The ‘Mandalorian’ Season 3 Finale Deep Dive
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Hey, it's Sean Fennessy, one of the hosts of the Prestige TV podcast. HBO's Barry is back for a fourth and final season. And that means I'll be back recapping the show with co-creator and star Bill Hader to dive deep on the themes, scenes, and major moments in the series. Bill will provide insight into how every episode was made and why it's ending. New Prestige TV Barry recaps will go live every Sunday night when the episode ends. So make sure you're subscribed to the Prestige TV podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

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Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now. This episode is brought to you by Experian. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions. Maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for, or maybe you got some email for something and you're like, I thought I canceled that. Well,

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Add him to the song. He is too young to speak, so he is too young to take the Creed. He must remain a foundling. If his parent gave permission, couldn't he then become a Mandalorian apprentice? Yes, but his parents are far from here. If they're even alive. Then I will adopt him as my own. This is the way. This is the way.

Let it be written in song that Din Djarin is accepting this foundling as his son. You are now Din Grogu, Mandalorian apprentice. This is the way. Greetings and welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to the living waters, but also

to join us on The Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today, telling me she needs me to be brave for her, okay? It's my house afar. We're Keiko Host, Joanna Robinson. Podcast is an audio art, you know? This is like a fine, fine...

crafted piece of audio content. But I do wish our listeners had been able to see our faces as that introductory clip played. It was a symphony of us awes and ohs. Anyway, yeah, that was a little amazing journey through that adoption ceremony. Thrilled to be here. It's delightful to hear those Grogu coups right at the top of the pod. No other way to start, frankly. We're here, of course, to dive a deep

as deep as where that mythosaur is nestled, Joe, into The Mandalorian's season three finale. But before we seek shelter from the scorching flames by nestling under Grogu's protective force bubble, some programming reminders. The Midnight Boys. Pew pew! Already have a wonderful finale pod up for you. Of course, listen to that, enjoy that, if you haven't yet.

Guys will be back with you next week for a midnight court. They are doing an Infinity War versus Endgame midnight court. Without question, that will be a can't miss podcast. Really quickly, Mallory, I was talking to our lovely producer, Arjuna, about this earlier today. On the count of three, do you want to do your what your answer to this question is? Infinity War versus Endgame?

I just think it's, yes, sure. But then I have them, of course, like a whole caveat spiel. No caveats. No caveats. They will be. My MC ranking is established canon. I feel confident saying this on the count of three. It's easy for me. One, two, three, end game. Oh,

But they're both in my top four. That's the thing. So I don't think it's like arguing in favor of one even against the other. And ultimately, I think Endgame is a bigger achievement and was a much harder thing to pull off. I just... We have too much going on. We can't do it. But like,

Part of my heart was like, we should crash this midnight court and join the fray. But no, no, we'll let the boys tussle it out next week. We can never, we'll never stop talking here on the ringer verse about how we rank the infinity saga films. That's the great news. That's the great news. I was just saying towards you and I think I need to like re-rank because it's been a minute and I wonder if my opinions have changed. Winter soldier. Still number one. Number one. Yeah. That's what I said. I was like winter soldier. Number one. After that,

Do we have questions? We will also be back with you next week. Tropes course time again, Jo. We're talking magical blades. I'm so excited for this. This is a perfect opportunity. I'm just going to hop the queue here and mention our email address, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. You guys have time to email us in advance. We got a lot of post emails after our last tropes course on the lone wolf and cub trope.

But if you guys want to contribute in advance to the magical blades, it's like magical blades, magical weapons. Right. We are going to be talking about the gamers. Blade is a big tent. Hammers and wands and all that sort of stuff is going to be in the mix. And then like maybe to make sure, based on what we saw today, an important segment on like when it's good to abandon those weapons. You know what I mean? We'll talk about that. But yeah, inspired by the Darksaber, may it rest in pieces, we will be talking about magical weaponry.

and all of its tropitude next week. I'm really thrilled. I loved the last Tropes course episode. Me too. One of my favorites. It was absolutely a joy and I can't wait to keep the series going. I'm so looking forward to next week.

You mentioned already the email. How else can people follow everything that we're doing here? How can they follow what we're doing over on the Prestige TV feed? How can they follow all of it, Jo? Gosh, I'm so glad you asked me. I've been waiting for you to ask. Listen, if you want to subscribe to the Ringiverse and the Prestige TV feed, I would be thrilled if you did that. That would just solve all of our problems. But like, let's say you're not ready to commit yet. I mean, what are you waiting for? But sure. Follow us on social, right? Jomie crushing it all over the place on...

on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter, on YouTube, at The Ringer or at Ringerverse. That is something that you can do. And yeah, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com. We're still getting Apple emails. We're still getting very thoughtful theological emails. We're getting all kinds of great stuff at that. And also, by the way, sometimes people send me emails for The Midnight Boys.

I'm just going to let you guys know. I don't usually forward those. You don't tweet at them. This is a house of our email address, not a midnight boy email address. I'm just saying. Now you've already heard us play a long clip from the episode, mentioned multiple things that happened in the episode.

Should we have said this thing before any of that? Maybe. And yet here we are. You come to the deep dive a couple of days after the episode airs. You know what you're going to be hearing about. And yet it's time for the spoiler warning. Today's podcast will feature plot details from chapter 24 of The Return, which is the season three finale of The Mandalorian. Avion of it, lad!

Everything that's ever happened in The Mandalorian is on the table today. And everything that's ever happened in Star Wars is on the table today. We'll be getting into a little bit of Legends canon. We'll be chatting about books, comics with our pal Benjamin Lindbergh later today. Radio plays? I don't know if there's ever been a Star Wars radio play. Fan fiction? Who knows? Oh, I mean, always on the table. Absolutely. Okay.

Chapter 24, The Return, directed once again by EP Rick Famuyiwa, who also directed last week's episode and the season premiere of this episode, which is a tight 41 minutes, including the previous one, the intro, and the credits, written by showrunner, creator, Jon Favreau. Joanna, let's start with the opening snapshot. Joanna Robinson, first of your name, Din Robinson.

Quick overall impressions of the season three finale. Goes without saying, but we'll just say it. We are going to speak at length today about all of the things that we really enjoyed about the finale, all the things that didn't work about the finale. Same goes for the season. We will parse all of this in great detail and great length as we go. But little amuse-bouche.

Overall impressions. A little taster. A little tasting mace. A little taste of the take. What'd you think of the finale? And how are you feeling about season three overall? Um...

I will say this. When I watch episodes of the Mandalorian or any of these midnight Disney plus drops, I usually watch them either at midnight or first thing the following morning. And as I texted you this week, I had to put my phone like in a hole in case like anyone texted me because I watched it in the morning after. And like,

I will say my, my initial watch through, I was pretty disappointed. Not because we'll talk about fan theories, not because like fan theories didn't play out at all. That's not really the thing. I just didn't feel like particularly moved or inspired by anything that happened. It just felt like, um, things happened and then it was over. Um,

rewatching it again and again in prep for the pod and then like digging into some reach. I always enjoy it more the more I think about it. And so there, I found things to really enjoy some really interesting, thoughtful things happening here and there in the margin of what I would say is my least favorite Mandalorian finale of my least favorite Mandalorian season. We have some good listener emails about the season three overall, but I just want to get your, your amuse bouche take on all of this.

Yeah. I feel about the finale, I think in miniature, the way I feel about the season overall, there were things in it that I liked a lot. There are certain parts of it that brought me an immense amount of joy and moved me to tears. And then there are things about it that I found so confounding. I am really looking forward to talking it through with you today on a very long podcast. I think that this was

an incredibly uneven season that feels even more uneven because we got a couple episodes, particularly episode two and episode seven, that showed us how all of the different threads and all of the different ingredients, this very clear, central, deliberate focus on our core pairing, and also this incorporation of more figures like Bo and the wider Mandalore lore could work not only for

in harmony, but immensely compellingly. And so the episodes where we didn't get that, I found frustrating. And I think that overall, the finale ended in a place that I'm really happy to be. Back with Din and Grogu, the Din and Grogu stuff in this episode, I loved. But it left me in a way even more confused about the balance and focus of the season to this point. So real mixed bag.

I think the season power ranking for me is an easy two, one, three with, but that's not a particularly hard ranking since we were talking about rankings a little, a little while ago. I'm really fascinated to see how this finale and this season overall is

hold up over time as we have a little bit more clarity about the nature of the connected universe for this Mandoverse timeline, because that's like a lot of the dissonance that I'm personally experiencing as a fan, like where that lives still is that I think often the show is at its best when it is not attempting to partake in the connected universe that it is now definitionally at the heart of.

And yet I also am drawn to those connections. I love when characters pop up in each other's shows. I'm looking forward to the continued examination of the sequel run-up that we got in this season, the rise of the First Order, the crumbling of the New Republic, et cetera. It just is, I think, a balance and calibration thing. And I think the end point, the outcome...

where we got, what happened, often tracks make sense and is actually a thing we were hoping for. It's just about the execution and how we got there. And this was a season that just didn't master that as nearly as deftly as the prior seasons had. I think that an issue that I have... Shout out Grogu, though. He rules. I mean... He rules! What an uncontroversial take, Melody. Grogu. I am brave enough to say podcast!

That I like Grogu. Wow. If ever Mallory moves her head like one millimeter to the left or right on this, let's call it a Zoom, even though it's not, I get to see like Grogu on the top shelf of her bookcase behind her. I think something that we've been talking about a little bit but becomes more and more obvious. For me, it's not a proliferation of shows that

I'm fine with like the expansion of the Star Wars Disney Plus universe. Love content. We do love content. We love job security. But I mean, I think that something that we've been paying close attention to is this idea of like artistic teams behind various things, right? Like if Andor feels like an outlier, it's because it was pretty much Tony Gilroy's thing that he got to do over in his corner, right? And if we feel like

some soulfulness, some depth is missing or cohesion is missing from the season. It is perhaps because Dave Filoni was focusing on making Ahsoka. And so...

You know, the formula, creative formula behind the camera is different for this season. And that results in, you know, it is a reason why last week felt strong is because Dave Filoni is a credited co-writer on that episode. And so, perversely or not, as like, I think a lot of people are taking stock of how do we feel? Where is our anticipation level for future Star Wars stuff like that?

We had this like celebration podcast we did and I told you I was very like cautious about Ahsoka. I'm now more optimistic about Ahsoka because I'm like, all right, if that's where Filoni was, you know, that's what had his heart and his mind, then I'm excited to see what that looks like. So I'm...

for Ahsoka now, which is coming in a few months. And I mean, I wasn't excited, but I was more sure that Ahsoka will be the achievement of a lifetime. So I'm protecting my heart and I'm in a good, healthy place. Everything will be fine. That's fine. Everything's fine. That's genuine

how I feel about it, I'm sure it'll all be fine. But I do want to take a couple listener emails to take this beat to address this larger reckoning because mileage definitely varies. There are some people who are having just a great time with all the Star Wars content that love this season of The Mandalorian that love the Obi-Wan series. It's a fun finale to watch, by the way. The issue's not whether it's an entertaining and enjoyable 36 minutes. It's when you stop to think about the character arcs and the

CODAs, et cetera, that some of the doubt seeps back in. So, yeah, I mean, I don't mean to speak for everyone when I say some people are having like a wobble moment with Star Wars.

The way that, you know, similar to the wobble moment we're having with Marvel, perhaps, right now. But plenty of people are, if our inbox is any, Josh. We got a ton of emails from people trying to analyze their feelings around the season or their feelings for the larger Star Wars universe or, like, why they don't feel as excited as they once did. A lot of these come from, like, long-time, dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars fans. Most people...

I totally understand the instinct, but most people start their emails with their bona fides to be like, I'm not one of these Johnny-come-lately Star Wars fans. I've been a fan since blah, blah, blah. And I get that because sometimes people say, who are you to have an opinion about this? I say everyone gets to have an opinion. I think all opinions, yeah. I agree. All opinions as long as they're respectful and kind and well-intentioned are welcome. Completely agree. So this email, first email comes from Alex. We only have a few emails in this episode. Carlos. Carlos.

Killing it. Thank you. We only have a few emails in this episode. Very few, but they're long and they're very good, though. So, all right. So this first one comes from Alex, and his query is sort of, is the problem, quote unquote, if you have one, with this season, the Mandalorians themselves? Okay, so Alex wrote, wanted to get the full season in before coming in hot, but our Mandalorians as a collective are...

Aside from any inconsistencies, sub season one or season two writing, et cetera. I just feel like this season was sort of set up to fail because Mandalorians, at least the ones we hang out with on a regular basis, are kind of boring and they really doubled down on the whole, on a whole grip of them. Don't get me wrong. I love our Himbo DJ. I think he said DJ for Din Djarin, even though that's DD, but I like it. So our Himbo DJ, um,

But he's best when playing opposite and off of a Muppet. Take your pick from Grogu. I can never pronounce that character's name. I do love it. Thank you.

Queel, IG-11, Frog Lady, Bill Burr, Car Weathers, Mob Gideon, etc. He can be the straight man to the goofy pulp of the universe, and it provides both comedy of opposites and room for DJ to learn to grow and relax a bit. Star Wars has the weird thing where the way a species appears the first time extrapolates out to the entire unseen planet-slash-species. So because Boba Fett speaks in clipped stoicism and SyFy nods solemnly at people across a room in the original trilogy...

Most Mandalorians we see fit the same mold. At least Mal's fave, Paz Vizsla, R.I.P., raises voice every now and again to scream apostate. Obviously, there are exceptions. I'll admit I haven't made my way through Clone Wars. I did see the first Mandalore arc. But I really love Rebels. Sabine is terrific. But I think she and those exceptions kind of prove the rule I'm trying to lay down. Those folks just seem like joyless...

who have dope armor and jetpacks with either not enough fuel to go to the corner store or the fuel capacity to make it further than an Elon Musk rocket, which brings you back to season three. It was a lot of DJ and the covert and Bo and even Bo who was,

Breath of fresh air. We met her all helmetless and hijacking light cruisers is now a steely eyed and flinty voiced aspiring leader with a helmet that comes off when it needs to and reveal her wig helmet. Even if they're in theory disagreeing, you wouldn't be able to tell by their tone of voice. The fact that the injection of Giancarlo serving up haunches of ham gave the season some much needed verb towards the end, I think speaks to what I'm saying here. So,

A lot of caveats in here. I saw you sort of like shaking your head a little bit at one point. And I think maybe you were thinking of some of the animated Mandalorians that we met and some of the like variety of avastity that we've seen there. But if you take this as mostly like a mostly a live action assessment, which is like we are assessing this season, which is a live action season. Do you agree or disagree with what Alex is saying here or any thoughts or feelings you have about it?

I think it's a great email. Thank you, Alex. I disagree, but I think that is one more demerit for season three. If people feel that way, like that's a, that's,

a huge bummer because I don't think that you should now what I heartily recommend that everybody watch Clone Wars and Rebels of course I would they're among my favorite Star Wars properties literally ever but I don't think that you should have to watch 200 episodes of other series to be able to

appreciate the nuance and personality and variety and flair inside of a culture. And so I think that, like, especially in a season that was so rooted around the divide between Bo's camp and followers or former followers who became the followers again and the children of the watch, and we explored these, like, fissures and fractures through those two groups, it almost...

I think artificially enhanced the sense, even though it was attempting to showcase a contrast, this ubiquity of like all of Mandalorian culture. When so much of the fascinating stretches are with characters like Sabine who reject the idea of the warrior way entirely a pacifist. And so much of like what we always reference. Not a scrap of armor on her ever. No. You know, easier to get in bed and fuck Obi-Wan if you're not wearing any armor.

Bad baby. I just thought I would put it in there because it's too sad. Bad baby, but I won't say no squeezy, you know? Squeeze away, my beloved Obi. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but in the Sabine... Squeeze away, my beloved Obi is going on the merch. 100%.

I support it fully. Obviously, Alex's email toasted Sabine and how interesting she is. And I think, like, to his point, you could say, well, part of what makes Sabine so compelling is that she broke away from her Mandalorian family, from her Mandalorian roots. But, again, like,

our time with her and rebels allows us to explore the real nuance and dynamic inside the family, inside the government that led to that rupture. And then what the healing looks like. And like, when we end up meeting Sabine's father, he's an artist, you know, and they're talking about painting and like, there are just so many different aspects of like, and I'll say like, even our pals, the skiff crew, um,

One of the things with Finale, I was very suspicious after the penultimate episode. Good stuff.

After that moment in the surface cave, in this verdant, lush landscape, one of the many returns that this episode called The Return gives us, I'm like, I'm interested in spending more time with these people who have been here for years after the purge, moving from cave to cave to try to make it work. So I...

