The Mandalorian Has Jumped The Shark – But It’s Not Too Late For A Last-Minute Rescue

Despite being awkwardly forced into a central position for “Star Wars,” Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” still has a lot of strong moments. It’s fun to see Katee Sackhoff bring her animated Bo-Katan role to live action, and Din and Grogu have plenty of classic adventures. It all builds toward a climactic finale where basically every loose thread in the story is tied together. Moff Gideon is defeated, Din wins the darksaber, and Luke Skywalker himself arrives to whisk Grogu away to Jedi sleepaway camp.

What’s wrong with this finale? Well, other than Luke himself looking like a weird muppet, nothing. It’s a satisfying and action-packed ending to Din and Grogu’s journey together that gives a hint — but not too much — of the larger “Star Wars” mythos that surrounds them.

Wait, that wasn’t the end of the show? Oh, gotcha. Well, uh, let’s just… give Grogu back to Din? In someone else’s show, maybe?

The arc between Season 2 and Season 3 is baffling at best and a complete mess at worst. In “The Book of Boba fett,” an aggressively mid spin-off that many “Mandalorian” viewers likely skipped entirely, Din is cast out from his covert for revealing his face, reunites with Grogu after he flunks out of Jedi school, and is tasked with venturing to Mandalore. Season 3 of “The Mandalorian,” meanwhile, even goes so far as to break Moff Gideon out of prison, thus undoing basically everything that happens at the end of Season 2. Lucasfilm obviously always had plans for more “Mandalorian” stories, but the way the studio bridged the gap to Season 3 put the whole series in a weird place.