The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 8 Recap and Review: “The Return”

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 8 recap: “The Return”

The previous episode ended on a harrowing note. Din Djarin was captured, and the Mandalorians were on the run from Moff Gideon’s flying beskar troopers. It truly seemed that anything could happen. One of the leads might die, Din could be tortured and his helmet forced off, or a traitor might have tipped off Gideon, as online speculation had it.

Almost all of those threads resolve in about five minutes. Everyone is fine and the good guys win. If that sounds like a complaint, it is partly one. The finale is entertaining and well-staged in places, but it spends the tension that the season built up to this point without making the audience earn the release.

One of the ongoing problems with The Mandalorian season 3 has been the habit of setting up a high-stakes dilemma and immediately pulling the rug out. Din’s quest to find the living waters, teased as a season-long quest, took less than an episode. The tension between the royal Mandalorians and the Children of the Watch was resolved with one brawl at the chess barrel, broken up by Grogu in his mech suit, after which everyone was friends. The finale applies the same method to the cliffhangers.

The escape, the clones and R5

The bulk of the episode is the battle to reclaim Mandalore, and while the action is exciting, it all comes a little too quickly and easily. There is never doubt about who will win. Din escapes the troopers who are dragging him toward the interrogation rooms, helped by Grogu in the IG suit, and the escape is comical because the supposedly elite troopers are so bad at their jobs. Taking away a prisoner’s jet pack and weapons before the long walk to the interrogation room seems like the obvious first step, and it does not happen. It is also worth asking whether Grogu had run off with the Mandalorians the previous week and doubled back to help his father.

Axe Woves, who ducked out before the fight last week, makes it back to the capital ship in time to warn of incoming TIE Fighters. He sends the other ships and Mandalorians to the surface to help Bo-Katan, while he stays behind to use the main ship as a decoy. The Mandalorians head into the cloud cover just before the TIEs break through.

Bo-Katan and the others have taken refuge in an underground garden that survivors led them to. It is one of several, cultivated with plants grown from native species long thought extinct. The obvious question is why no Mandalorian checked on this place for at least two decades, given that plants can evidently grow there and the sun looks nice, in spite of the planet-wide communications-disrupting smog.

Din and Grogu skulk through the base in search of Moff Gideon. Din convinces the nervous R5 droid to fly in and help. R-series astromechs have been able to fly since Attack of the Clones, released twenty years earlier, though it remains weird to see them do it. R5 avoids a mouse droid, finds a data port, locates Gideon’s stronghold, and flies out to avoid capture, zapping a mouse droid on the way.

On the way to the command center, they find a room full of clones in birthing pods. All of them are Moff Gideons. One opens his eyes, which frightens Grogu. Din sets the pods to self-destruct and the two hurry out, heading for the real thing.

The Battle for Mandalore

The Armorer and the other Mandalorians arrive on the surface, team up with Bo-Katan and fly off to fight the beskar-clad troopers. There are striking images, such as Bo-Katan soaring in with the Dark Saber, but the choreography is confusing. With every combatant on a jet pack, the fight looks like a swarm of angry wasps and is hard to follow.

Moff Gideon advances on Din, angry about the clone murder. In a villain monologue, he explains that the clones were the final step in perfecting the Dark Trooper program, since they were bred to have Force capabilities. That clarifies why Dr. Pershing wanted to cut Grogu apart. The army would have been unstoppable, though building a self-destruct into the pods was a design choice that works against the plan.

Gideon summons his Praetorian guards. Grogu bravely steps in and distracts them, but ends up trapped with three of them in a separate room. They hack apart the IG armor and Grogu leaps out of the way of their energy spears. Din is occupied fighting Gideon, whose beskar armor has enhanced his strength. Bo-Katan swoops in with the assist, because she has a score to settle, and that frees Din to help Grogu.

With his father there, Grogu uses the Force to fight, knocking over the guards, pushing their weapons out of reach and stopping their staffs mid-swing. Together they dispatch the guards.

Gideon taunts Bo-Katan: will she surrender again? Give him the Dark Saber and she can have a warrior’s death. They fight, until Gideon crushes the Dark Saber in his powered gauntlet. “Mandalorians are weak once they lose their trinkets,” he cackles. Bo-Katan answers, “Mandalorians are stronger together,” and Din starts firing on Gideon, with all the subtlety the Fast and Furious films bring to a message about family.

Axe Woves, the explosion and Grogu’s force bubble

Meanwhile Axe Woves is falling out of the sky. After taking fire from the TIE fighters, he aims the capital ship at the base to destroy it. The other Mandalorians zip out of the caverns to get clear, and Axe flies out of the ship once the course is set. It smashes into the base and burns Gideon to death in the explosion.

What about the trio? It is handy to have a young Jedi Academy dropout who can shield you with a fireproof Force bubble. Grogu shows great mastery of the Force, a long way from the “magic hand thing” that Greef Karga once asked him to do.

Din Grogu, the Forge and a new deal

In the aftermath, the Mandalorians reclaim their homeworld. The Armorer relights the Great Forge. Ragnar finally completes his creed without a monster trying to eat him. Din stands for Grogu to be baptized as a Mandalorian too, but the Armorer says no: he cannot yet speak the creed, and he is too young. Din replies that he is his apprentice and ward, that a parent can sponsor him, and that he will adopt him officially. “This is the way.” Grogu is now Din Grogu, and he looks very happy. The Armorer sends them on their way so Din can train the boy through adventures.

That training includes a stop at the New Republic base on the tropical beach planet to see Captain Teva. Din has a deal. The New Republic is stretched thin and cannot patrol the Outer Rim, and Din, who wants to set a good example for his boy, will be more selective with bounties. He will catch the rogue Imperials who cause trouble, and Teva will pay him under the table. It sounds like a route to the galactic ranger series that was once planned, with Grogu and Din doing the hunting in place of Gina Carano’s Cara Dune. As a premise for season 4 it is solid.

As a down payment, they take the head of an IG droid that was decorating the bar. Back on Nevarro, the Anzellans have used the memory chip to fix IG-11, who is now the Marshal, patrolling the streets. And as promised, Karga has a nice plot of land for the Din family to relax on between adventures.

Where every thread lands at the end of season 3

• Mandalore. Bo-Katan and the Mandalorians reclaim their homeworld.
• The Great Forge. The Armorer relights it.
• Moff Gideon. Killed when Axe Woves crashes the capital ship into the base.
• Grogu. Officially adopted as Din Grogu.
• IG-11. Repaired and now the Marshal of Nevarro.
• Din Djarin. Takes selective bounties on rogue Imperials for Captain Teva.

The Mandalorian season 3 finale review

Season 3 ends with everything wrapped up in a neat bow. Bo-Katan has reclaimed her homeworld, the Great Forge works again, IG-11 is a Marshal, and the Din family has a nice plot of land. The review of the season as a whole is more critical. For this reviewer, it is the weakest season of the show so far.

The reasons are specific. It lacked the novelty of meeting Grogu for the first time. It lacked the emotional weight of Din taking off his helmet to say goodbye as Grogu went off to train with Luke. It spread in all directions and did not come together until the final episodes. There were great moments: Grogu in a mech suit was a real treat, and Din adopting him was adorable. But viewers sat through sidequests and space pirates to get there.

The plot contrivances also strain patience. Greef Karga had no planetary defenses, and Bo-Katan never trekked to Mandalore to see whether it was habitable. Everyone seemed dumber than necessary. The central premise, the retaking of Mandalore, never quite resonated.

Still, the final minutes point somewhere promising. If next season is built around Din Grogu, Imperial hunter, it has a hook. If the show returns to Grogu and Din on their own, having adventures and spending time together, it will have won back its audience. Ahsoka was due to follow later in 2023.

Sources

• The Mandalorian season 3, Wikipedia — episode list, release dates and cast