T-L-D-R, I disagree with the email, but I think that it's like borderline tragic if people feel that way after season three of The Mandalorian. But I do think season three gives you reason to think that. Definitely. And I do think that the original promise and premise of the show...

is Din as this like, because I remember when the Mandalorian season one premiered and we did like, you know, rounds and rounds of junket interviews with various creators and like, I was working with Anthony Bresnikan at Vanity Fair at the time and like the question we kept asking him was like, do you think it's a good idea to put your lead character in a helmet where we can't see his face all the time? What do you think about that? And they were like,

you know, something that Filoni and Favre were saying and Pedro would say, something like that, is this idea of, like, you know, the stoic gunslinger, the, like, it's, you know, it's almost like taking Clint Eastwood's, like, frozen, like, slit-mouthed sort of stoic face and putting it in mask form. And then you, the viewer, can sort of lay over any emotions that you want to on top of that. And so then if the idea is to take that

very stoic hemmed in figure and have him bounce off incredible cuteness or comic relief or whatever the case may be, which is sort of Alex's point is,

That's a winning premise for a show as we loved the Mandalorian as it launches. When you then copy-paste that character out, which I would agree, I think the armor is really interesting. I like Paz Vizsla more than you do. We love Bo-Katan. Didn't miss that guy in the finale, let me tell you. We love Bo-Katan, but I don't disagree that a lot of that stoicism and more and more helmeted only figures...

makes me feel more, you know, and especially coming off of a season two that ends with that incredible performance from Pedro with the helmet off and that softening, that cracking open of the Mandalorian. And so to feel like we're regressing a bit into that stoicism and not only that, but having stoic characters bounce off stoic characters. You and I have talked about this in

We talked about it a little bit with The Last of Us and a few other things, this idea of the stoic and what that character needs to bounce off of in order to make them interesting. So I see the larger point here. I don't think that it's true of like, hashtag not all Mandalorians, but perhaps...

this particular collection of Mandalorians. Yeah. Can I claim to be super compelled by Ragnar and the legions of other nameless members of the co- at least I know Ragnar's name and that like creatures like to eat him. I couldn't tell you even anything close to that about 90% of the groups of the members of the covert. And so, yeah, to your point, and I think again, this is, I was going to say the compressed timeline, which,

I guess it's not actually a valid data point because this is the same length as both of the prior ones, which didn't have this problem. But when the recruitment mission happens, every...

the absence of the depth of examination and exploration and those conversations earlier in the season between the armor and Bo-Katan, which I think we will look back as like, it's not minute one. So maybe calling it the, an original sin is not right. But I think a sin that follows and lingers throughout the rest of the season in a way that we're still feeling in the finale. So you bring in like Axe and Co and we are at the point where for the theme, the key,

the key logline of the season, Mandalorians are stronger together to land and to be true in a timely fashion for the finale to beat Moff Gideon, who also just returned. Everybody's just got to team up.

And so there's like a thematic richness, but again, this like homogeny that doesn't leave any room for an examination or exploration of how these people are different or what makes them distinct. One game of hollow chess and that, you know, it wasn't hollow chess, but you know, like one game of chess and then like that's it. Right, and that was a great scene. Yeah. We had had more moments like that. I loved that last week. And I actually, I mean, I loved...

you know, that piece of shit acts woes, but like, I love his generic acts finale. Oh my God. I loved his introduction, his reintroduction. A lot of people didn't like that fishy love story sequence, but I'm like, he's oozing personality in that. And I really liked that. I think it's really notable, something that, you know, when we were putting the notes together today, you're asking a question, but there's like one Mandalorian that we get a lot of FaceTime with who is,

The fleet commander, right? And you were like, does this guy have a name? No, he doesn't have a name. He's fleet commander. And as we talked about last week, it's survivor captain and survivor scout, you know? So like, give us, you know, if we're supposed to invest in Mandalorians, make them characters, give them names. Might be a good idea. Okay. Yeah.

So being at a name was a person. Fen Rao, we got to know. Oh, my God. Fen Rao, when? All right. And then we get this email from Ralph. This is our second longest email, and then we'll sort of get into our breakdown. Whose question is more, is the problem Star Wars or rather our expectations of what Star Wars should be? All right. So Ralph writes...

after listing his bona fides of long, long time Star Wars fan, is just fine. There's story and lore and people we know and recognize, but it's typically not really all that polished. Oftentimes the stories will ask terrific plot-centered questions that seem to be setting up more brilliant content. My example of this is The Force Awakens. I remember leaving the theater on opening night with more questions than answers, such as,

Who is Rey and who is she waiting for? How is she a Force user? Who is Finn and where did he come from? How could he wield a lightsaber? Is he a Force user? Who is Maz? How the hell did she get Anakin's lightsaber that fell with Luke's hand in Cloud City? Why is Kylo Ren so broody and angsty? Why did Luke sequester himself? I didn't care that we essentially got another movie about space Nazis and a larger Death Star. But as time went on, we either got half-baked answers. Seriously? Halby? Again? Somehow! Somehow!

Or in the case of genuinely new and interesting characters like Finn and Maz, they completely ignored the questions. It seemed like the Disney approach of just rushing our heroes to safety and selling toys took precedence. There are outliers, of course, which for me act as a ballast. Rogue One, Andor, the end of Clone Wars, Rebels, and the Bad Batch, and until this season, Mando were all provocative and had the polish missing from the other productions.

I'll point to Bad Batch and Andor in particular, which gave me the terrific writing, directing, and twists that I'm looking for. They were unsafe, thought-inspiring, and left me wondering what was around every corner. As we all know, the season of Mando came right on the heels of both of those shows, sort of, with Bad Batch. I think my mistake was thinking that we had turned a corner with Star Wars, given how objectively terrific both season one of Andor and season two of Bad Batch were.

I especially love leaving Bad Batch. I cut out a spoiler here, folks. I especially love leaving Bad Batch at a point that felt unsafe, no bow tied around it, and seemingly appropriate given the holistic story.

So, Mallory, how do you feel about this idea of like expectations of like what a Star Wars property needs to be? How deep does it need to be? How complex? How much does the shadow of Andor or something like Bad Batch loom over a Mandalorian season three? Okay. I'll try not to go on too long and winding of a journey here. And I'm famous for my brevity, so I'm sure it'll be fine. Soul of wit. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't also want to project maybe my interpretation of Ralph's email onto the email too much. I will say that this is, for me, like a two things can be true at once scenario. Of course, I agree that some Star Wars is just not very good. That's just objectively true. It's not like...

Star Wars has been batting a thousand the entire time that it's been in our lives. I think often the story of Star Wars fandom is spending a lot of time looking forward to something and then working through your feelings of disappointment on the way to some delayed appreciation that then becomes your defining experience with the original thing. But I think that this is also...

a like what we would maybe like call like prime Star Wars versus like the whole Star Wars pool kind of read. Like, I think this is much more about the Skywalker saga and the movies than the overall Star Wars tapestry. And I just think there's so much great deep, um,

rewarding Star Wars out there, which Ralph's email acknowledges, right? Whether that's the animated Filoni-verse, which is among my favorites. I think there's a number of wonderful novelizations and comic runs. There is just more good Star Wars than disappointing Star Wars. And I think what I was alluding to when I said I want to be careful not to project like a different critique onto Ralph's email, because I don't think this is what Ralph's saying, but I think other people say this. And so it made me think of it.

I think we... I think it's good and fine and important to hold Star Wars to a high standard. And I think mileage can vary on this, and that's fine. But for me, at least, like, I'm not content to go into a new Star Wars... Now, is it always a healthy thing to say this would be the defining masterpiece of Dave Filoni's life and the defining experience for me as a fan? Probably not. It could be a little more balanced in measure than that. But if we...

shrug our shoulders and say, and again, I'll just keep saying this. I'm not saying this is what Ralph is saying, but if one, if we, yeah, if one were to say like, well, it's Star Wars, like why should we expect it to be good? I just don't feel that way about it. And I think that we as fans who devote a lot of our time to this deserve quality stories in return, but also that that very line of inquiry diminishes. I, I, this like, I get, I get kind of mad about this because like, and I'm sorry, I'm Ralph.

It's not you, by all. Yeah. There's a connection to a larger, like, do we need to think so seriously about fantasy stories? Hive mind like to that, that I just find honestly kind of insulting. Well, it's anathema to exactly what we do here, which is think deeply about genre content. And I think like you can find not only can you find in genre stories, but

excellent literary craftsmanship and classic archetypal themes and a constantly progressive modern context. But you find community, you find perspective. The reason that we spend so much time in these worlds is because they have the ability to unlock something about our everyday lives for us in a way that feels new and fresh and vibrant and candy-coated and up in the sky, right? So like...

if we go into it saying it's just Star Wars, we're taking something away from what Star Wars could be and from ourselves as people who spend a lot of time in this world. And so like, I just can't do that. And I don't think, I don't think that's how we should approach the story is expecting them to just be okay. We deserve better than that. Again, this is not about Ralph, but I think- Not about you, Ralph! Not about Ralph. I'm so sorry!

I think when people approach me as they have in the last like 24 hours with it's not that deep or you're holding it to too high a standard. I'm like, it's not that deep. This is not how I feel about anything. Right. But I think that with Star Wars specifically. There's so much meaning here. Well, with Star Wars specifically, and I would say with like the original trilogy and with, um,

And with Mando season one and season two, there is that, you know, both Lucas and Favreau and Filoni are taking their inspiration from like samurai films and gunslinger legacies and stuff like that. And all of those stories are often kind of spare and kind of intentionally general stories.

That allows space, again, sort of referencing that conversation about a stoic, allows space for us as lovers of story to sort of flood our own emotions into the spaces. You know what I mean? Like if you watch a Kurosawa film, like it's often very, it's quiet. It's, you know, it's, it's, uh,

Like nature shots, like all this, you know, is there something like or, you know, a Western? It's just like it's not known for its sparkling dialogue. And so I think that we're going to get to another email later that I thought was really interesting. This idea of like the generality of the original trilogy of Star Wars and like what is the Force? Like the general idea of what the Force is makes sense.

sparks our imagination in a really exciting way and allows us to inject ourselves into a galaxy far, far away or feudal Japan or the dusty roads of, you know, Nevada or whatever. So I think that, um, I love that about the first couple of seasons of Mandalorian, um,

And I think that that depth, that sort of soul and poetry, I think I'm going to, you know, ascribe a lot of that to Filoni in those first couple of seasons. And like, even as we reset at the end, you know, a lot of people when they're trying to like silver line this episode of the season, if they didn't like it that much, the positive thing in front of everyone is like, well, at least it seems like they're resetting.

To the premise that we liked in the first place, which is the adventures of Dan and Grogu bouncing around the galaxy. And I agree. But I think with that, you need like if you take it up so like Sanctuary one, we reference all the time from season one. Yeah. And we'll again today. Nothing could be simpler than that premise. It's just the seven samurai. Like it's it's the easiest, sparest premise at all.

There is a weight to it. There is emotion to it. There is poignancy to it that I think I found lacking in a lot of the corners of this season is what I would say. So, you know, and like you would never look at something like Andor and say it's not that deep, right? But I would compare...

We were talking about like Saturday morning cereal versus like the granola that is Andor. But I would compare something like let's take the sequel trilogy. I'm not we're not even talk about Rise of Skywalker because we talk about it enough. Let's just take Force Awakens versus The Last Jedi. Uncontroversial opinion coming from me on The Last Jedi. Right. Which is that it's great. I love both. I love both of those films. I love both of those films a lot.

I don't think The Force Awakens has nearly as much on its mind as The Last Jedi does, but I still really love it. So, like...

It doesn't have to be crowded with like dense concepts for me to love a Star War, but it does have to spark the imagination, draw in the emotions, all that sort of stuff. And for some people, this season, The Mandalorian did. I'm not trying to discount those people. They exist. I have heard from you. You exist. I see you. For me, it was lacking. So that's sort of where I am at the end of the day as we make our way to the return. ♪

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Is it time? Is it time to talk about the finale? Is it time to bathe in the living waters? I was never once ready for that. Never once. Oh, boy. Joe, we have a lot to get to today. We will start where the episode starts. I say start. We'll start the deep dive. Oh, I like that mug.

Beautiful. You've said that before. Yeah, it just always catches my eye. I feel like I should give it to you. You love it so much. It's great. Would you want it? It has a deep crack down one side, but, you know, that's where the light gets in, as they say. Wow. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. Did you reforge it in the Great Forge? Of my heart. All right, let's do this. Okay. The Battle for Mandalore.

We pick up in the season finale, right where we left off last week. Bo is leading the ground troops away from the base. She is updating our buddy, Axe Woves. Gideon's alive. He's using their homeworld as his secret base. Whoops. Axe, we're going to need you to evacuate everyone from the fleet before Gideon's forces attack. Use the capital ship as a decoy. Bo says...

Can't beat them in the air. Have to beat them on the ground. Now, because these are Mandalorians and they all wear jetpacks, the ground is also the air. It's just lower. Lower air. Lower air. X, meanwhile, is... Do you remember that famous Winston Churchill, which is like, we will meet them on the beaches. We will meet them on the lower air. Okay. Oh,

Joanna, Axe is literally flying into space. Quite literally, he is flying into space. And on the one hand, I thought this looked incredibly cool. Very cool. Like, genuinely, it was just visually scintillating. Rocketeer vibes. Loved it. Yes. On the other, Chekhov's jetpack limitations from earlier in the season...

A classic? Why put it in the season at all if it didn't end up mattering in this finale at all? The jetpacks never became a thing. Everyone's fuel lasted and Axe flew up to the light cruiser. Just one more knock on Paz Vizsla's legacy, let me tell you. I'm beginning to suspect that much like Dave Filoni, Chekhov himself was not involved in the writer's room this season. Chekhov was off working on something else while they were writing Mandalorian season three. Tied up with other projects? Yeah.

Busy. Busy with yellow jackets? Oh, yeah. A reminder to check out our yellow jackets coverage on the Prestige TV podcast. There is a Chekhovian firearm. There sure is. So we had a lot of fun last week talking about who the spies and the titular spies might be.

We love to have fun on the internet. You love to say hold a theory closely. So none of the spies that we talked about were the spies and that's okay. There were still, even in this finale, a couple moments where it felt like they were setting up the axe herring in particular. When he flies out of comms range and he's like, understood, I have my...

and he's crackling out. I'm just like, yeah, this fucker is about to reclaim the light cruiser and bring it to daddy Gideon. That's not what happened. And that is, that is okay. That is fine. We will circle back to the access, not a spy thing. I'm going to take a moment on fan theories later, but this is, I mean, like I did have a moment where I was like, it was so funny watching it. Cause I was like,

Oh, we know we. Oh, we know there were a couple real. Yeah. Oh, it is going to be. It wasn't. Anyway. Yeah. Him being like breaking up. Can't hear you. Can't hear you. So funny. Oh, boy.

Down on the surface, Gideon's Imperial Commandos, Tack and Bo's squad in the hallway. We just get an incredible amount of classic Star Wars Imperial-based fighting across this episode. People falling over the edges and the open ravines. Hallway fights galore. Corners. Our beloved corners. A crevice or two, Joe? A crevice or two. Our beloved laser gates made a return that I honestly found delightful and I'm excited to talk about.

But before we spend any more time with Bo or Axe, we go to another hallway for another another little battle here. And is it fair to say this is the most important scene in television history?

When Grogu comes to rescue Din? You're not prone to hyperbole, especially when it comes to Grogu. So I have to take you at your word. This is the most important scene in television history. Yeah. And certainly the only most important scene in television history in this episode, right? Because there can only be one most important scene in television history. Maybe like a Mount Rushmore of most important scenes in television history, all of which involve Grogu doing something amazing.

Din is being transported by two of Gideon's commandos. This is...

absolutely outrageous, hubristic, monstrosity nonsense from Moff Gideon. This is an insult to Din Djarin and he deserves a formal apology. Now, does he need to be rescued by Grogu and Mir second? Sure, but he would have figured it out, right? He does like a wall kick into this guy. This is classic Bond villainy, right? You know, just like get a hench or two to take down the most unkillable spy and whatever. You know what I mean? Um,

stuff from Gideon and co. And it opens up Din just breaking a guy's neck on a Disney Plus television show. Wild stuff. We'll get some neck stabbings later, but this was a neck snapping. And just wanted to note that for the record, as we chronicled this. Shouldn't have separated a dad from his child. Yeah.

Uh, Joe. Yeah. Something happened here after Din broke one of the commando's necks, which is the other living commando, Lasso's. Din, by his neck, and pulls him toward him, and I felt a confidence...

bubbling into a certainty that this guy was about to pull off Din Djarin's helmet and show us Pedro Pascal's face. It was just going to be like Pedro for the rest of the finale. Yeah. You were like, we got one scene, we got one scene in season one, two scenes in season two. Surely we're going to ramp up to just like most of an episode. We've got 33 minutes left in this episode before the end credits. We will see Pedro's face the entire time. Of course.

That did not happen. This gentleman did not pull off Din Djarin's helmet, nor did anyone else in the episode including Din Djarin himself, despite ample opportunity to do exactly that. We did not see Pedro Pascal's face in season three of The Mandalorian. Would you care to comment? Um,

Listen, I honestly think I speak for even people who love this episode or this season to say that's a mistake to have Pedro Pascal and not use his face. Is it possible that Pedro is busy making The Last of Us? Yeah, but it doesn't take like you can still take a day or two to come to the volume and take your helmet off. It doesn't like that's not how it's not a just because they aired at similar times doesn't mean they were like shooting at exactly the same time.

