Credit: Inside the MagicLast week’s penultimate episode of The Mandalorian left our heroes in a perilous situation: Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) had revealed his return, unveiling his new and improved Dark Trooper armor and battle ready status from his hidden base on Mandalore. Our Mandalorian heroes are in the fight of their lives — and fight for their home — as this week’s finale begins…
We see Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) making her way through the tunnels with their group, asking Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides) who is jetpacking into the upper atmosphere, to warn the rest of their fleet.
Elsewhere, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) manages to escape his captors with some old school physical violence, and the help of Grogu (Baby Yoda, playing himself) in his mech suit. He says to Grogu that he needs to be brave and be ready to fight as they can’t keep running forever. He tells Bo-Katan via communicator that they are going for Moff Gideon. We see a squadron of TIE Interceptors and bombers leave the base, headed for the fleet. Gideon is tracking Djarin and Grogu on a map and says he will deal with them himself.
On the surface R5 is given an important task of scomping into the base and getting Djarin the location of the command centre. He dodges a mouse droid and manages to send the details to him.
Woves has made it to the capital ship and delivers his message of action, with the Mandalorians leaping off the hangar and down to the drop ships ready to support Bo-Katan. Woves is at the helm of the beleaguered capital ship to run the decoy.
Djarin and Grogu have made it to the command centre and he gets R5 to help him deactivate the barrier shields in sequence. He has to take on pairs of guards one at a time with increasing weaponry.
Meanwhile, R5 is discovered by a confrontational little mouse droid, who he zaps but who then returns with friends. After getting Djarin to the door, R5 flies off back to the surface.
At the command centre entrance, Djarin finds rows of tanks with what appear to be Gideon clones within them. One awakens and looks at Grogu just as Djarin triggers a destruct mechanism on them all.
With Bo-Katan’s group, they retreat to a surface cave that is a lush garden. The survivors planted indigenous plants to try and keep the flora growing. The Armorer (Emily Swallow) informs Bo-Katan that her reinforcements have arrived and as a unit they drop into action into Gideon’s base, Bo-Katan and the Armorer leading from the front.
Within the command centre, Gideon reveals his plan: his clones were going to be Force-capable, making an unstoppable army. Djarin launches into battle against him as the Praetorian Guards emerge. They quickly overpower him as Grogu leads them away. He and Djarin are separated as Gideon pulls him back.
Grogu is forced to leap from IG-12 and use his Force jumps to dodge the guards in the ceiling panels. As Gideon is about to strike down Djarin Bo-Katan intervenes and tells Him to go save his kid. She’s got this. She and Gideon enter into a ferocious battle.
Inside, Grogu is about to be killed when Djarin makes it to him. Together the pair begin to fend off the guards. Grogu is using his Force abilities to support in the fight.
On the surface, we see Woves directing the crashing, burning cruiser towards the base. He warns them to get out of there as he’s incoming, but Bo-Katan is busy in her fight with Gideon, who breaks the Darksaber within his fist. Djarin arrived to reinforce her. “Mandalorians are stronger together,” she says, as the three of them begin to hold off Gideon just in time for the cruiser’s impact.
We see him vanish into flames, but within the inferno, Grogu protects Djarin and Bo-Katan with the Force.
Some time later, we see the Armorer at the waters below Sundari, inducting Ragnar (Wesley Kimmel) into The Way with the Creed. Next up is Grogu. The Armorer says because he cannot speak he is too young. Djarin adopts him so that he can provide permission, accepting him officially as his son. He is now Din Grogu, Mandalorian apprentice. They must leave Mandalore to go on the apprentice’s journeys. Below the water’s surface, we see the Mythosaur stir. At the Great Forge, the Armorer and Bo-Katan relight the flames.
Later, we see Djarin and Grogu arrive at the New Republic base, greeting Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). Among the trophies there is an IG droid head that Grogu babbles in recognition of, but Djarin reminds him it isn’t his old friend. Speaking to Teva, he says that as they no longer have the resources to sufficiently protect the Outer Rim and hunt Imperial remnants, so he offers a business proposition to assist them. Teva says it is against protocol, but Djarin says he will accept the deal as he knows it’s a good one. In return, he wants the scrap droid head for parts.
In Nevarro, Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) offers Djarin the deed to a cabin outside the town that he and Grogu can call their own between adventures. In return, Djarin gifts him IG-11, a new marshal to protect the town, self-sufficient. At their cabin, we see Djarin take a seat while Grogu plays with a frog. All is at peace.
This Is The Way (We See The Mandalorian Finale)
Has The Mandalorian ever been more video game than that sequence where he had to take on a pair of guards, one at a time, with increasing levels of difficulty before facing off against the final boss? Not a complaint, just an observation. In many ways this lean finale episode embraces the ideology of ‘the final fight’, despite presumably things continuing in the relatively near future.
But perhaps this is a sign of this book, concerning Gideon and this particular sect of the Imperial Remnant, closing. Three seasons is a good run for one bad guy, especially one who has already made a return from what seemed like a justified finish.
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But while it certainly felt like Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were closing the loop on quite a few questions, some do still remain. Katy O’Brian’s traitorous character Elia Kane is still at large on Coruscant. The Beskar found embedded in Gideon’s prison transport was never conclusively answered — was it meant to be part of the new Dark Trooper set, or did he indeed work with a Mandalorian merc to escape? And there’s still a swathe of Grogu’s past to be revealed, particularly what happened after he made it to that Naboo starship.
Things, for once, ended on quite a contented note: but as we know from the sequel trilogy, the New Republic’s efforts aren’t exactly successful when it comes to stopping the rise of Imperial ideology once again. And Thrawn is set to return, surely a blue-skinned foe that will present quite the problem for our Mandalorians, and almost certainly for one Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) in her upcoming series…
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