The Mandalorian will be back on Disney+ this spring as the highly anticipated third season is set to debut in March 1, marking the first series in this mini-universe since The Book of Boba Fett last year. The Mandalorian has been an almost universally well received show, earning excellent critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps most tellingly, this series from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni appeared to excite the vast majority of fans without causing a great deal of debate or controversy, something that occurred with the release of the prequel and sequel trilogies.
However, The Book of Boba Fett didn’t have quite the same reaction, with many criticizing its weak story and a distinct lack of a character arc for the title hero. The show was largely unfocused, failed to establish any sort of interesting narrative, and ultimately underwhelmed audiences. Going forward, it’s crucial that The Mandalorian season 3 avoids these mistakes.
For starters, The Book of Boba Fett had a genuinely mind-boggling structure for the first half of the show, switching between flashbacks and present day scenes without any sort of rhythm or predictability. Some episodes were almost entirely flashbacks and had only one or two present day scenes. Many noted that it seemed odd that Jon Favreau and the rest of the writing team didn’t adopt a more linear approach for the story rather than switching back and forth between two timelines. This resulted in a distinct lack of focus, which was made even more apparent by the fact that neither plot line was particularly interesting or unique.
The Mandalorian has always followed a consistent, more episodic approach to previous outing, something that the writers would be wise to stick to for the upcoming seasons. This is an extremely episodic show, much more so than Obi-Wan Kenobi, for example. The way in which the show embraces its television format is one of its core strengths.
As stated previously, there was also a great deal of world building present in The Book of Boba Fett. While this was interesting to an extent, there were times when the show lost focus. The amount of time spent with Luke Skywalker in a series that is supposed to be about Boba Fett is a prime example of this. The Mandalorian and its mini-universe are expanding, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but this should be a natural progression rather than a bombardment of new stories and characters. At the end of the day, the core strength of this show is the relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu, something that should remain the center of everything.
Speaking of Din Djarin, the now-iconic character had a lot of screen time in The Book of Boba Fett, including an entire episode dedicated to him. Many described this as The Mandalorian season 2.5, and for good reason. As fans will remember, Boba Fett didn’t even appear. Rather, the story was entirely focused on Djarin and his journey since letting Grogu go with Luke. In this episode, Djarin was also banished from his clan of Mandalorians for taking off his helmet to show his face to Grogu, something that the trailers for The Mandalorian season 3 show will carry on this spring. This represents an interesting storyline involving Djarin wrestling with the creed of roots, but it also has the potential to undo much of his character arc so far.
In two seasons, Djarin has gone from a highly effective bounty hunter to a father of an orphan, and a great one at that. He’s taken his helmet off three times, and all three were because of Grogu. Even the first, where Djarin removed his helmet so that he could be healed, was done so that he could continue caring for Grogu and rescue him from Moff Gideon’s forces. That he allowed Grogu to see his face in the season 2 finale was a massive moment for Djarin, but now that he’s reunited with his adopted son yet again, his character is at a crossroads.
It seems that if season 3 shows Djarin attempting to rejoin his creed and make up for his mistake with the helmet, this would, at least to some degree, walk back on his character arc. That’s not to say this plot line won’t be effective, as it certainly could be, but the writers should be careful as to continue looking forward with this character rather than making him return to his old ways. Pedro Pascal’s leading role in The Last of Us series on HBO and his seemingly small amount of time spent on the set of The Mandalorian season 3 could also suggest that the character won’t take his helmet off all that much, which again can be effective for the character and story, but also has the potential to backfire.
The Mandalorian season 3 premieres on March 1.