Yes, his hair. No, the hair would have looked great to just see Din Djarin suddenly go gray. It would have loved. With genuine love and respect for all of the people over the recent days, weeks, months, and even years who have voiced, oh, you know, it's hard to get Pedro on set.

I am baffled by this. Peter Pascal is a working actor in Hollywood. He is not like the shape of the face of Jesus that might at some point in our lives appear on a piece of toast and we'll have to take a picture before we butter it and it goes away forever. Like he can make it to the volume in fucking Los Angeles. And this can't, this cannot, can this actually be why? That's just defies comprehension. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Uh,

And I there's a skeptical part of me. I don't I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't even say. Well, it might even be a contractual thing in terms of like how much they have to pay him if he's there with his helmet off versus like when he does a voiceover work in the booth. Like, I actually think.

that when it comes to... Face bump instead of your own favorite, the wet bump. I think when it comes to the leading man of one of the biggest shows in Disney's firmament, they probably have to pay Pedro very little because when they hired him to do season one, you know, he was like doing Narcos, but he wasn't like

you know, a massive figure. And then they're like, come in, you'll do a couple of days. And then we've got, they, they pay Latif and Brandon, I'm sure way less than they would pay a leading man on a TV show. So I don't know. That seems silly because it seems like, you know, you got the money, pay Pedro to give us his face in one freaking episode. That would be great. Um, but they didn't. And it was a mistake. That's all. Okay. Uh, honestly, tragic.

As was the absence of Cobb Vanth. Okay. A lot of pain that we're carrying. Tim might have been busy making Justified City Primeval. He was in Chicago, not California. And that actually might be like a hair, facial hair thing because like I do not want the Cobb Vanth hair in wig form. You know what I mean? And like

Tim has his Raylan Givens hair and lack of facial hair right now. So like, you know, if we need to wait, that's okay. Okay. So you've made peace with Cobb Vanth not being in season three of The Mandalorian and you're no longer mad at me that I promised you or assured you that it was a absolute fucking guarantee that he would appear in this season. No, I was never mad at you because unlike you, I do guard my heart against open expectations.

So I was cynically like, would they give me everything I want? No, probably not. I do want to say that. Not me. I'm like, here's my heart, like the hilt of the dark saber, and I'm going to put it in your souped up Pescar hand. Crash it. We'll just film. I think that, I mean, and this goes to, though, the lack of Pedro's face in this season goes to the larger questions we have around

I mean, I don't know if this is a space to do it, but like the children of the watch, like we are so convinced that they are a zealot, like a zealous cult that needs to change their ways, or at least that did needs to have some sort of growth outside of his experience with them. Yeah. Yes. And part of that is motivated by us being like, take the helmet off Pedro Pascal's face, please. We would like to see it. You know what I mean? And,

There is just a seemingly a gross misalignment between what we thought of the children of the watch and what the show thinks of the children of the watch show. Seems to think, seems to think that we just all need to tolerate our different approaches to life and that it is totally fine to live your life following the way as strictly as children of the watches. And as someone who is generally pro tolerance, I like that, especially pro religious tolerance. I like that message and,

But as someone who is generally pro Pedro Pascal's face, I have some comments, notes, questions. Let's definitely come back to that where the show came down regarding the righteousness of the creed when we get to the

The thing everyone really was holding out hope for in the finale, which was the return of Ragnar later down in the Living Waters. We will return to that. What's this show without a Vizsla, I ask you? Again, I did not miss Paz, and I will not miss him moving forward. But every time that I'm not with Grogu for more than, like, I don't know, 17 seconds, my heart yearns. And so, thankfully, he...

followed Daddy Din when Din was taken away for this debrief. And he appears, little baby, little gumdrop still nestled in his corpse car, IG-12's chest cavity, pressing that button, no, no, no, you will not hurt. And after seasons, now they've always rescued each other, right? If we think back even to

the second episode of the entire series where Grogu rescues Din from the Mudhorn, right? Giving Clan Mudhorn eventually its name or we think of the Rancor sequence in the Bova finale, something I know you're very fond of calling back to whenever we have the opportunity here on House of R. As are all of us, I think.

Or any number of other moments in between. Since the very beginning of the show, Grogu has also come to Din's aid. Grogu has also rescued Din. But I think undeniably Grogu

What Grogu does here and later in the finale, what Grogu did in the second episode of the season when he went to get Bo to rescue Din from Spider-Bot, this is one of the things that feels like the biggest season-over-season change and points of distinction for season three over seasons one and two. Grogu was the one more often in the rescuer position. But they both rescue each other, and they team up in this episode. And isn't that what family's all about?

Were you delighted to see Grover come to the rescue here? Did you love when he whipped out the Bacta mist calling back to the season one finale? I mean, well, then that just makes you think of Pedro Pascal's face again. But, but,

But this is exactly the kind of thing that Alex is talking about in his email when Grogu is just like liberally spraying Din with the spray. And he's like, oh, I'm okay. I'm okay. Like, help me up. Will you cut me? Like, that's a Muppety comedy beat with our stoic Mandalorian. And it is excellent television. Just absolutely so tender and sweet. And then we get one of the truly most wonderful exchanges in the

Not only episode, but season. Carlos, can we hear this? Will you cut me loose? Yes. Thank you for your help, Grogu. I'm going to need you to be brave for me, okay? We can't keep running. If we don't take out Moff Gideon, this will never end. You with me?

The way that Grogu nods there when Din asks you with me and he nods is just like absolute perfection. Din asking, saying to Grogu, I need you to be brave for me, okay, is like instantly one of my favorite Mando moments. That was just so wonderful. And the way that this re-centered our core duo in the episode, positioning that reset that you were alluding to earlier of centering them again in the show moving forward, that really worked for me in the finale. And it should be said.

And given that I just gave a little sermon on the mount about Pedro Pascal's face, it should be said, like, as a voice performance goes, he is so good. And we experienced this when we listened to the quote at the top. Like, when you just listen to his performance, like, it is so incredible. And I also just love the way he says Grogu. He says it differently than everyone else does. So cute. Yeah, it's great. We have a stretch of the episode after this where the various different camps, the different parties are all readying, regrouping.

So Din has to radio Bo, tell her that he and Grogu are safe. Everybody gets on the same page about the fact that Din's going to go after Gideon. He takes one of the jetpacks from the Fallen, the Feld Commandos, which I liked as a little reminder that he had been disarmed. He doesn't have any of the gadgetry, any of the weaponry that he's going to need, which sets up the mission of needing to retrieve blade, electro staff, shield, etc. later. Bo says...

Gotta get the troops to safety. The captain says, I know where we can hole up. And just like with Axe breaking out of communication range, I was like, this seems like something that I would say if I were a member of the Skiff crew and a spy. I would say, I know where we can hole up and then lead you to your doom. But again, not so. And that's fine. That's fine. We get a minute with Moff Gideon here, Joe. And...

the TIE fighters, the bombers on the mission. Gideon hears that the fleet has been launched for attack, but he's just staring at two dots moving across the screen, a red dot for Mando and a smaller, tinier little green dot for Grogu. What is this dot technology and how does it work? And how does it decide size and color coding?

So precious to see Grogu's tiny little dot, a little visual rendering of the show returning to the central focus. And Gideon's pretty, he's pretty glum here, Joe. He's feeling blue because the Mandalorian has escaped and he's unhappy. How did you feel about this? This moment of reflection with Moff Gideon? To use a very sophisticated sports term, such an own goal on behalf of the show. To show Moff Gideon, watch them walk towards his cloning chamber.

and not scramble all forces to stop them, you could make excuses and say like his hubris, you already called him a hubris strict dolt or whatever. Like you could make an argument this is his hubris. It just seems like just a really silly plot hole that they could have just not caused themselves by not showing the little green dot as well. I love that you love the green dot. It's precious, but you're right. It is very strange that he doesn't then stop. But,

But, you know, a lot of time to think as he's preparing to later complain about how Din destroyed all of his clones. So I guess he used the time to work on his latest speech. How dare you destroy my clones as I did literally, I didn't lift a single Beskar-clad finger to stop you. Speaking of that Beskar-clad finger, by the way, when he says, I'll take care of him myself and begins to move here, not toward actually taking care of him, as you've aptly noted, but we get a lot of like,

whirring of the armor and it's really priming us to remember that this isn't just a Beskar alloy suit that he has cloaked himself in. It's the Dark Trooper evolution. This augmented super strength is like pretty key to the events that follow in the episode. So getting the little whir really reminded me of like, oh yeah, that's what the Dark Trooper sounded like back in the day.

Where is my super suit? Okay, sorry. Speaking of words. Yeah. Joe, it is time to be with our buddy, R5. And I feel like we can call him our buddy because, well, one of us has loved him all along and one of us doubted his service record but then apologized and grew to love him. Okay. And so...

Din and Grogu are kind of like watching around corners, keeping an eye out for Troop, and Din calls R5, right? He says, I need you, buddy. Now, he will later also praise R5 after the mission by calling him buddy. And I would like to ask you, a scholar, somebody who podcasts and writes professionally and puts a lot of stock in precision of language, word choice. Language matters, yes.

Does Din Djarin get to call R5 buddy after this season? The fucking audacity of Din Djarin. Droid kicker extraordinaire, Din Djarin. Din, I don't know if this planet is safe, so let me just drop R5 down here to deal with, like, cave bats and all sorts of shit. No, this is just preposterous, honestly. And it's just sort of like, again...

an own goal on behalf of the show because like if they hadn't shown us Dan kicking droids just the perfect poster boy for police brutality a couple episodes ago then we could mark this as a like clear and delightful evolution of a character who is working on his issues with droids as it stands it seems very disingenuous and usury to be like hey buddy hey pal I hate your kind but you're special can you help me yeah

This just made me really mad anew, I'm with you, about the Dindroid backslide in episode six. Because even though we talked about it at the time that was specifically the...

the exposure to battle droids and what that will call up from Din's past. But even so, like Din's progress with IG, with BD, now with R5 has been like one of the real hallmarks of his ability to learn and grow and forge new bonds, like as a character and sort of just needlessly insert into

this regression two episodes before you're going to have a moment like this is so bizarre. So bizarre. Oh, bizarre. I just, I will say though, great work from our five. He really delivered despite, as you noted, Dan returning him to the site of his very recent trauma. When we get like hesitantly in the subtitles to describe the way that he's worrying, poor little fella. But,

He's a brave soul. He's a pal. He's an accomplished vet. And he was ultimately willing, Joe, to scomp into the base and get that Gideon Command Center location for Din. It's doing meaningful work here for Din Djarin, who said, I'm counting on you.

Did he remind you most of any other droid in Star Wars? I got a lot of chopper energy from him here. Of course, a ton of R2-D2. It feels like an R2 moment. And I will say that, like, thinking a lot about R2 made me feel like I like R5 plenty. And, like, again, I apologize. Yeah, sure, dude. I apologize. Sure. Go ahead and call him Buddy. I apologize, Buddy, for besmirching your service record, but...

I don't love him the way that I loved R2. And so to see like a very classic R2, you know, like not to. I'm about to make myself sound wholly unqualified to co-host the Star Wars podcast. But I love every time R2 puts the thing in the thing. Do you know what I mean? And then wears it around. I don't know what the words for that are. But when he puts the thing in the thing. Do you know the technical words for it? He's scomping. Okay. He's scomping. Whenever he's scomping.

which sounds like a word you just made up and or a dance that one does to ska but whenever he's skomping it's a skomplink yeah i am a huge fan of skomping yeah i'm still waiting to see din skomp with the bow and or cob you know

Why not both? Why not both? Equal opportunity scomper. You know what I mean? Truly the most disappointing thing about this finale was that nobody fucked. I just, what's going on? Come on.

Come on. That we saw. I mean, maybe one of the... I mean, it's a post-war thing, right? Like, you're full of, like, brio. I think there was just, like, a huge orgy. Just clanging and banging all over the place, you know? Like Winterfell after the long night. Everybody's fucking... Quote-unquote lighting the forge, if you know what I mean. So... Oh, boy. I bet those clangs and bangs just, like, echo throughout the caverns. Do you know what I mean? It's just...

Barber with the hammer and tongs again. Carlos, that scared me so much because I did not know you were on Bad Baby Patrol this week. Oh, my God. Always on Bad Baby Patrol. Honestly, that just gave me heart palpitations. Always. Always. I'll return us to a more wholesome note for just a moment here.

Small, it's fleeting, but I thought it was meaningful and the kind of reminder of when the show is at its best and what we really are hoping for more of moving forward, which is just Din taking a minute, like taking a beat, even in this dire circumstance, to show Grogu.

the schematic that R5 has sent him to explain what they are looking at and what it means because Din as teacher, we talked about at the very beginning of the season how compelling those little glimpses of Din in the teacher role were. And especially given how this episode ends and setting up this idea of taking your apprentice on his journey, like,

This is where they're going to be able to find that to helmet that frequency again. I think more moments like that. Yes. And I it is it serves both that purpose and like an orientation moment for the audience of like, here's where we are. Here's where we're going. Here's why we have to go that way. He's teaching. We're going to go to find the guy who's not looking for us. You know, he's like, I see those dots. Yeah.

And I'll get to them eventually. I'm sure nothing will go wrong as they make their way through my cloning chamber. Okay. Before we get to the cloning chamber, though. Yeah. Jo, we have a very meaningful stretch. With an increasingly meaningful character. Axe Woves. Would you? Not a spy. Like to apologize to Axe Woves for suspecting him of being a spy? No, I don't think I will. No, I'm going to. I'm Steve Rogers. I'm old cap. No, I don't think I will. I don't think I will.

I will. No, but I have to apologize to our five, but yes, because you, yes, exactly. I'm glad we're on the same page. We worked through that in real time. That's beautiful. Um, I think the show invited this line of questioning about the X. Don't you? I mean, I don't know at this point, like maybe not. I don't know. Um,

Also, even if it was not right to wonder if he was a spy, it is true that he abandoned Bo-Katan. And so I will hold that grave error against him. I will. But he repented here in just a jetpack that went all the way to fucking space. So...

He's in radio range no longer with the surface, but he is in radio range with the fleet here, Joe. And we get another update. Here's what happens. Here's what needs to happen next. Everybody get to the drop ship so that you can get down below. He shouts, Bo-Katan needs our help with such gusto that I had this unbelievable seesaw experience in the span of mere seconds where I was like, Axe Wolves, definitely not a spy. This guy means it. Then our old pal, the fleet commander, says,

Gives him the most suspicious side of him. Several. Wait, is Axe the spy? Then I was like, but what's the plan then? Is this the journey for you? I was like, then what's the plan? Yeah, exactly. This is where I'm going to sound, you know, like the Mandos, right? They go into the dropships.

They pass the ties. Passing each other in the clouds. The ties are like, who cares about those ships full of people? So is your read here that because they went through cloud cover at the same time, the Thai fleet literally could not see the drop ship? I feel like it was more like the Thai ship was like, we have bigger fish to fry. Okay. And maybe the signal would interfere with the radar. Maybe they just, because for not a single ship to peel off for an attack is a little strange there, but.

It looked cool again. Axe has decided we're using this carrier as a decoy. So I have to sit here and this is where I'm going to sound like one of those filthy Holdo Maneuver doubters. I love the Holdo Maneuver. You love the Holdo Maneuver. Yeah. One of the most thrilling moments I've ever experienced in a movie theater. Dude, same. I can remember still like the way my heart

was racing. And for that character, it feels like an important moment and all this sort of shit that's going on. However, the doubters are always like, why didn't she just put it on autopilot? So my question is like, why does X-Wove have to sit here and like, if his plan is not to die, then why does he have to sit here at all and like grip the, the captain's seat? So, and wait until the last minute to bail out. I don't have a great answer, but here's my, here's my best attempt.

I think that he wanted to ensure that he was drawing the fire, that the TIE fleet stayed attacking the ship, that they could sense. You could sense if there are... Part of the radar reading is that you could tell if there's a life form on another ship. So maybe the logic is... You need one beating heart. Yeah, if nobody's here, well, we know what they're trying to do. Now, I guess you know what they're trying to do if there's only one beating heart and one heat signature, but...

I think also the fact that he works the ship with such pinpoint precision into the

the base for the explosion later maybe he just felt like he needed to be in that pilot seat to ensure that that went smoothly and he's like I am wearing a jet pack and Joanna Robinson went on the house of art and said Chekhov was not involved in this season and so I know that my jet pack will work I will be able to fire a precise shot there and back again break a window of a light cruiser and

and then exit in just the nick of time. And this guy has a bit of an ego, so I think he's like, I definitely can do this. And also, if I can, to be more serious for a moment, that he would be happy to give his life for the reclaiming of Mandalore for the return. He's a loyalist, after all. Let's talk about Spice, okay? Yeah. I do, and have what we said, hold your theories loosely, okay? And...

for you few, you happy few on Twitter today who are like, Joanna, you only didn't love the finale because none of your theories came true. That's just not how I watch television. Mal and I have been in the theory trenches for a really long time. We've covered Lost. We've covered Thrones. We've covered, you know, I've covered Westworld. Oh my God. The like bedrock of fan theories that don't pay out. And I was thinking about, I was trying to like have an honest moment with myself of like,

Is is it hurting me the way that I like to theorize about show? Is it hurting me ultimately my enjoyment of something? I was trying to have like I was like, let's let's question ourselves. That's a good thing to look inward. And I was like, I think so, because I think what's true is that if if what happens instead is satisfying, I don't give a shit. Right. So let's take, for example, a famous Joanna was wrong example of.

just last year with last season of succession where I thought, I thought for sure main character was going to die in the finale last year of succession rate fucking, you know, top tier internet wrote a whole post about all the reasons why. Right. Okay. First of all, ever since I said Jon Snow was going to come back as a wolf and he didn't, you can't embarrass me on the internet about a fan theory that was wrong. That was the

That was apex mountain of Joanna embarrassed showing her ass about a wrong theory on the internet. I still love it. I can't be embarrassed. I am bulletproof. With the succession thing that happened last year, was I then...

upset or disappointed by the succession finale? No, because it was fantastic television. So if like, if the theory blows up, who cares? As long as the thing that's in its place is compelling. And like the, the problem with the complete dissolution of all of our various spy theories in this episode is nothing interesting took its place. Right. So it's just like friction lists. We're all in it together. Right.

good guys v bad guys what could be less innovative you know what I mean and so that's sort of where I stand with this idea of like a fan theory doesn't have to pay off

I just need the thing to whatever it is to be interesting at the end of the day. What do you think? Yeah, I completely agree. It's in fact quite nice to be surprised. I feel the same way. It's simply a matter of the quality of what is actually in front of you. Like, I think we take seriously the idea of like, you know, Lindbergh wrote about this actually a bit in his piece this week.

Don't watch the show that you think they're making. Watch the show they're making, right? And I think we really try to do that. So it's not about whether the theory panned out. Part of the joy of talking about and covering a thing together every week on the pod and getting to do what we get to do is really trying to say, like, well, what is animating a lot of discussion right now? And so that's part of why we do it. Not because we're so damn attached to what those prospective outcomes are. All of this sounds like what you would say if all your theories are wrong, but I do mean it.

No, no. But I think to your point, Joe, about the like, well, what was there instead? Which I agree with in general, but specifically in this case, it, I am not only fine with Axe and the armor and the skiff crew not being spies. I think ultimately it,

and connects to what was a central preoccupation and focus and theme of the season. Groups who had long been opposed to each other learning to work together. So it completely tracks. To me, it was like, it gets back to something that we've been talking about at length and

throughout the season, and particularly in some of those Dino Turtle Cove side conversations or the absence of those conversations between characters who were working their way together at last. It's like, if that's going to be the outcome, you really need to understand what the characters had to do, the compromises they made with themselves, the compromises that they made with each other in order to work to a point that

not only human nature, but years of established in-universe storytelling tell us they are not inclined to do. That's the problem. I agree. And I will... Let me just say... Let me just say one other thing on this front is we got...

11 billion emails this week. And we actually got a few emails about this before we recorded last week about the idea of like what the title despise might mean. I didn't address this last week because we'll get to that in a second. But all of a sudden, a bunch of you guys are Old Testament scholars and you have decided that this is a reference to the 12 spies episode.

That instead of spies, what they really mean by spies is scouts and that the spies, quote unquote, that were scouts were actually like the volunteers that Bo sent in to scope out Mandalore. Sure, that is possible. We've been talking all season long about these, you know, on Judaism Corner about these Old Testament references and stuff like that.

I will say until I hear Jon Favreau and or Rick and or Dave say that that is why that episode was called that, I don't actually believe that because that is not how titles in The Mandalorian work.

I am so happy to be wrong in the future if that's the case, but I don't think that that's what was going on. I think the spies are meant to be the shadow council and Kane and stuff like that. I think that's what's going on. If it isn't like, please, if you're listening to this and you're so mad because you're like, obviously it's the 12 spies, please track down Jon Favreau. Don't harass him, but ask him.

And if he says it is, I will apologize more sincerely than I apologize to R5. But I don't... That's just not how... Mandalorian titles are so straightforward. The Jedi. The Apostate. The, like, whatever. Guns for Hire. Like, The Return. So, I don't know. It's... Anyway, that's where I am on that. Do you think the spy is John Wolf? John Wolf? John Snow returning as a wolf? Yeah. I think it's... Can that be the spy? Kendall Roy at the bottom of a swimming pool. I think the spy...

Joe, I love to talk about television with you. And one thing that we can say is that while the finale answered a lot of questions, we will carry one mystery with us. Like the inquiry from our childhood, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know where Axe Wolves was in the season two finale of The Mandalorian.

somebody find out for us please please ask simon cassianides where he was in the season two finale maybe he was making the last of us who knows but um i will just say this uh something that our friend and colleague neil miller likes to say over when we were doing like the storm podcast was um mamas don't let your theories grow up to be expectations right so like theories are fun

expectations get in the way, right? So if you're expecting it has to be this and then it's not that and then you're disappointed. Where it's like, what if it's this? That would be fun. Oh, it's this instead. Okay, that's an, is that good? Or is that not very interesting to me? So anyway, moving on. Don't tell, don't tell Neil that I said that Ahsoka would be the achievement of a lifetime. I would never. And I'm so glad you didn't say it on a podcast that shit ton of people listen to. Oh, Neil, I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.

Joe, we head now back into our one of our favorite places to be, which is inside of a Phantom Menace Easter egg. But this was really fun because it wound up being much more than a little wink to the prequel kids. It had the return to the laser gate.

passageway here ended up having real tactical logistical implications on what was a really neat and interesting battle sequence because Din says I don't have any weapons this might get messy he's warning Grogu but it

It primes us for the return of one of our favorite things, which is inventive Din. A Din who on the fly is trying to figure out how to make something work and how to get out of a tricky spot. And he does it while, thank God, Grogu stayed back and safe and R5 is dealing with those fucking mouse droid narcs.

but they get it done. And Dean is like in video game, not, not in a bad way. Like he's like amassing resource after resource. It actually was like being with Joel and the last of us. And it's like, I have found a bullet, found a health kit. Yeah, exactly. How did you, uh, how did you enjoy this, this hallway sequence here with the laser gates? You know, I fucking love those laser gates. I thought this was great. And I think this is some really fun action. Um,

Um, yeah, great time. The other thing that I really liked about this watching Din in hand-to-hand combat with so many of the commandos and like, again, it's actually pretty, pretty violent when he's like stabbing a dude in the neck and, uh, the various other ways of, of, of killing his foe here. But,

moments like that, I know where your armor is weak. I know where there's a break in the Beskar coverage. I know how to turn around and use the shield that you're not even thinking is on your back. We see this with Din here. We see it with Bo and the armorer and other characters in the aerial battle. Later, the actual Mandalorians...

the people to whom this armor is a sacred thing, is a part of their, it's full heroic, like, this is my soul. This armor is my soul, right? Yeah. They know how to take advantage of where the weak points are, how to protect themselves, the commandos.

who have just appropriated through Gideon this Beskar, don't understand it at all. They don't know how to compromise their foe. They don't know how to protect themselves. They haven't bothered to try to learn anything about this. They're just using it as a show of strength. And as you said, this is like meant to stand in such strong contrast to the slow, unsteady,

growth evolution of Grogu as he learns to understand what it means to be a Mandalorian, what it means to be a Jedi, how all of those lessons can be synthesized, etc. So yeah. Sweet baby. Speaking of synthesizing, should we talk about clones for a minute? Please. Somehow Gideon planned to return?

Somehow Gideon planned to return. Commando's dispensed, shields lowered, Din and Grogu make their way forward. Din summons Grogu with this very darling little all clear, like little like head tilt to him. I love the way that they communicate. And they enter the cloning lab, Joe. And here, some of last week's theories were quickly confirmed. These were not Snokes. They are Gideons. And as you predicted, he wanted to make friends

force-sensitive clones. There's an explanation from him later in the episode, but Carlos, can we actually hear this Gideon speech here and talk about all of the cloning implications in one spot? My clones were finally going to be perfect. The best parts of me, but improved by adding the one thing I never had, the force. I was isolating the potential to wield the force.

and incorporating it into an unstoppable army. You smothered them before they could draw their first breath. I mean, classic, like, absolute rampaging murderer trying to make the other guys feel bad about the thing they've done, villain stuff from Gideon here. But recall, Joe, in chapter 19, this Persian Coruscant sequence, the night at the opera house, who doesn't love it? We didn't because we didn't love that episode, but, you know.

Palpy would have loved it. He loved the opera. When we heard Pershing say, my research was twisted into something cruel and inhumane at the behest of a desperate individual intent on using cloning technology to secure more power for himself. And so your best friend and dare I say soulmate, Brendal Hawks, will be vindicated to learn that Gideon was in fact Gideon.

secretly pursuing his own ends here, not working on behalf of Project Necromancer, not working on behalf of Palpy's restoration. Maybe he was also doing that at one point, but he is making his own clones and trying to become force sensitive. You know, sometimes you jokingly say that I have like best friends and soulmates. No, but Brenda Hux is actually yours. Yeah, I'm not. And I splutter and deny it. Not this time. Yeah, where are you two registered? Hux for life, baby. Yeah.

Yeah, William Sonoma. Honestly, I broke my spoon rest today, so I need a new spoon rest. So please go to my wedding registration at William Sonoma and Sur La Table so Brendal and I can start our new lives together. Okay, so anyway. Brendal. Call him Bren. It's fine. All right.

Does this slightly change our understanding of the deployment of the Mind Flayer? Because I think even last week, when we felt like we had a grip on what Gideon was doing, we thought it was like to erase the technology, the info about the technology. We'll get to that in a second. But I think even more pertinently, it's to erase Gideon's own secret plans. Because if Persh knew about it, he doesn't want...

My future husband, Frendal Hux, and or your future husband, Pelly, or any of the other members of the Shadow Council to find out what he's up to. Right. He's hiding. Right. Yes. He's gone off plan. He's making his own clones this time and he doesn't want Persh to give the game away. Right.

I think so, yeah. The Persh mind melt is a self-preservation tactic for Gideon. I think it also, this reveal here or confirmation kind of

necessitates us to reassess some of the prior questions or some of the exchanges with Cain, like him saying last week, you know, get back to the mission. And maybe that is just being a spy inside of the New Republic. It might just be like a shadow council mandate, but maybe, I mean, we saw before the mind flaying, Cain take Pershing to that lab and gather that cloning tech. Here's my little, my little kit of cloning workshop material that,

The Navarro pirate connection, I think we now have to think back to. We talked about that at the time. Like, what is Gideon's obsession with Navarro still? The lab we thought was destroyed, but like... And those were... I will say one thing that seemed...

seems true is that the Navarro tubes did look like proto-Snokes and these were not. Well, that's why I actually think Gideon went off plan with Project Network Romancer like between season two and three. This is my, this is my read too. And he's like, fine, I'll do it myself. You know what I mean? Like I was doing it for you, Palpy, but why not also one for you, one for me?

I mean, I'm burdened with Gloria's purpose. What can I say? So, you know. Wow. Man, yeah, let's get, shit, let's get Loki into Mando season four. That sounds great. The true connected universe on Disney Plus that we need. Okay, so here's one of my questions for you. Like, this introduces, we don't have answers, but it introduces some, somehow Palpatine returned broader, um,

like thinking face emoji stuff here. I can't believe I just noticed that in our document you've made an acronym SPR.

Yeah. Is that okay? What I love is that the Rise of Skywalker has like forever just burdened the word somehow. You know what I mean? It's forever changed. It is. Yeah. Unlike Palpy, who is eternal. But it's like the way that David Benioff has ever changed kind of forgot. It means something different now. Somehow means something different now. It means yada yada. Damn.

Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet and somehow Palpatine returned. Somehow Palpatine returned. Did Gideon actually get the Force power to transfer to his clones or was he just hoping that he would? He doesn't know. Because if he did, he doesn't know. If he did, that's a pretty big canon update given the centrality of the struggle of getting Force sensitivity to latch on to the Palpatine

inside of Project Necromancer. And so, like, if he did succeed, then I think we have to wonder if Hux and co. do actually get this research, if he did make a breakthrough, and that becomes a key part of the bridge from building to somehow Palpatine returned. Yeah. Or...

Maybe he's just an egomaniacal wannabe god who thought that he did this and it wouldn't have worked. I think that's a fun open question to have. Like, what answers lie in that research that Cain has or that is lurking in the heart of Navarro where Din Djarin and Din Grogu are currently making their home?

Blissful, blissful little front porch hang inside of an Irish shot. Because back on Navarro in season two, episode four, when they call up that Pershing hollow, and again, that's in the context now of like those were, they did appear to be Snoke's. So clearly there's a change in the work and an evolution after. But Pershing says the body rejected the blood. I highly doubt we'll find a donor with a higher M count. So is your read, given that those seem to be Snoke's,

that they were in fact pursuing Grogu on behalf of Project Necromancer and that he is thus still in danger because of your future husband, Brendal Hux, or was Gideon after Grogu for his own purposes? Not everyone you're going to marry is going to be perfect, okay? Yeah, I think Hux still- Don't I know it. Hux needs- Just kidding. Kidding. Hux needs, whatever it is, Hux needs or whoever needs-

their next purse needs M count rich blood. And that's right. Despite what keeps happening in the larger Star Wars canon, there aren't supposed to be that many for sensitive tons. People are thick on the ground actually, but increasingly voluminous tally. It's just supposed to be Luke. Yeah.

Really? You know, so, yeah. Well, I guess that's where that line from Pershing about highly doubt we'll find a donor with a higher M count remains very germane. That Grogu, like Anakin, is midichlorian Jesus and has this particularly midi-rich blood that maybe leads to a higher probability of success with the strand casting. Can we talk about midichlorians for a second? Let's do it. This feeds into the next email. Please.

from our listener, Thomas. I thought it was really interesting. Again, this has to do with like a larger reckoning of the state of Star Wars, right? And Thomas, once again, long time, clear bona fides, fan of Star Wars, had a couple. And then, okay. And then after this, we're going to have a positive email about the state of Star Wars. So just hold your horses, okay? So Thomas says, perhaps there are two defining failures of the modern era of Star Wars. First,

There is a second trilogy, the prequels, banal demystification of the Force and its sensitivity from a kind of universal Tao with which anyone might resonate into a quantifiable and inheritable quantum of mitochondria-like so-called midichlorians in the blood. Second, the latest trilogy, the sequel trilogy, unmasks

undid the triumphant but poignant outcome of the original trilogy in order to return all players to their soothingly familiar and safely commercially viable roles. Luke and Leia not grappling with applying the agility and adaptability of the Rebel Alliance to galactic governance and a tables-turned insurgency of ex-imperials, but instead, once again, on the run from an empire that is entirely striked back and trying to thwart the very same emperor who,

with a similar dark-armored lightsabered sidekick, and also blow up a Death Star. So these two failures constrain the intervening narrative of the Mandalorian in two ways. Number one, everything gets technical, and a boring plot with moth clones and blood transfusions and low-key generic body horror. And two, the narratively necessary speedy within a single generation collapse of the New Republic becomes an easy and cynical, and given what we know of the ingenious and indigenous ethos of Rebels,

utterly unrealistic tale of the evils of bureaucracy and big government. It's a fake sober realism that is actually very unrealistic and untrue to this world as originally dreamed and built. Star Wars, as a lived-in epic story, depends on the exquisite balance of wonder and realism established in the very first two films. The trivial collapse of the season of The Mandalorian for all of Baby Yoda's charm speaks to how the second failure killed the

the realism and the first failure killed the wonder. Now, with love and respect to Thomas, like, I don't think you and I are as out as Thomas seems to be in all this. But I think it's a very brilliant analysis of, like, two hard pivots away from the original. So this idea, I mean, we've all...

Hopefully even the kids who grew up on the prequels, like roll your eyes. It's a fucking midichlorians, right? Midichlorian Jesus. When you said midichlorian Jesus, like a chill went down my spine, right? So this idea, yeah, of transferring the force from like- Because Qui-Gon Jinn took a child's blood without asking? Is that why? And away from his mother and then left his mother in slavery and now it's fine. Love you, Qui-Gon. This idea of, yeah, making it like science based and I mean, the cloning plot,

is interesting to me. The Clone Wars is from the original trilogy. But the idea of like, yeah, we've been talking around this a lot in terms of the fact that they are having to carry the burden of somehow Palpatine return from Rise of Skywalker into the plot of The Mandalorian. And then also that in one generation,

the rebel alliance and their new government, the new Republic falls back into the first order. And we've talked in the last couple of weeks when we get like Tim Meadows and the bureaucracy is like that, the way in which that is, you know, the sad truth of how rebellions work sometimes, but also, yeah, it just, it shrinks our timeframe. And again, like, as I said earlier, I love the force awakens, but I think Thomas has a point about the idea of the force awakens, just really wanting to put us in,

where A New Hope put us, which is like the good guys on, you know, on the run and underfoot of an oppressive empire. So, and the Mandalorian having to make all of that feel smooth and natural and explainable. And this season more than any other season, I felt like they were carrying that bag. What do you think? What are your thoughts and feelings? Stop me if you've heard this before, but I'm of two minds on this.

I guess I couldn't wield the dark saber because there's conflict within. Well, this means you get to like, you know, be Ahsoka and like just step outside the rigidity of dark side, light side, you know? One of my idols, as you know. So...

I think this is very much connected to what we were talking about earlier. It's a matter of how well something is executed and presented and actually crafted and not, I don't think just what the choice is in the first place. Undeniably Thomas is identifying something true about the, the, the hemming in the hewing in of certain choices. And like the, there's a reason why,

we say this with love and gratitude to George Lucas, there's a reason that one of the most prevalent memes and bits in Star Wars fandom is it's like poetry. It rhymes, right? Like there's a reason that that has become a thing we all joke about and say to each other all the time. So is that to Star Wars' benefit that there are these

return, to use the episode's name, there are these returns. I don't think so. I think sometimes that can heighten the theme and something like the failure of the New Republic or the return of evil in the form of the First Order can be poignant and potent and reveal something about how a government or a bureaucracy or even a society functions. So I don't think they need to avoid doing the

like revisiting always. But if you, yeah, if you map something on so, so completely, it will cease to feel as fresh. Midichlorians are like, listen, I will not on this podcast today, nor will I ever defend midichlorians. That's not something I'm interested in doing. However, however, however, however,

I don't think we've talked about this before. Like, I don't think it's an inherent sin to try to go hard sci-fi inside of Star Wars. And I think that part of the mistakes sometimes that Star Wars stories make, and I would just like to repeat for the record that I am not defending midichlorians. Where are you? Where are you in midichlorians registered? The idea of the force is,

as this mystical, ethereal thing is how I think of it still. And I think truly to this day, one of the greatest ideas and achievements and like things for us as fans to enjoy spending our time thinking about. When this is like, we talked about this a lot during our Andor Pods,

Part of what makes Andor so fresh is that it's distinct and different. So if every show now tries to be Andor, we will lose that again. And so like, I don't want every Star Wars story to just try to recreate the original trilogy. And by the way, like the original trilogy in Star Wars is one of the most important and consequential bits of culture in my life.

There's a lot in those movies that doesn't work. A lot. And so like to act like they are this infallible, they're a sacred text to us, but they're not a flawless text. And I think that's always been at the heart of what we love about the ongoing exploration of Star Wars. We talked about this with the Clone Wars. Sometimes if you're a Clone Wars viewer, you return to the prequels and they make you even more mad, right? Because you see what it could have looked like to really understand Anakin's fall.

What it could have looked like to see those moments where Anakin and Obi-Wan were having a conversation about how they both wanted to be with a person who they couldn't be with because of the Jedi Order and just couldn't push through together to that shared understanding. Right. And how absolutely fucking devastating that is.

And then there are times where you rewatch the prequels and you're like, these are still the exact same movies. Nothing has changed about them. But my ability to appreciate this stretch of timeline and these characters and these arcs is forever enhanced by the decision to go back into that moment. So do I feel great that we're hemmed in by somehow Palpatine Returns? Of course not. That was one of the most disappointing things that any of us have ever suffered through as Star Wars fans.

I will literally like never forget what it felt like to watch Rise of Skywalker for the first time. Never until I die. I'll carry it to the grave, a grave that I will stay in because I have not cloned myself on Exegol, unlike Palpatine. But... Bury me in the sands of Tatooine alongside hundreds of lightsabers. If the Mandoverse can ultimately do for...

the sequels, what the Clone Wars did for the prequels, I will be grateful and I am willing to take a little bit of a trade-off in the boxed-in timeline to enrich that overall stretch of story. I think it just has to be good. It's the same thing you said earlier. It has to be good. I agree with so much of what you're saying. I just do think that that idea of, and I mean, I far prefer to call it the end count. Thankfully, they're not saying the word midichlorian because that does, I do have such a knee-jerk negative reaction to that.

But this idea of like, and maybe this is leaning into that democratization idea. Because when we talk about The Last Jedi versus Rise of Skywalker, we talk about

How much I love the Last Jedi concept of, like, nobody from nowhere, Rey, could be as strong in the Force as Kylo Ren. Broom boy. Broom boy, exactly. Like, what a gift. Yeah. I just love that message. And so the fact that Rise of Skywalker had to be like, well, actually... I agree completely. It's because, you know, it's because...

These strong strains are what make the big heroes of this universe. These genetic strains. It's a dynasty. It's passed down from royalty generation to generation. I am with you 100%. It was a great, great sin. So I think when we lean back into M Count and the Blood, it does make me feel more Rise of Skywalker than it does The Last Jedi. That's all that I would say about that. Okay. Should we get a little pun?

Let's do it. All right. Romero, lovely long email from Romero, who is a pastor. And I loved everything you said premise-wise to talk about your email. But let's

Just dig into the meat, which is, Romero writes, I acknowledge that many people have been underwhelmed by the season of The Mandalorian, but now that it is complete, maybe I can shine some yum into the sea of yuck that threatens to drown all those who are expecting a much different season. Some have argued throughout the season that episodes were disjointed, inconsistent, and directionless, that Jarn and Grogu weren't present enough, and that the Darksaber wasn't given the respect it deserves. All of those things are true. That's us.

By someone he means us. Thanks, Romero. Okay. Romero goes on to write, now that the season is complete, we can look back and see that this season showed us at least three things we have never seen. One, we saw how utterly incompetent, bloated, and unresponsive the new Republic is. For all of us who wondered how the First Order could rise as quickly as it did, this was revelatory.

This season showed us the Imperial remnants were far from unified, saying that Moff Gideon wasn't working for Thrawn but was secretly and independently striving to recreate the galaxy in his image, policed by creatures literally in his image, showed us that in the vacuum of Palpy's absence, there were numerous actors plotting and scheming in the shadows. This will make Thrawn's eventual emergence even more impressive.

This season also showed us the story of how the Mandalorians were able to finally come together, not because of a magical sword, but because they finally realized they were stronger together. Jaren and Grogu. Yeah. Okay. Jaren and Grogu might not have had as many scenes together as we would have hoped. Those two characters were instrumental in Mandalore finally being united. They were the most important characters this season because without them, the Mandalorians would have remained isolated and Gideon would have maybe taken over the galaxy. Okay. So...

Sorry. I was, Ramiro, I was not loving your emails, laughing at Mallory's pause. I'm making a face. I'm poised. She gave us the, one of the longest millennial pauses I've ever heard in my life. Carlos might edit it out, but trust me, it was long. It was there. Carlos is going to have to edit, edit out that pause. He had us below three and a half hours here. Um,

I, I, I don't agree. I agree with the, the points that he is observing are new or heightened. And I think that's true. And those things are there and they are interesting. We're compelled by them. I don't think that removes or diminishes the flaws of the season. And I think like I was saying earlier for me at least, and it's completely fine for people to have different opinions about this. I don't think everyone has to respond to the season the same way, but,

It's actually having the opposite effect. When I see the season working well in certain spots and that they are able to juggle the micro and the macro, the intimate portrayal of this beautiful found family, this incredibly surprising character set and bond and relationship with this massive thing like the reclaiming of Mandalore or lore that dates back centuries with the Darksaber, I think...

I feel fortunate to get to watch so many of the different strands of Star Wars that I love come together in one place. And so every minute that that is not true, the show is not as good as it can be. Period. That's just how I feel about it. And it's completely fine if people disagree. But that's my takeaway from the season. We're going to talk about this, I think, even more clearly when we get to what happens with the Darksaber towards the end of this episode. But there really just is a huge difference between

um a concept we like and an execution we like you know i mean and that's that's that is he's gonna this what happens the dark saber is gonna go down in history like and our conversations of media literacy as a primo example of that of idea versus execution right okay absolutely i'll throw out something i liked though yeah hit me balance in the force as always we love it

Fair and balanced. There was one thing in this clone tank emptying sequence that like gave me a chill and that I really liked and that made me excited for some of what is to come. Not that I'm excited for more cloning stuff. This is a Grogu character beat.

seeing Grogu walk toward those cloning tanks and look at them and the way that his face changed is he's sensing I'm

I'm sorry to mention midichlorians again, but is he sensing his own blood in there? Is he sensing a connection to a part of himself? Regardless, like he knows that these are people who hunted him. He is staring at like the rotten fruit of this pursuit, this pursuit that defined his life. And so I'm hoping that we get more moments moving forward. I don't like to see Grogu in pain, but where he is literally staring in the face of

the implications of his role in the galaxy and what others want from him or fear from him. And it made me think back to one of my absolute favorite stretches of the series to date, which was in the episode, the Jedi, the Ahsoka live action debut when Ahsoka and Grogu are communing through the force and Ahsoka is explaining to Din that,

how Grogu had to hide his force powers and repress his force powers for so long in order to stay safe. So what would looking at the clones that Gideon made from Grogu, from all of those times that they hunted him, do to him and make him think and feel? We only got it for a minute on his face, but it makes me excited that the potential is there to live inside of thoughts like that.

And then they interrupt that moment with a genuine horror jump scare. This terrified me. It was agonizing. I don't know if they did that. Like, I don't know how much sense it makes for these clones to open up their eyes. It's fine. Let's just leave it there. But...

I have to wonder if maybe they did that just to make sure everyone at home realizes that that's Giancarlo in the tank and not something else. It did make me wonder if the force transfer took and that the clone could sense a fellow force user. And that made me nervous. Because somehow Palpatine returned them.

I just think everyone who's tracking the love story of Mally Rubin and midichlorians should know that she has given it its own little nickname. How dare you? You gave it a cute little midis nickname in our document here. I mean, that's like Ben calling Pershing. It doesn't mean that we love him. But we ship Ben and Persh, do we not? Mal and midis.

Like chocolate and peanut butter, Mal and Mitty's. All right. We're doing the thing on Thursday night where it's dinner time and we start talking about food. It's dinner o'clock here at the House of R. Joanna, I would like to ask you about the implication of... We talked about the implication of Gideon making his clones, but the implication of the way this played out in the sequencing and the time frame of the reveal. An episode ago, a mere episode ago, it really...

became a central consideration that this was what was happening. And then we see the clones, we learn that they are Gideon, and quite literally seconds later, they are flushed. How are you feeling about the pacing? I mean, I just have questions about, like, is it wise, after all,

to keep Gideon contained to the final two episodes of this season. And would it have been interesting, similar to the Pershing plot, would have been interesting to see Pershing and Kane, you know, build their relationship over multiple episodes that just all felt like, yeah, you know, like just yada, yada, and then it's done. Like to see Gideon, like, yeah,

Obviously, it's not something, a goal we're rooting for. We don't want Gideon to succeed in this cloning plot. But to better understand his children, whatever it is that he's thinking of, so that we then later understand his anguish. Because even if we don't agree with a villain, we need to understand their emotional motivations and stuff like that. And so to see him labor over this, to care about it, and then to watch it get flushed,

I think would have been more emotionally satisfying than this, the alacrity with which they did it here. Yes. Yeah. Like we, we chatted last week about how energizing it was to have Gideon back in the season. And I do, I, I do still feel that way, but you know, the, the, the midnight boys had a really great conversation about the question of Gideon's motivations on, on their finale pod. And I think, um,

On the one hand, like, we know what he wants, right? He wants to be a god. We understand why he was so eager for Thrawn not to return. Are we sure Thrawn's back? He doesn't want a rival. He wants to be the new Palpatine. He wants to be in charge. He thinks he's a god. The improvement inside the suit is him, right? He's the superior ingredient. When he faces off with Bo-Katan, which we'll

which we'll talk about more when we get there, and he taunts her about the idea of surrender. That lands for us because it is anchored in their personal history together and what has transpired between them. Season two informs that. Exactly. Yes. So we know that...

Gideon is responsible for the purge of Mandalore, but I thought the guys were really onto something talking about like, but why is it just that he was an Imperial ISP cog and power mad? We know from the speech last week about cloners and Jedi and Mandalorians that he is basically building this like might is right. Transformer toy of like,

the strengths and achievements of other cultures. But what specifically about Mandalore other than like, hey, you have Beskar and I want that for myself. And what is, it's the draw. And what is his story? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Who is he? What, like what, you know,

Why are the Maul super commando horns on his helmet? Is it because he thinks that they're really fucking rad? Or is it because he was a one-time Darth Maul enthusiast? Does he wish, as a guy who's putting force-sensitive strands into his clones, that he could have been a Sith? Like, that would be really interesting to know about him. And I think that, like, hmm...

So let me say two things about this. Number one, like three things, I guess. Okay. So like it's one thing to intellectually understand something versus emotionally resonate with it. You know what I mean? And again, we don't have to agree with an antagonist to sort of be emotionally invested in their journey and stuff like that. Number two, I will say because of our Yellow Jackets coverage, I've been listening to a lot of

Les Miserables, this is related. Les Miserables, as a story, as a musical, or as a novel, if you prefer, tells us a twin story of, like, Jean Valjean and Javert. And we understand Javert as much as we understand Jean Valjean as their journey as protagonist and antagonist. You know what I mean? It's like... And that's...

And so when Javert says, I'm from the gutter too, we understand what's going on here. So where's Moff Gideon from that he feels this way? We might get a comic book story about it. We might get a novelization of it, blah, blah, blah. But within this story, I would like to know it. And then last but not least is sort of this idea of in a media literacy sort of way, the idea of a big bad.

has its sources, his roots in the TV series Bath of Vampire Slayer, where one problematic Joss Whedon changed forever the way that a lot of people tell stories by giving each season sort of this idea of a big bad where you would have serialized, you know, episode of the week stories, but burbling in the background is a big bad confrontation that's going to end the season. But if you think about

Buffy, let me, for those, my beloved Mallory included, who haven't watched it, you know, your big bads are characters like that are called the master or the mayor or glory or, you know, angels you prefer. Like we're with them.

Check in with them all season. And we're not fighting them every single episode, but we are checking in with them and we are learning them and learning their scheme and learning why that scheme is important to them so that when it comes down to it, we have a better understanding of them. So to just hide, again, hide the ball on Moff Gideon. Is he alive? Is he dead? What is the scrap of Beskar doing here? Blah, blah, blah. Just to deploy him here. Then, yeah, it just makes all of this feel a little rushed. Right.

Yeah. Going for the twist instead of the very clear road to the outcome. But life persists, as we heard, in one of the surface caves with our old pal, Scouty Pete and the Skiff Captain. Quick corrections department from Joanna. I just want to say, like, okay, last week, in all the notes and every time she said it, Mallory said Skinny Pete, which is the name of this character from Breaking Bad.

There is a television series called Sneaky Pete with Giovanni Ribisi. And I somehow got it in my brain that that was the correct. Even though I even though the night before when I had texted you, I used the right name. I said Sneaky Pete like five times and I went so far. And this is the embarrassing part. It was important to change one of them. The doc. I was like, Mallory, is it wrong? And it's Sneaky Pete, not Skinny Pete. And then all of our listenership was like.

You dumb-dumbs. Anyway, my apologies. Molly Rubin. He's Scouty Pete to us now. And so that's all that matters. And the Skiff Captain. They go into a peaceful place, Joe, where people are allowed to work through podcast apologies, I think. This is a lovely spot for this. Another moment here inside of this

cave that is teeming with life where we really see how the Mandalorians, foundling or otherwise, know their planet in a way that an interloper and an invader like Gideon not just doesn't, but can't even be bothered to try to. The fact that he has not looked or wondered or seen or spotted or examined the return of the return. There it is in the episode of life.

is such an indictment and such a strong contrast to our non-spy skiff crew heroes the whole time. We never doubted them once. No. We've always been on their side. This is a theme you love. You love this, Mallory. I do. When our villain fails to pay attention to the smaller things, misses it, and our heroes are paying attention. This is how we show our love, Mallory. Aww.

Now I miss Bill and Frank. Always. Eternally. Oh, that made me sad. But...

The plant life, the indigenous life, as we learn, it makes me happy, Joe, because it is such a contrast to this barren, inhospitable wasteland that we are accustomed to seeing on the surface of Mandalore. The domed cities that people have to live inside of because they can't exist outside of them. The barren moons. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Here is something. Not just our characters, the people of Mandalore returning, but the very, like,

kernel, ember of life itself. And Bo is amazed by what she's seeing. Carlos, can we hear this? These are the old species indigenous to Mandalore. They've been dormant since before the centuries of civil war. Once the planet was abandoned, they sprouted in spots. We cultivated farms. Life persists. I've only ever seen gardens in the domed cities. I never knew the surface could still sustain plant life. All they need is room to grow.

Joe. Yeah. This made me think of our beloved Duchess Satine and how, how happy she would be. Bo's sister who fought for,

to not partake in any of these competing factions waging galactic war, to not be bound by the... And that's true in the galaxy and on Mandalore, to not be bound by the warrior way that led to this constant civil strife that decimated their own home world, the civil wars that we hear alluded to. A peaceful, pacifistic way. Protection, nurturing growth. And for Bo to get to see this...

Did Satine get a mention? No, I would have loved it, but I was thinking someday. Someday. Um, to be one season two when we get that sex dream at last. Yes. It's the only reason I want to be one season two. Okay. So to Romero's point in his email earlier about the way in which Din and Grogu are essential to what happens here in the plot of this season, you know, we can note that

It's not only Moff Gideon who was failing to look for the verdant life on Mandalore. Both Bo-Katan and the Armorer said to Din, don't go back there. It's done, right? In season three, episode one, when Din goes to visit Bo and she's sitting in a very inventive way on her throne, right? She says...

Go home. There's nothing left. And he says, I'm going to Mandalore so that I may bathe in living waters. Be forgiven for my transgressions. She says, you are a fool. There's nothing magic about the minds of Mandalore. They supplied Beskar or to our ancestors and the rest is superstition. The planet has been ravaged, plundered and poisoned. And so I think that.

This idea of faith, you know, and when Katie talked to us at the beginning of the season, she's like, you know, Bo is bottom, rock bottom, and given up her hope and her faith and all this sort of stuff. And we talked a lot about this idea of faith as it pertains to the Mandalorians or to characters in Star Wars. So this idea that, like, thin...

Because of his desire to belong back to his covert, which I guess we have to decide is not a damaging cult, but is a fine way to be, refuses to give up hope that Mandalore is a place where one can find the living waters. You know what I mean? And so like the living waters are not just there for mythosaurus to take long baths in or for Din to like take a headlong tumble into or whatever, but it's there to nourish Mandalore.

new growth, new life, etc. And so, you know, without Din, Mandalore is a lost cause in part because of, speaking of fan theories that pay off, the fan theory that you and Ben were espousing early this season that, you know, there's a secret Imperial base on Mandalore and they're spreading rumors about Poison Air because they want to mine that Beskar. They weren't mining the Beskar incorrectly, I guess, but, you know, it's...

Still have just so many questions about the Beskar shard and the Beskar forging. I loved that theory. That was a great one, Mal. I loved that idea.

Uh, well, um, spoiler book, Tan does not stab Gideon through his faulty armor with the dark saber. Something else happens there instead, but we do get a big old battle. We do get a big old battle because the com link kicks in here. Gardening time is over. It's the armor telling Lady Kreese that her reinforcements have arrived. Bo clicks on her helmet and says, let's take our planet. Let's take back our planet. And they fly out of the cave.

The drop ship troops are flying down as the surface cave troops are flying up. And then the two camps mix and mingle. This is a podcast. I don't know why I'm doing all this stuff with my hands, but you get to see it. I feel it. I feel it. We get to see Joe right there on our screens. That's stronger together idea as Bo and the armorer are leading the pack next to each other at the front of this charge. And Bo ignites the dark saber.

They surge toward this commando pack. We get our jetpack battle. Sick move for Bo-Katan. I mean, there were a lot of them. She's a fucking badass. But I loved the slide on the floor and then going off the edge and then turning around in like one smooth motion. That was iconic. But we got to talk about the armor here for a second. We already covered the not a spy stuff. This is where we really see not a spy.

kicking fucking ass one hammer and tongue shot at a time in midair. You had to love this. I love when she fights with those hammer and tongue. I love that. It was so cool. What's your sense of like the moves of the armor? The armor takes the injured skiff people to the main ship and then comes back. And do they come back with her because they're not on the ship because they're

Axe Wolves evacuated? They can't be on the light cruiser. They're all crispers now. Did she just U-turn? Did she just pull Yui when she heard Axe Wolves on the comm was like, oh shit, Bo-Katan needs me? Except she set off for the ship before Axe, so I don't

It was confusing. Even watching it in real time, because one of the inside gauntlet dropship shots that we see, we see her standing there. But before that, I had a... When everybody's leaving, I said out loud to Adam as we were watching, where's the armor? And I just, once again, like, so sure. We were about to get some reveal. Okay. Yeah. That's me picking this. It's fine. They figured it out. Somehow, the armor returned. Somehow...

And thankfully she did because she was, she's just a five-star prospect. I hope those alien skiff people are okay. I mean, it is a great, I guess they're one of the gauntlets. Maybe they're just hanging out. They were on a secret skiff for years. I'm sure this is an upgrade. They're on a different transporter with Chewie. It's fine. Okay. Well, speaking of Bacta, we are back with Clan Mudhorn. Healthy and well.

Speaking of Bacta, because you said back, we're Bacta. Well, he gets gross using the Bacta spray. More of that. But also, sure. They enter Gideon's lair. This is where he makes the big speech about his clones that we heard earlier. His god complex is on full display. This speech, Joe, the general deployment of him in this season, the Shadow Council scene last week...

I'm curious. We'll talk, I think, in a minute about whether we think we're definitely done with Gideon or not. So put a pin in that. But did this make you more or less interested, Thrawn or otherwise, because we didn't get Thrawn. That was one of the big points of speculation. Will we get a stinger? Will we see Thrawn? Does it make you more or less excited to see other members? I know the answer to this because of your Hux love. Of the Shadow Council members.

Like to know that Gideon was capable of doing something like this, right? The armor that he forges, the secret base that he maintained, the clones that he crafted. Does it make the prospect of on the road to Palpatine Returns

many other members of the Shadow Council, and especially with this now knowledge that Din is going to be off working for Carson Davis, an independent contractor, hunting down the Imperial remnant for the New Republic, more interested in seeing how some of those figures emerge as big bads in their own right, so that it's not just all about how Palpatine returned? Or not so much? I mean...

This is like you saying... You only have eyes for Hawks? No, this is like you saying, surely Cobb Banth will be in season three of The Mandalorian. Like, now I'm like, wait, why isn't... Why won't... Can Brendal Hux be the big bad of season four of The Mandalorian? Maybe he will be, though. Okay, great. Yes, I want it. Yes.

Okay, well, they start to fight here. And Gideon fires a missile at Grogu, which is just fucking outrageous. How dare he? All the other stuff, you know, I'll allow a wave of show to make. But how, frankly, how dare he do this? The...

Every season finale has been about a showdown with Gideon, right? Season one, season two, now season three. But we got the real bookend to the season two duel in particular here, where Din, without realizing what he was doing, won the Darksaber from Gideon by besting him in combat. But here, this super suit that Gideon has crafted is too much for Din. He is overpowering him, just as he is later overpowering Bo.

But is that the Praetorian Guard's music? I love that. Your faves showing up again. And Joanna, Grogu once again sensing dad's peril, comes in, smashing the no button, coming to dad's aid, and the guards pursue him into another chamber. The door closes, separating Dan and Grogu. My heart was pounding at this point.

Weirdly, I'm normally very nervous for Grogu. I hate to see him in peril. It didn't occur to me that anything bad would happen to him here. It just seems impossible. He's too important to what they're doing. For the first time ever, in this moment, I wondered if there was a chance that Din would die. Did this occur to you at all? Am I a fool for even considering it for a second? You're not a fool. It was a very popular fan theory that Din Djarin was going to die in this episode. It had never occurred to me until this moment that it was possible. That just...

I just don't think they're going to do this show without... Here's what I will say. Perhaps...

If Dave Filoni had not announced that he was doing a Thrawn movie with the Mandalorian Avengers Assemble moment, Mandoverse Avengers Assemble moment in that film, then maybe I would have been like, oh my God, is this the finals? Was Jon joking when he said maybe season four and this is it? And...

But since we know that's coming, I was like, no, they're not doing that without Pedro. Like, they're just not. So I was never worried about Din Djarin dying here or otherwise, personally. But something I want to say in a larger way.

Given all of our back and forth about fan theorizing, I don't think there's a wrong way to watch television. I hear that a lot. You're watching it wrong. I don't think there's a wrong way. So if someone was worried that Din might die, either due to the fan theory or due to this very, like, separating the key character, Grogu, from perhaps an expendable character, Din Djarin, I get it. I get it. Well, here's how I was watching this. I was watching this saying, if you told me I could...

somehow port myself into any fictional universe and kill one fictional character ever, who would I pick? It would be the guard who sliced an IG-12 corpse car, nearly slicing Grogu in half. And then also a candidate would be the guard who later, after Grogu, even in this just dire circumstance, he flips off to the

and he's babbling, he's cooing, he's laughing as he jumps. He's having a blast. The guard who sliced part of the catwalk and it fell on top of Grogu and of course it makes us think of Anakin and Obi-Wan and the Dooku duel.

I would fucking kill those guards with my bare hands if you allowed me to. I mean, I would say good luck, Valerie, versus the Praetorian guards. Are you kidding me? Oh, I would. Those guys are going to slice and dice you, my beloved friend. No!

No, you know how you hear about like parents who can like- Mama bear strength. Suddenly- Lift a car. Lift a car. Yeah, exactly. That would be me. It's just going to be like fooling in, like it's just going to be a red lacquer flying everywhere as you take them apart. Okay, I like that for you. That would be me. That would be me. Speaking of mama bear, papa bear strength, what does Bo say to Din when she takes over the fight with Gideon? I've got this. Go save your kid.

I, we're going to just get Apple S. We're going to save that for later. Okay, Joe, we cut in this stretch between Axe trying to land the, or crash land the Light Cruiser in exactly the right spot to blow up the base, Din and Grogu against the guards, and Gideon versus Bo. So let's, even though we cut back and forth throughout the episode in classic Star Wars fashion, let's first talk about the Din and Grogu sequence and then move to Gideon and Bo. Okay.

Din's turn to save Grogu now, and then it's a full-on clan Mudhorn team up. They're working together as a duo, helping each other. Grogu's using the Force to push the guards around as Din is battling them. This was delightful, and I think a nice preview of what we can expect to see in Season 4 as they are

going on missions for Carson Teva. At least that is my hope. Nice to see also Mandalorian battle tactics and Jedi battle tactics in one scene here. Get a little you did good kid from Din to Grogu. Any thoughts on the fight? It's like I did like it a lot. I will say that I think they're still trying to figure out

how to make Grogu as a puppet move in a way that feels good. Like the IG corpse car is one solution. Um,

The bassinet is my favorite solution. Like Grogu just zooming around the bassinet. So I'd like for him to get some sort of hovercraft situation in the future. Because whenever he's like walking around, it really comes back later in the bar scene when he's like running into the bar at the end. It looks a little like marionette-y, like a little silly. So there were just some moments that looked a little like

I love a puppet, though. But yeah, the blending, like Moff Gideon wishes, right? This is what Moff Gideon wants, is like Jedi plus Mandalorian skills. And it's like, this is, you know, this is what Clan Medhorn has. So, yeah. Well, speaking of Gideon, let's chat a little bit more about this long-anticipated showdown between Gideon and Bo. He's taunting her. What's it going to be this time? Surrender or fight? Only one answer, of course. Fight.

Bo ignites the Darksaber, Jo. Giancarlo's so good, right? Yeah, he's amazing. I mean, it's amazing. Obviously, I don't actually want him to return via clone, but we will miss him dearly if he doesn't, so...

The moment where Bo ignites the saber and holds it and we get that close-up shot and she is readying to use this blade against the guy who derailed her life so seismically when he forced her to give that specific blade up had my heart racing. And then... And then...

Gideon says, hand over the dark saber and I'll give you a warrior's death. Bo lets out like a battle cry and charges. Gideon catches her hand in his super strength Beskar fist and he crushes the dark saber in his hand. Boom, gone, destroyed. Let's hear this clip and then talk about this. Carlos. The dark saber is gone. You've lost everything.

Mandalorians are weak once they lose their trinkets. Mandalorians are stronger together. Okay. Let's talk about it. We love this idea. We love this idea that this like thing that has been such a curse, a burden and a curse for Bo-Katan, this idea, this like totem of,

This is what she needs to legitimize her role as a leader and how it's bitten her in the ass again and again and again. And the stupid idea that you have to have a sword. I mean, again, we're going to talk about the importance of magical swords next week. So I don't mean to like diminish them overall, but I love this idea of getting up this, uh, of getting up the saber. Um, I agree. I thought this before I heard them say it. And I was even more convinced after they said it, the midnight boys are like, why didn't she, it should have been her choice, uh,

To sacrifice the dark saber for the larger fight to give, you know, it's like giving up the ring of, or something like that. You know what I mean? This thing that she's been holding on to. And there's like so many ways. I don't mean to write fan fiction. That's what the fanfic writers are for. But like, if you even think of like,

There's a clear visual inspo moment in a Praetorian Guard fight in The Last Jedi when Rey drops her saber in order to get out of a hold and then like, you know, and grabs it and wins. But if like if she had to drop her saber in order to get out of the hold and drop it off the side of the cliff and it goes into like molten lava, I don't care, whatever. Somehow the dark saber gets destroyed, but it's her choice to give it up rather than him just crumpling it.

Um, that's an execution I might've wished for in a concept that I largely love, which is in the end, it's not the dark saber, but it is the ruler. There's also, there's this, um,

Again, not to reference Buffy, but like, you know, tis my nature. There's this incredible fight in season two of Buffy where her antagonist is attacking her and he's like, you've lost all your friends. You've lost this. You've lost that. Blah, blah, blah. Take all the way. What's left? And she like grabs the blade of his sword between her hands and she says, me. And it is like one of the all-time killer moments in like fantasy storytelling. And there's like a bunch of different moments like that, but I think about that one all the time. So like, I like...

Chris saying Mandalorians are stronger together. Like that's a good line, but like, you know, you've lost everything. What's left me or us or something like that. I don't know. Anyway. Um, again, I would love to hear your take, but I think we're largely on the same page. Good concept, possibly shoddy execution. What do you think Mallory Rubin? Yeah, it feels very much of a piece though in its own ways, but very much of a piece with the

a couple episodes ago from Din to Bo where the issue is not the outcome. It's the way. This is not the way. Yeah, this is not the way. I have no issue with the outcome and agree. I think that, as you said, the recognition that you don't need this sword that has plagued you, you specifically in your life and your people across time to validate your worth is insane.

an amazing place to end up if the characters are the ones who decide that. There's the kind of practical speed bump for me here inside of the universe, which is once again that The Mandalorian Season 3 is just not an active conversation with

the book of Boba Fett in particular, where three really consequential episodes of the Mandalorian appear when, when Din and the armor are training. Mando says the dark saber health is quote all the quality of best car. I have never seen before. And the armor replies. It was forged over a thousand years ago by the Mandalore Tarvis. Like he was both Mandalorian and Jedi, uh,

Moff Gideon crumbled this like a fucking Ritz cracker. That just doesn't track. Okay. It just doesn't. So like, why are there these logic conundrums inside of the universe? I baffling when I saw, when you put this line in our door, I like gasped. I've forgotten that that exact line exists. And I was like, why write it if you're then going to ignore it anyway. Right. And like then thematically and ultimately that's more important, but I think they do work in lockstep to make it less effective than it otherwise would have been. Um,

The villain, the fact that it is the villain, that it is your bane, that it is the person who is the cause of making you feel this way so often is the one who destroys it and then taunts you rather than you, Beau, being the one who says, I don't need this.

Even if the theme of the outcome is powerful, it saps some of the potency when that's the way that you get to it. I think even like if it hadn't happened right here, a moment maybe like at the Great Forge when they ignite the Great Forge later, if Bo had turned around to everyone and said, we don't have the Darksaber anymore and guess what? We don't need it. Here are all the things that we're going to make together. We plot our own future. We're not bound by the past. Like there were ways still possible

to make this connect a little bit more fully, but they just, they didn't do it. And I think, again, it's a proximity issue to me too inside of the season where the handover from Din to Bo happened at the end of episode six.

very recently. And in that moment in time, Bo raises it and feels like this is, despite all of the moments where she was at war with herself and felt broken and resented the outsized impact that that blade carried among her people, raised that high, is holding it out in front of her in this episode as they charge into battle. And so it's not just that we don't hear her say, I'm dropping this off, I don't need it.

They're not really showing us that the character feels that way until just like that, like one little line, like you're saying. So I don't know that this was the, I love the dark saber. As you know, Jomie and I are both having a hard time. It's a, it's a cherished object of ours, but the outcome. Great. I will say one more thing here, which is that this is another way where I think the elder one comp really hurts the execution of the dark saber because spoiler for deathly Hallows movie book difference, but,

In the movie, Harry breaks it, right? Breaks the Eldoran. In the book, he puts it back in the tomb. In both cases, he is deciding, I don't want it. I don't need it. And I shouldn't have it. I don't want it. I looked into the knight's eyes. I don't want it. That's a decision, an active choice that the hero of that story makes. Why is Gideon the one who gets to decide this here? I'm just so perplexed by that.

Do you think I ask you, do you think there's any choice that chance the dark saber returns? Or do you think we're actually done with it? Like we saw Ray repair Anakin saber, right? It is hyper crystal itself damaged or just the hill. Listen, plenty. Okay.

