Warning: This review contains spoilers for The Mandalorian’s season 3 finale.
The last time The Mandalorian dropped a season finale, fans were blown away by a surprise appearance by Luke Skywalker and a radical change to the status quo. The final episode of season 3 doesn’t quite live up to that Mandalorian milestone, but it is an action-packed conclusion to this leg of the journey. “Chapter 24: The Return” picks up right where last week’s episode left off, with Bo-Katan leading the Mandalorians into battle against the Imperial Remnants while Mando is taken into Moff Gideon’s custody.
The climactic action of “The Return” follows the standard Star Wars formula for a final battle as it cross-cuts between a handful of different perspectives of the same skirmish: Bo-Katan takes on Moff Gideon, Mando and Grogu take on a band of merry Praetorian Guards, the other Mandalorians take on the new generation of Dark Troopers, and Axe kamikazes the Mandalorian mothership into the Imperial Remnants’ base. In the hands of director Rick Famuyiwa, this finale episode isn’t just a half-hour of mindless spectacle. Famuyiwa never loses sight of the emotions behind the combat, like Bo-Katan’s grudge against Gideon and Mando’s paternal protectiveness of Grogu.
It’s always fun to see Mando using his wide array of gadgets, from his flamethrower to his rocket launcher, but they are essentially cheat codes to get him through the show’s action sequences unscathed. In “The Return,” it’s interesting to see Mando having to fight without the convenience of his arsenal – much like when Tony Stark infiltrated the Mandarin’s compound without the use of his armor in Iron Man 3 – as he makes his way through several waves of Dark Troopers guarding Gideon’s tower. This sequence also creates suspense masterfully as Mando relies on R5-D4 to remotely open the shield doors and R5 is interrupted by a meddling mouse droid while Mando is desperately fighting for his life.
The episode builds to a jaw-dropping climax as Axe crashes the Mandalorians’ light cruiser into Gideon’s base and Grogu creates a Force bubble to protect his surrogate mother and father from the fiery explosion that follows. This will surely go down as a classic Mandalorian moment. Not only is it an eye-popping image; it’s also the culmination of the season’s character arcs. The usually closed-off Bo-Katan has been gradually warming up to Mando and Grogu and ingratiating herself as the mom in their dysfunctional “found family” dynamic. Grogu using his immense Force powers to protect his parents is the heartwarming emotional peak of that storyline.
Gideon’s “death” is somewhat underwhelming. But he’s almost certainly not dead. He was wearing a suit of near-indestructible beskar alloy, and while he was consumed by flames, he didn’t technically die on-screen. The rule of thumb for character deaths in sci-fi and fantasy stories is that if there’s no body, there’s no death. If Gideon really is dead and Giancarlo Esposito isn’t coming back in season 4, then his ending in the season 3 finale will be remembered as a disappointment. But it didn’t seem like an official demise. It felt more like The Mandalorian’s third-season finale was faced with a Quantumania problem. Series creator Jon Favreau was caught between a rock and a hard place, wanting to keep Gideon around for future storylines while also providing a definitive conclusion to the conflicts of season 3.
Whereas the season 2 finale ended right after the action when Luke took Grogu away to be trained, the season 3 finale has a Return of the King-style epilogue with some exciting setups for season 4. After the season opened with a foundling’s initiation ceremony, it felt like a nice full-circle moment to end the season on another foundling’s initiation ceremony. The Armorer has reignited the Great Forge on Mandalore. Mando has officially adopted Grogu as his son and taken him under his wing as an apprentice. They’ve retired to a little house on the prairie and accepted jobs as independent contractors policing the Outer Rim for the New Republic. After spending its third season as the Bo-Katan show, detailing how the Mandalorians have reclaimed their homeworld, The Mandalorian will resume its original premise as an adventure-of-the-week serial about a bounty hunter and his baby traveling the galaxy in search of bad guys to bring to justice.
The season 3 finale of The Mandalorian offers up all the action and spectacle that Star Wars fans could want. Bo-Katan and her backup retake Mandalore in a glorious battle royale that demolishes Gideon’s fleet (even if it seems like the defeat of Gideon himself won’t be permanent). It’s not quite as mind-blowing as it was to see Luke slice and dice his way through a platoon of robotic Dark Troopers in the last season finale, but Mando and Grogu’s team-up gives audiences a tantalizing glimpse of the side-by-side butt-kicking they’ll be doing for the New Republic when the series returns.