‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3's Finale Was More Popular Than Season 2's, Says New Data

 Season 3 of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s mega-popular Star Wars spinoff, The Mandalorian, might’ve received mixed reviews. But despite viewers’ opinions of the season, its finale was reportedly watched by more audiences than its Season 2 predecessor.

Since its debut on Disney+ in late 2019, The Mandalorian has been credited with reuniting a divided Star Wars fan base after the highly-controversial Sequel Trilogy. It quickly became Disney+’s most popular original series, raking in millions of views.

Starring Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, the titular bounty hunter-gone-rogue, the show follows the adventures of him and his tiny charge, Grogu, as they do their best to survive in an unstable galaxy after the fall of the Empire.

The series’ Baby Yoda-ness helped to bring viewers both new and old to the galaxy far, far away, kicking off a brand new “Mando-Verse” comprised of stories following fan-favorite Star Wars characters like Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson).

Recently, The Mandalorian wrapped up its third season on Disney+ with “Chapter 24: The Return.” Again centered around our team of heroes, including Carl Weathers’ Greef Karga and Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze, this season saw different Mandalorian factions reuniting with a common goal: to reclaim their homeworld of Mandalore.

Although the show still remains one of the best-rated projects in the franchise to date, Season 3 holds the unfortunate record of having the lowest audience score of the entire series. But according to new data, it looks like more people enjoyed the third season’s finale than fans perhaps expected.

Some might be surprised to learn that its Season 2 bombshell of a finale, “Chapter 16: The Rescue,” has been officially dethroned as the most-watched episode of the show—and by the Season 3 finale, at that.

According to new statistics from Samba TV, the finale of The Mandalorian Season 3 racked up higher viewership than that of the second season’s finale. Samba reported that 1.4 million unique viewers tuned into the third season’s finale over five days, whereas 1.1 unique million tuned into the Season 2 finale.

This news is quite surprising, given that Episode 1 of the show’s third season had fewer unique viewers than that of Season 2’s premiere episode. Additionally, the Season 3 finale didn’t have any internet-breaking moments on the same scale as a young Luke Skywalker turning up to save the day or an emotionally hard-hitting moment where Din removes his helmet to say a proper goodbye to Grogu.

However, it’s worth noting the Season 3 finale’s viewership numbers are still lower than The Book of Boba Fett finale, which brought in 1.5 million unique viewers, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, which brought in 1.8 million unique viewers.

Ultimately, Samba TV is essentially only a sample size of the true viewership, only monitoring smarts televisions, and only Disney+ knows the actual performance of an individual episode or series. Regardless, it still provides an interesting look into audience viewership trends and is undoubtedly positive news for the future of The Mandalorian.

Are you surprised to learn that the Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian earned more views than Season 2’s? Let us know in the comments below.