Let it never be said that Lucasfilm gave up an opportunity to sell Mala Rubin a different lightsaber. Well, as you know, I'm a proud, proud owner of a dark saber. No, I know. But like you would take a reason to you would take Darksaber Mark two point. Oh, yeah. They made it. I know you would, you know, or if they turn into like the dark rapier or the dark, you know, dagger or something like that. Yeah. I mean, sure. Somehow the black kyber crystal return for sure.

I also just... And this is a good example of what you were saying earlier, not being attached to something. I'm happy to let this go. I did feel like it could have really belonged with Grogu, though. I hope it doesn't. Like, if it's... If the whole point is this is a cursed object, we don't need it, or, you know, whatever. Well, that's the thing. Yeah, that's why I'm asking. I don't want it to come back, but... Have they really made that decision, though? Do you think? You know what? Maybe I should just not speculate. Okay, so...

Sorry about firebombs. Yeah. You know, far from being a spy is the hero of the whole thing, right? He ends the war, right? Can you share this, like, Ben observation about the...

Yes. Ben had, as always, a wonderful... Brilliant. Of course, a wonderful column on the finale. Read it on TheRinger.com. What a great website. He had a couple lines in particular that killed me. One was later about how the Mythosaur didn't eat Ragnar, despite how monsters always think he's a tasty snack. But speaking of the Mythosaur, Ben had this observation that...

I thought was really astute that the songs of eons past were told of the rise of the Mythosaur and this idea of heralding in a new age that we've been talking about. Like, sure, in some ways that tracks to Bo making eye contact, locking eyes with the actual creature in the living waters in episode two, but that in a lot of ways it was the Mythosaur skull that they had painted on the light cruiser that these people had said, this is who we are.

And we're going to crash that. It's classic prophecy shit, and I love it. I love it. I love this. But what we're getting...

in addition to the Mythasaur light cruiser crashing in, is Clan Mudhorn fighting together. Ah, it's great. All three Zs. Wonderful. Gideon getting force-knocked over by Grogu was delightful. Did you want Grogu to turn to the dark side? Did you want him to crush Gideon in the Beskar armor? No. Were you in for it? It didn't occur to me, honestly. Yeah.

check off once again, not on the writing staff this season, the little bit of a Bethgar Rondahl that went in the front of Grogu's little robe. Didn't matter. Didn't pay. No, no. But saving up those force calories did pay off just as we thought. But here's my question again, once again, execution, is this a satisfying, what,

Okay, I'll just say this. I like it when a villain is hoisted somehow by their own petard. That there's some sort of critical character choice that they have made or a way in which they have underestimated people. Gideon dies here in a blaze of Axe-Wovian glory. You know what I mean? Like, okay. Yeah.

And Grogu and Bo and Din live because Grogu has a force. So like there's something slightly poetic in the fact that like this thing that he craves, the force, he doesn't have it. Grogu does. Grogu saves them with the force and he dies. But like I just wish there had been like some more active choice he made that was his downfall, some false move that he made, some way in which he's underestimating them. But he's not. He just gets engulfed in flames and so too would they if Grogu had not used the force, you know?

Interesting. Yeah, I see that for sure. I guess like the poetic impact of his own ship being used to take down the base that he had the gall to build by plundering the resources of a people he didn't understand and he's encasing himself in the Beskar that ultimately is going to be his tomb because he's going to roast in it. I know, like if he had like

Okay, I'm writing fan fiction again. But if he had drowned, sunken down with the weight of the Beskar that he stole or something like that, something very poetic and tied directly to. But then we'd all be like, is he going to claim the Mythosaur? And then I would have been like, well, Jamie Lannister survived, so who's to say? I'll take your explanation. That's fine. I'll accept it. Do you think that Moff Gideon is off the show? What do you think? He's got all the happy clones. They can't do it again, Mallory. They cannot. I agree. I agree.

They can't. They can't. But they might. But they can't. They might. One cloning base destroyed doesn't mean there wasn't another somewhere, at least the ability to make another clone. I don't know. I think like on the one hand, they cannot bring him back in season four because they can't end a fourth season in a row with the same showdown. But then if they wait and do it later, it really like invites an even more direct somehow Gideon returned, somehow Palpatine returned like

everything always has to be about the same characters all the time. Okay, you ready for some fanfic? What if season four opens with a Gideon clone and he's back and he's plotting blah, blah, and then my husband, Brendal Hux, shows up and just like, you know, smokes him, kills him. I love it when you say season four opens, you mean what if that happens in Book of Boba Fett season two, right? Is that what you mean? Of course. Episode five of Book of Boba Fett season two? Yeah. Um...

Grogu and the Force.

Here's what I loved about it. Not only the cocooning of clan Mudhorn inside of a Protego spell, but the callbacks. Obviously, the season two finale is very top of mind, but the season one finale, we have a lot of callbacks to that in particular. We've talked about some of them already. Grogu, and we talked about in our Top Mando Moments preview pod, we talked about how wonderful seeing Grogu fend off the trooper's flamethrower fire is in the season one finale. And so to call back to that here, I

I loved. And also because even though he plops down for a second, he doesn't immediately need a nap. So like not only the, the might of the, the, the force that he is displaying, but the strength that he is gaining, um,

I thought we would see even more moments like that this season, but I was glad we got this here. This also had to make any Rebels watcher think of Kanan. Had to. A massive plume of flame about to engulf our beloved. I was glad that this had a happier ending. And then I love the part where, like,

Dan whips his helmet off. And kisses his son. Lays a smooch on Bo and then snuggles his son. You know what I mean? This is my number one candidate for where the helmet removal should have happened. Even more so than the adoption ceremony to come. Do you think then, given that the helmet never comes off, my theory and people got mad when I said this, but like, do you think then that like Pedro was just like never once on set? Didn't step one step

booted foot on set this season. Maybe. I mean, I just don't understand how that could be possible, but maybe. I hope that they find a way to a different outcome. I think this is why Brendan and Lateef are like, people are mentioning them a lot more in interviews. They're in the credits this season, like all that sort of stuff. Oh, boy. Well, another place that we didn't see Pedro's face was down in the Mines of Mandalore in the Living Waters where we go. Everyone's there, Joe, to watch Ragnar's Creed ceremony. Yeah.

Had to pick it up after it had been interrupted. This is where I wanted to talk to you a bit more about what you were mentioning earlier, like where the season ultimately comes down on the way, on the Creed. Everyone there is wearing helmets. Are you reading that as just the armor is still, everybody's on the same page that Bo and her followers can take their helmets off as much as they want. We don't have to be quite so rigid, but Bo and co are showing the same respect in turn. This is a ceremony that is dear and sacred to you. We will respect your ways.

And how are you feeling overall about the kind of pro-creed place that the season landed in? I guess if the armorers, because we see them, we see Bo's followers take their helmets off during the lighting of the forge ceremony, right? They're not all helmeted for that. So since the armorer is not saying, we all need to do it my way, it's like, there are many ways to be a Mandalorian, you know, like sort of thing. Then like, then okay. Okay. Okay.

Does that feel like enough in this season? Like it's a gateway to more of an embrace of other ways and customs, like more acceptance, more progress, or does it just feel like this was a, not a big enough evolution for the children. And B, as you noted earlier, our main character did not, not only not evolve, but really interrogate his relationship. It's mostly that. It's mostly that because when people, so like the children of the watch, I'm kind of, I'm kind of okay with whatever, but like, um,

And I apologize for calling them a cult this whole thing. It's a dead thing. It's like, because if you look, a lot of people are like, this season finale has so much in common with the season two finale. How much has Din really changed? Like, what has he learned and grown and done and like whatever since the season two finale to now? He did make a significant change from the season two finale to now. He just did it inside of the book of Boba Fett. That's where he made the change, which is like, I cannot let my son go. I need, I want my son.

That, you know, and it's ultimately Grogu's choice, but he goes, he's yearning, he wants Grogu back. He's right there. I came all this way. You know, came all this way. That is the big difference between Din ready to give Grogu up at the end of season two and the Din we meet this season. But over the course of this season, I would say Din has not changed one iota at all. Right? Well, let's carry that into discussing the Din Grogu.

foundling to apprentice sequence. We heard this clip in full at the top of the episode, but we'll discuss some of the key elements that unfold here. We learn that Grogu is no longer a foundling. He's an apprentice. Din wants to add him to the song. The armorer says he's too young. Our guy needs a permission slip, right? He needs a parental signature. I really thought

because specifically she says he's too young to speak, I really thought that we were about to hear. Oh, and they like zeroed in on his face? I thought it was going to happen. I thought he was going to utter his first word in basic, but he didn't, and I'm glad. I want to keep waiting as long as we can. But the look on Grogu's face, he looked so sad, Joe, when the armorer said that he had to remain a foundling. And again, like, just like when he ran in, Grogu, if you want to be a Mandalorian, you got to come with me, when he ran into her workshop after her back at the Dino Cove.

Little moments like that where we see how badly he wants to be a part of this world are just so, so, so important. I want to know what you thought of Din saying, then I will adopt him as my own. Did this tug at the heartstrings? Did you find this a little puzzling because you already considered them father and son? Where did you land on this?

What did Bo-Katan say when she hopped into the fight with Mafkin? She said, I've got this. Go save your kid. Like, I mean, sure, we're making it. We're filing the papers. That's fine. But it's not like a big care. It's not like, oh, my God, he's making it official. Like, he's already his kid. They already did. They did that in Book of Boba Fett. You know what I mean? So it's like.

It felt kind of silly to me. That being said, when we listened to the clip at the beginning of this episode, you and I, I almost started crying because it was so sweet. Because Pedro is so good and the coos and the gurgles. Sweet baby gurgle. I don't know if you've heard this one before, but I'm of two minds. This is just a classic on the one hand, on the other. Finale and season three. Choice where...

I don't think any of us felt that they needed to file the formal paperwork. Like part of the beauty of a found family story is that it's the choice that you make when it's right for you. And I guess there is something nice about seeing this larger shared embrace. But again, like that had happened. I think a moment like when Din picks up Grogu for the challenge with the paintball sequence, this was, this was happening already. The choice that Grogu made to leave Luke and,

and go to Din. Now, I think the season, like if you think back to a moment like the premiere where Din basically like says to grief, it's complicated. I guess the most charitable read you could make is that even Din himself still had like one step to take to formalize it. But I don't think we believe that because we just have seen in every decision that they've made to be together and to fight for each other and protect each other above all else that they already were a father and son. All that said,

I thought this was so beautiful.

I told you this off pod, but I'm just going to say it for the benefit of our listeners, that there was a Reddit comment I read, and I'm so sorry I don't have the Redditor's name in front of me, where they were like, this adoption ceremony happens right in front of fucking Ragnar, whose dad literally just died. And the Redditor was like, and they'll never take that away from me. That was just so hilarious and juicy. It's just...

Tough beat after tough beat. Go stand by yourselves. Groga's got a dad, though. Oh, my God. Whether we needed the formality, it was beautiful. It did make me really emotional. Again, you're pulled in so many directions because we have the naming moment.

Or Din takes Grogu, or Grogu takes Din's name. And there's something about that Din, Grogu, Mandalorian apprentice that is kind of like an amazing solidification of,

But then there's like, wait, was Din his surname this whole time? Question that everybody has now spent a couple days on the internet asking each other. My assumption, perhaps wrongly, I assume they'll clarify this at some point, because this is not a Mandalorian custom as far as we understand it, based on all of the other Mandalorian characters we know. Right, it's like House Kree, House Wren. Yeah, House Wren, House Vizsla. That this is a custom from Din's

home planet great family great theories love it I don't know it's the only thing that makes sense who do you think Din's teacher was because we get this interesting line you must leave Mandalore and take your apprentice on his journeys just as your teacher did for you I don't know but it would be is it a Vizsla it would be really fun um

like parallel sort of storytelling in season four to see like Din training Grogu. And then again, I'm writing fan fiction, but like that could be fun to see like flashbacks of how Din Djarin became an official Mandalorian. I like that. That would be great. It does seem like season four will be part Din back as in the bounty hunter life, selecting his missions carefully as he told Garceteva at Adelphi base and

fighting the Imperial Remnant and also part this charge from the Armorer, his journeys, Grogu's journeys. So season four firmly oriented around Din and Grogu and their adventures again. I'm delighted. What do you think that means for Bo and for Mandalore? This is one of my confusing end notes where, again, I like the... And I say this as someone who loves Bo and loves Mandalore. I like...

repositioning the future of the show around Din and Grogu. I wonder, does Mandalore become a place like Navarro where they go occasionally and they visit their cherished friends? Is this priming us for a Bo-Katan-Mandalore spinoff? Is this just about having the planet back and the characters in the mix for all of these other shows in the timeline? What do you think the role is moving forward for Bo and Co.? I mean, we're about to...

spend time with a very important Mandalorian in Ahsoka in the shape of Sabine Wren. Right. But, but we do have a question of like, where were the Mandalorians during the sequel trilogy? The same question we have of like, where was Grogu during the sequel trilogy? Right. Where they just sort of like, we're in the outer room. It's none of our business or, you know, what was going on. He's off with the, the, he and his mythosaur who he like has this amazing, um,

animal force bond moment with here maybe they're off with the pergol i feel like you are no this is happening i am absolutely i will say i'm astounded that it didn't happen here i know i know it's so funny to think back to episode two where we're like i can't believe we got the mythosaur here i thought we'd have to wait for the finale and then surely nobody's gonna ride him before the season's over anyway it's fine but hold it loosely we get this like fine

this amazing camera pan of Grogu looking. It's like, not to invite another Grogu Gollum comp because this was so wholesome and precious, but it's like Smeagol looking down in the water, you know? And the Mythosaur opens its eyes. This is an animal force bond. Grogu can sense the Mythosaur. The Mythosaur can sense him. Grogu will ride the Mythosaur. He will ride it. And Cobb Vanth will be in season three of The Mandalorian. Oh, wait. He will ride it.

Remember when Din Djarin brings Greef Karga a marshal, but it's not Cobb Band. All right. We're going to get there in a second. Anything else about the Mythosaur moment or the forge lighting or anything? But Bow and Co. Well, I know I don't know. Bow and Co. I think everything is a little flexible in the world of Disney plus Star Wars shows.

Given the middling reception to this season, I wonder if they might lean a bit away from such a strong Mandalorian representation, which is too bad because it's not Beau's fault. It's not Katie's fault. It's not, you know, like that's not why. But it might be that they're like, okay, we went heavy Mandalorian. People didn't really like it. Let's not. But I would bet all my money.

Not very much, but I have about all my money that Bo-Katan is going to be in the film if they're doing like an Avengers team up Thrawn film. Bo's in that for sure. But are we going to see her be on like one episode in the next season of Mandalorian? I don't know. I feel like, I don't know. Maybe Sabine will just visit Mandalore. Maybe it'll be that. You can't bring back Mandalore to then do nothing with it. That would be so bizarre. Oy vey.

Well, we brought back IG because in addition to Din being like, I'm a bounty hunter by trade and nobody watching this show has forgotten it for a second over the Delphi base. Grogu spots the, first of all, snacking, needed his calories, couldn't wait to have a nosh because of course Din hasn't been feeding him and I'll never miss an opportunity to mention it to you. Okay. Never. We got so many emails about this and we got plenty of emails from cat owners and I don't know what Halo is like, but my cat,

no matter how much I feed her, will want to eat anything. And like she acts like she's starving all the time when the vet could tell you that she is healthy, if not slightly over the weight that she's supposed to be. And she is always going after food. I trust that you feed bugs.

I know that Din is not doing a sufficient job of nurturing Din. Din Grogu. I do. I do. Jon Favreau, if you're listening to this podcast, and I hope you're not, but if you are, include many scenes in season four of Din feeding. Oh my God. I mean, do you think Grogu eats that freaking frog in the final scene of the episode? No, he let him go. They're playing their part. Do you think he wants to eat the mythosaur? Is that what that was about? He's like, there's a hearty snack. Snack time. Snack time.

Oh, God. Well, he sees the IG head, Joe, and you didn't get Cobb Banth, but you got IG-11 as the Marshal of Navarro. How are you feeling about it? Honestly, that's even worse. No Cobb Banth would have been less galling to me than Taika getting a big moment here. I am here to serve and protect the citizenry. Left out of the final cut was, I assume, against my will because these monsters have just been using my parts for their ends.

Horrible. And then we get, well, what I will say is there's been a lot of fan art of this beautiful final shot. I loved this. This was perfect. Of Din Djarin and Grogu. There's been a lot of fan art where people just have inserted Cobb Vanth into this scenario. I would also accept O'Mara because Joe, this is the sanctuary offer that Din didn't take. This was it, right? Yeah, but she's not leaving the show.

They're like marshland for Navarro. The salt flats of Navarro. It's a boom time again. I don't know. Cobb Banth either just out of frame or inside. Perhaps he's inside making dinner. You know what I mean? And Mando's got his feet up. Grogu's playing. Grogu's well fed. Maybe, okay, compromise. Grogu's well fed for once because Cobb Banth, his other dad is here. Because of Cobb Banth, I would believe. Yeah. Oh my goodness. We get that.

