The Mandalorian – Chapter 24: The Return S3 E8
No, Luke Skywalker isn’t walking through that hanger despite the obvious connotations of an episode titled The Return.
It’s up to the Mandalorians to get themselves out of their own mess this time. And this time that’s more than enough.
The episode, directed by Rick Famuyima, didn’t lack for action at all packing enough fight scenes to feel like the final act of a Star Wars film.
Things got off to a bit of an odd start as Bo-Katan and her crew were being pursued by Moff Gideon’s beskar stormtroopers. This again calls into question the need for Paz Vizsla’s questionable sacrifice since he would have been more effective bottlenecking the troopers in the hole Bo-Katan created instead of fighting them in the open hangar area. Still, Paz killed off all the troopers before getting killed by the Praetorian Guards. Ideally they’d be the ones chasing Bo and crew only to get cut off by the bombs she and Koska placed.
Din Djarin fights off the two (?) troopers taking him to the farthest prison block possible with a little assist from Grogu and IG-12.
Everyone’s favorite reclamation project droid, R5, gets a big moment helping Din get past the ray shields on his way to Moff Gideon.
This invoked a little Phantom Menace vibe with the shields going up one at a time. Although there were better fights this episode, this might have been my favorite as Din leveled up with new weapons as he disposed of another pair of Gideon’s elite guard.
The Mandalorian survivor captain takes Bo-Katan and her crew to a cave where a garden is growing. Mandalore was presumed uninhabitable after the Empire razed it, but now there’s signs of life.
Last episode was titled The Spies, who we didn’t really see seemingly implying that one of Din Djarin’s allies was a traitor. The birds swallowed those bread crumbs on that one as neither of the prime suspects — The Armorer or Axe Woves — turned. It’s just as well since they’re cool characters and didn’t need to turn heel just because.
Axe assumed sole command of the starship to distract the Imperial fleet en route to destroy it, but they completely whiffed on stopping the mandalorians escaping in the smaller crafts on their way to the planet’s surface.
While the Empire bombs the starship, the Armorer is back with reinforcements. Time to take back Mandalore!
Din discovered Moff Gideon was cultivating his own backup clones and promptly destroyed them. It’s clearly established the Empire is firmly in the camp of creating clone backups. Gideon might have been a few decades ahead of the rest of the Empire, which might explain Snoke. Bless writer Jon Favreau for attempting to draw some connective threads to the Sequel Trilogy.
Predictably, Gideon isn’t happy and goes after Din. This is a solid fight scene even if it’s slightly lopsided. And we get a typical mid fight cliffhanger as the Guards return and destroy IG-12 forcing Grogu to hop around to avoid getting killed.
Bo-Katan, Koska, The Armorer and the Mandalorian red shirts battle the beskar troopers in a fun jet pack battle. Fuyumiya helpfully has Bo ignite the dark saber, The Armorer using her tools leaving Koska as the main focus shooting her blaster to avoid any visual confusion. It’s a tremendous take on the standard Star Wars dogfight battles.
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Bo helps Din with Gideon so he can help Grogu. Gideon sufficiently wore Din down so the Force-assists from Grogu were vital in balancing the odds for Din.
Thanks to the dark saber, Bo’s able to battle Gideon on more balanced terms right up until Gideon destroys it. It’s a testament to the writing that the destruction of this sword felt so important.
Din and Grogu help Bo fight off Gideon, who still seems too powerful for them to beat. Good thing Axe has that flaming starship delivery set for the hangar. Axe does the smart play and bails after steering the ship to the hangar so he can make it to season 4. The same probably can’t be said for Gideon, who gets caught in the explosion and dies.
For all his scheming and planning, Moff Gideon actually didn’t make much of a mark this season. But if he had the foresight to create clones, he probably wasn’t dumb enough to have all of them in the same location, right?
Grogu used the Force to create a protective bubble around himself, Bo and Din. Nice to see his use and control of the Force improving.
With Gideon dead and his forces routed, it’s time to restore the luster and the forge back for Mandalore. There was a nice full circle moment as Paz’s son gets bathed in the Mines of Mandalore waters.
Din wants the same for Grogu and to keep with tradition, adopts Grogu so he can be his apprentice so now on he’s Din Grogu. Now they’re off to basically do Grogu’s trials on their own separate adventures, which seems like an easy setup for Season 4.
To line up work and re-establish his bounty hunter cred, Mando asks Capt. Teva to hand him any Outer Rim gigs. That’s an easy way to come up with Season 4 plots.
Din asks for another favor, which allows him to complete another early season task — getting the part needed to build IG-11 again. Now he can be the marshal for Nevarro. So yeah, no chance The Return was referencing Cara Dune either.
Greef Karga sets Djarin and Grogu up with a patch of land all for him providing them with a base of operations in between gigs. Djarin looks like he’s ready to read the Sunday paper while Grogu goes Force fishing with toads again. What a remarkably calm and chill ending.
At times the season veered too much into Bo-Karan’s arc, but the focus of this season finale was squarely on the title character. This was a very satisfying conclusion to the season while giving Djarin his freedom to walk his own course again while still being a Mandalore in good standing.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney