It feels good to be back on adventures with Mando and Grogu once again.
BY ELLIOT LINES MARCH 2, 2023
They're back! Our favourite Star Wars duo are once again gracing our screens in this new season of The Mandalorian. Mando and Grogu have quickly become some of the most recognisable and loved characters in the Star Wars universe, this was quite made quite clear in their surprise re-appearance in The Book of Boba Fett (in which the episode they appeared was the best of the bunch). New adventures await for this unlikely duo, but should we have let the companionship come to a natural end, that may be the question.
Titled Chapter 17: The Apostate, this episode begins at a Mandalorian ceremony, with the armourer inducting a young child to the tribe. The ceremony is interrupted by a giant crocodile like monster from the sea, the Mandalorian's fight but need help from a swooping in Din Jarin/Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu, who blast the monster with his starfighter. Mando then discusses becoming a Mandalorian once again, but he must find the mines of Mandalore to do so. He then travels to Navarro to meet Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), stops a group of pirates and turns down the job of a local sheriff. His intentions are to rebuild IG-11 (voiced by Taika Waititi), but the droid goes back to his default settings and attempts to kill Grogu. Mando take the droid to Anzellan (Babu Frik's species) mechanics, who state he needs a new memory core to repair IG-11. As Mando leaves Nevarro he is attacked by the pirate crew, after destroying a few of their ship he manages to escape, taking him to meet with Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff). She reveals that she has abandoned her plans to reclaim Mandalore and that Mando must travel there alone.
When the two of these characters parted ways at the end of season 2, it felt like a natural end to their journey. This begs the question, is a new season necessary? The answer to that is probably no, and this episode even questions that itself when Greef Karga says;
"Oh. I'm confused. I thought you had completed your mission,
but you're still running around here with the same little critter."
This is a question on all of our lips, but what the episode does show overall is that we're ready for more adventures with these two characters, whether they are needed or not.
We find ourselves back into the more known story of jumping between locations, meeting new people/aliens from across the galaxy and that is more than okay. We want to journey with these two, see the different parts of the galaxy and experience more. Also, in true The Mandalorian fashion we get a collection of very different action scenes. Beginning with the Mandalorian tribe against a big crocodile like monster, moving to a Terminator like robot malfunction scene, then finishing off with a classic Star Wars fighter dog-fight, is there anymore in the way of action you need in one episode.
Even though this episode is seemingly setting up for the future of the season, it doesn't feel like the return of The Mandalorian is unwarranted. Andor showed us what we could have in the terms of story-telling in the Star Wars universe, but this has built a reputation and it feels good to be back on adventures with Mando and Grogu once again.
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