You can lay low with your new family if you choose so. Between adventures line from grief. A little season four set up from our guy, the High Magistrate himself. And the Iris, Joe, zooming in on Grogu and Din. Relaxing peace at last. Beautiful final shot. No stinger. But... Did you watch all the way till they switched to the foreign language credits? Absolutely. Yeah. Of course. Absolutely. I was like...

Maybe it's just a really quick Thrawn Hollow at the very end. And then it's like Poland and you're like, oh no, okay, we're done here. We didn't get a Stinger, but we are going to get a lot of Thrawn. We're going to get a lot of building toward the First Order, etc. And so you had the great idea to chat with our pal Ben Lindbergh today about some reading recommendations to prime people for the future of the Mandoverse. Let's bring on Ben.

You had to have me back today after we just completely nailed Theory Corner last week. We crushed it. Kudos to us. It's uncanny how all over it we were. Do we have the Force? Yeah, we're in Favreau's head, it seems like. We had fun on the internet. It's fine. We'll chat about Star Wars with my pals. Maybe the real finale was the theories we had along the way. I shall assume full responsibility and apologize to Lord Vader. Ben,

Table Vader for a second, though you might mention him. Yes. We talk about lore with you often, but today you're not going to dive into necessarily one kernel of lore from this finale. You're going to cast a wider lore net. We're doing a little book club. We're doing a little Ringerverse recommends reading section because...

So many of the shows that await the future of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, all these movies we keep hearing about, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, clearly going to hinge on the rise of the First Order, the fall of the New Republic, our buddy Thrawn, et cetera. And so Joe had the great idea that you, a scholar, a reader. Well-read, yes. An enthusiast, a man of letters. Literate. Would maybe like to highlight something.

some lore primers for our beloved house of our listeners so that people can start getting ready, start anticipating all the lore you might talk about in the future. Where do you want to direct people to

Yeah, I've got a few recommendations teed up here, although I'd like to throw out this. I'd be curious to hear from our listeners about how their relationship to written stories has changed in this era of nonstop screen projects. So I was thinking about this as I was preparing this list, because when we were kids back in our day,

books and comics and maybe video games were kind of it, right? At least in Star Wars, when I first got into Star Wars, that was the only way I was getting my fix, right? And it's not like there's any less being published now. There's still a ton, but I'm the resident Star Wars nerd and I still have to pick my spots with this stuff because as much as I like Star Wars, I also like other things. Star Wars could become my entire media diet if I watched and played and read everything. I'd have

no time for anything else. You need to carve out plenty of time to watch Adley Rutschman's at-bats. I understand. Exactly. That's what I'm doing. Yeah. That's what I'm doing. Yeah.

Because the novels and the stories were so central to what Star Wars was decades ago, that's what gave characters like Thrawn and Pelion, who are making their transition to live action now, just the aura that they have, the significance that they have, right? Because they date from that heyday of the expanded universe when they were all we have.

But I wonder whether that'll still happen now that there are constant TV shows in theory, maybe some movies someday. Will we still get breakout characters from the books? Will we get a Dr. Aphra TV series, for instance? I guess we got Cobb Vanth, which means a lot to Joanna. So there's something there. Okay.

Did we get enough? Did we get enough of Cobb Vanth, though? That's the question. But books and comics are sort of in a subordinate supporting role, right? Instead of pushing the plot forward, it's all about we're psyched for Ahsoka. So what should we read to know more about that as opposed to the other way around? So it depends, I guess, if we're talking about Star Wars or Star Trek or Marvel, all of these franchises have different approaches to canon and continuity. But

I'd be curious to hear whether people are digging into this stuff as much as they used to, or whether they find that there's just so much on screen now that it's hard to find the time or that they don't find it as rewarding. I hope they do because there's still a lot of great stuff and I'm about to list some of it. I think it's kind of interesting too, because like, you know, they've been so busy over at Lucasfilm Story Group, churning out these comics and these books. And my understanding is that like,

they're not that interested in doing on-screen adaptations of those stories that they put in the books and the comics. So like anything we were, we would get with those characters would be supplemental to what we already know. Between this and that. Yeah. And that means they've already cemented so many stories like Phasma or something, you know, like we're not going to get a Phasma prequel because we already have her story in the book and stuff like that. And so,

on the one hand, that's cool because I love to read. I love comics. I'm glad we're expanding out that way. But it also further hems them in on where those cracks and crevices are. Exactly. Yeah. Whereas decades ago when there were no movies for years and years at a time and no TV shows, that was the cutting edge. We're pushing the story forward and it's just the books. So that's what you have to read to figure out where things are going next. But

there's still a lot of extra info that can deepen your appreciation of the things that we're watching, which is what we're talking about today. So,

there's a lot of Thrawn out there, right? Just a lot of Thrawn texts. Just a full Thrawn library. You could start reading all the Thrawn books now and you would not be done by the time Ahsoka started. So you might have to be selective, but there are 12 Timothy Zahn books about Thrawn and some are canon, some are not. I

I would say, and maybe this is nostalgia speaking, but you can't go wrong just going all the way back to Heir to the Empire, the 1991 book that started it all. No longer canon, but wouldn't put it past Dave Filoni to pull some elements from that trilogy as he pulled Thrawn himself.

And also just to understand why people care about this character and his outside significance to the fan base that has been following Star Wars for years. I think it might be helpful to go back and give that a look. To be fair, I don't know how it holds up.

up. It's been a while. I thought it was great in fourth grade. Perhaps it's not as great as an adult, but maybe it is. I hope it is. So I would recommend that at least based on my warm, fuzzy memories. But there are recent Thrawn trilogies, two canon trilogies, the Thrawn trilogy and the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy.

The Thrawn trilogy was published first, but comes later in the timeline, closer to the TV series. So I'd say if you were picking one of those, probably start there. The Ascendancy trilogy is a prequel about a younger Thrawn, but the Thrawn trilogy, which came out in 2017 or started then and was announced at the same time as the announcement of Thrawn's appearance in Rebels...

is about how Thrawn joined the Empire and worked with Palpy and Vader and how his loyalties are divided between the Empire and his people, the Chiss. So a lot of that, I think, probably could be relevant to Ahsoka, depending on what he's been doing all these years. And just to get a sense of his character, I think you got to sample some Timzon if we're getting psyched for Thrawn. The first Star Wars novels I ever read

were the aftermath books I started reading last week because I wanted to like contribute to lower corner. Right. So it's like, I am so ignorant when it comes to Star Wars novels and I'm so excited. I mean like, yes, we did get emails from people asking for this, but maybe I'm also just like personally motivated to get Ben's recommendations. You could have slacked me, Joe. Fair. But the, you know, you know, our colleague Van, who's, you know, an old school Gen X Star Wars fan, um,

like the heir to the empire mentioned in the Ahsoka trailer, just sent him off on this multi-day rhapsodizing about that original Thrawn book from Timothy Zahn. And something I've heard also, you know, as I've been like trying to gather recommendations, a lot of people recommend these Thrawn books, all of them, all the trilogies that you mentioned, et cetera, in audio book form, because Mark Thompson is a narrator of all,

all six of the current ones and the legend. There's like an anniversary edition of the legends one that he did as well. And apparently, you know, like as I love to read a book, I love to listen to a book. I don't really see a difference, but a good or bad narrator can make or break a book in audio book format. And like Mark Thompson, according to people is like an elite narrator. So I think I'm going to try these on audio. I'm really excited for that.

That's awesome. Our pal, a friend of the pod, Jason Manzoukas, is a huge proponent of the audiobooks for the Thrawn series. He gives it a fervent recommendation. I have mentioned the new canon Thrawn books many times as favorites, and I think that if you've seen Rebels, it's extra delightful to see the canon crossovers and adjacencies, but if you haven't, it's actually a really nice way to maybe pursue both of those things in tandem and or just flesh out your feel for that stretch of the timeline. The

The exposure to Thrawn as a thinker, I think, is just my favorite thing about that book. You get to meet a lot of other interesting characters and imperial figures. This is a big Eli Vantopod here. Around these parts, we stan Eli. But things that we've talked about a lot in a Rebels context, like the way that Thrawn will study a culture's art to understand how to

put together a battle plan or understand a foe, that is President P.

page to page, paragraph to paragraph, the way that he studies facial expressions, body language. And I think like something that Joe and I were talking about on a recent pod that's really interesting about Thrawn as a figure and that we're really looking forward to seeing in live action is Joe put it as like Thrawn as a manager. And I think that that is obviously present in Rebels 2, but you get a great feel for it in the Zahn novels because like the way that he will work with

one of his team members to get to a given outcome and the people who don't understand him or like in Gideon mold, maybe are threatened by him. Always think that it's some setup for a dunk because that's how they would operate. That's how they would interact. They'd always be trying to one up somebody else. And then Thrawn just like, can't wait to congratulate somebody who has made a forward step with him. You know, I think it's just, they're really interesting and cool and he's a fascinating character. So yeah, can't recommend them enough.

And you're going to want to get to know the good guys, too. So watch Rebels, obviously, or rewatch Rebels. Can't go wrong. But there are also some books about Rebels characters or about the characters on the other side of things from Thrawn. So A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, which was published in 2014. It's the first novel in the new canon, the Disney rebooted canon.

And it includes a foreword by our guy Dave Filoni. And it's a prequel to Rebels. So it's about Kanan and about Hera and about the Imperial Admiral Ray Sloane, who may or may not play a part in these proceedings, but also appears in the aftermath books. So it's just sort of the road to Rebels. Who are these people? What were they doing before we joined them in the show?

And then similarly, the Ahsoka novel, which has come up before on the podcast, but this is the 2016 book by E.K. Johnston. Some aspects of it sort of superseded by Tales of the Jedi and The Clone Wars Season 7 because this was a book

that came out after the Clone Wars was canceled and before we knew that it would come back and that Ahsoka would eventually get her own series. So this was sort of fleshing out what happened to Ahsoka before we knew that we would get much, much more Ahsoka, which is wonderful. But there's a lot in here too that fills in some of the blanks about what she's been up to.

Love the purifying of the previously bled lightsaber crystals to get those signature white blades. It's a really, really fun stretch of the cannon. It's always fun to get some more lightsaber lore and kyber crystal stuff.

mythology insights. So it's a fun book for that, too, in addition to the character. And my remaining recs are all about the rise of the First Order or the dissolution of the Empire and that hazy time period that we're gradually learning more about. So the Aftermath trilogy, which we just mentioned and which has come up

Before on the podcast, this is by Chuck Wendig. It started in 2015, gave birth to Cobb Vance first and foremost, but also it was part of a big publishing project that was called Journey to Star Wars The Force Awakens, which was supposed to link the sequel trilogy to the original trilogy and help explain how certain things returned and certain people returned.

and how we went from Empire to First Order. So this introduces a lot of the stuff that we talked about in last week's Lower Corner, Rendell Hux and the Shadow Council and the Battle of Jakku. And of course, my man, Masa Meta, always going to recommend any Masa Meta content. It can only be you, Ben. Yeah. It can only be you. You're about 30 seconds away from defending the Empire, and then we'll have Ben bingo. Yeah.

And kind of a companion piece to the Aftermath trilogy is the Shattered Empire Marvel comics written by Greg Rucka. It's just four issues, so pretty quick read. Also published in 2015 and really introduced Operation Cinder, which we discussed last week. Palpy's plan to burn down the empire and have it rise from the ashes.

And just two more. Alphabet Squadron, which is by Alexander Freed. It started in 2019. This is a trilogy of novels. And it's set after Return of the Jedi. It's about a group of New Republic pilots who were hunting down Imperial pilots called the Shadow Wing, not to be confused with the Shadow Council. A lot of shadowy activities going on during this time period. But Hera's in it, or at least in part of it, and Operation Cinder's in it.

And it just, along with the Aftermath trilogy and the Shattered Empire, it kind of conveys that things didn't end with the Battle of Endor, that the yub-nub and the celebrations at the end of Return of the Jedi was not actually the end of the war or the end of the story. And really, once the celebrations died down, people realized, oh, there's still actually a lot of empire out there, actually. Not everyone knows that the Emperor is dead, and not everyone accepts that, and

Not everyone wants to lay down their arms. So you had this period of the rebels kind of awkwardly transitioning into a governing leadership phase while also trying to root out the remnant of the empire and have a formal surrender. So it's all about that kind of chaotic period that, as we know, eventually leads to the rise of the First Order.

And finally, fast forwarding a couple of decades here, we have Bloodline by Claudia Gray from 2016. And this has also come up in our previous conversations, but it's set about six years before The Force Awakens. So it incorporates some of the backstory that was developed for that movie, as well as some input from Rian Johnson.

And it's just basically about politics and tensions in the new Republic and the Senate and Leah being outed as the daughter of Darth Vader and how that affects her political career. Not well, you can imagine the attack ads when that news came out, but it's basically about the birth of

the resistance. Yeah, the discourse was not great. So that's kind of the best look we have at why there's a resistance that's different from the New Republic and why Leia doesn't have more allies and why the First Order is allowed to grow and fester. So that sort of sets the stage for the sequel trilogy. But we'll probably get much more info as we watch more of the Mandoverse and continue reading.

Excellent. I can't wait to read all of these things and then try to be somewhere near your level by the time we get to the Ahsoka show. That's my mission for myself. I'm really excited. It'll be much fresher in your mind than it is in mine, so you'll have that advantage at least. Just hitting the little booster button on the N1, zipping right past Ben with some summer reading. Love it. Delightful. Ben, thank you for the recommendations. Thank you for all of the

lore insights and theorizing this season. It was a joy as always. We can't wait to talk about Ahsoka with you. You'll be back on the feed in the meantime with some Jedi Survivor video game talk. You're going to have some Zelda video game talk. Ben will have some video game pods coming for everyone. So stay tuned for that. Well, it was a spotty season, but our conversations were as wonderful as always. So thank you. Thank you, Ben. Joanna. Yeah. Easter eggs.

Favorites? I'm just going to pick one, and it's this. After our phenomenal email we got last week about the lack of Beskar on the thighs of the Mandalorian, I was pleased at least to see Bo deploy a knee rocket. Great maneuver from Bo. I am going to go with the multiple season one finale callbacks that we got from Grogu.

Using the back to spray, fending off the flame. I just, I really loved all of that. That was wonderful. That was wonderful. I thought you were going to mention maybe your guy Gus from Breaking Bad, but no. Oh, because, well, spoilers for Breaking Bad. Wig watch? Do you wear wigs? Yeah, okay, so this is where we're just going to once again say, wouldn't it have been nice to have seen the sweaty, helmeted,

haired head of pedro pascal in this episode um yes many a mandalorian including the lovely kitty sack off bo katan took their helmet off but um pedro's air has been so good of late in the unbearable weight of massive talent in on snl in the last of us so i would like

I would like to see the baby. I would like to see Pedro's hair in season four. We will all be quiet. I know you're still listening. Please make that happen. Thank you. Fantastic. Okay. If the show had Netflix subtitles, Coup Corner. I will miss that. Me too. What do you got? Legions of spongy Gideon clones.

Flush noisily. I love it. Okay, I had a Gideon clone one, but I had it alt prepared in case you went that way. Historically strong Beskar Hill cannot be established to be of a quality our protagonist has never seen before. Unceremoniously crumbles like hollowed pretzel shell in PED-fueled moth's superpowered hand. PED-fueled?

Well, that all fit on one screen. I really need to get better at these. I genuinely like often wing them. And you're like, I have written you a paragraph. This is actually very typical of us. Secret force user. Here you go. Axe wolves. That's my pick too. Has to be. Flew to space. Survived the TIE assault on the light cruiser.

crashes the burning ship into precisely the right spot, which I think shows some force attuned ability, ejects at precisely the right moment. Our guy. Our guy acts. Who we never doubted and were always in support of. We loved him from start to finish. Joanna, any final thoughts on season three of The Mandalorian? I had such an amazing time skomping through this season with you. Couldn't imagine...

a person I would rather scomp with. And, um, thanks to Ben, of course, for always popping up and doing what he does. Thanks to Steve for being here all season. Thank you very much to Carlos for hopping in for the finale here while Steve's on vacay. Great heart-stopping deployment of bad baby. Loved it. No squeezy. Um, a team Ahsoka is going to be great. And I'm, and I'm very excited. Um,

As I mentioned, for the Tropes course episode next week. I think that's going to be really fun. So, yeah. I can't wait for the Tropes course. I can't wait for Ahsoka. I can't wait to be back here with you every week. And over on Prestige, check us out there as well. If we don't take out Moff Gideon, this will never end and it must. That's a wrap. It's a wrap! Thank you, as Joe said, to our commandos, Carlos Chiraboga, for producing this episode, Arjun Aramgopal for his additional production work on this episode, and Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode.

We will see you next week for our Tropes course on Magical Blades. The Midnight Boys will see you next week on Wednesday for their Midnight Court. Until then, let it be written in song. That's a wrap on Mando Season 3.