore. After everything, Din Djarin adopted Grogu and applied for a job with the New Republic, which was an ample set up for Season 4. To visit the rumor mill, check out these articles.
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New episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3 air Wednesdays on Disney+.
