Pre-Season Thoughts on The Mandalorian Season 3

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was quiet. So today I'm here for a pre-season discussion about season 3 of The Mandalorian, which debuts on Disney+ on Wednesday. Nothing fancy, just my thoughts and feelings going into the new season. I am going to be touching on things that happened in season 2 as well as things that happened in The Book of Boba Fett since both Mando and Grogu played major roles in the last three episodes of that show, so if you haven't seen those yet, please do so before reading this post, but I'm pretty sure that most Star Wars fans have watched both of them several times by now. So let's get into it.

Even though both Din Djarin, a.k.a. the Mandalorian, and Grogu, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, appeared in episodes 5, 6, and 7 of The Book of Boba Fett, I was reminded yesterday that it's been a little over two years since season 2 of The Mandalorian came out. So even though we've seen both characters since then, we still haven't seen their supporting cast, like Greef Karga since the end of season 2. Same with Bo-Katan Kryze. So it's exciting to return to that part of the Star Wars Universe after more than two years.

One of the things that I'm excited about with this season is that we can jump right in without having to take the time to reunite Din and Grogu after Grogu went to train with Luke Skywalker at the end of season 2. Obviously that's because they handled that in the finale of The Book of Boba Fett, but it's nice that we don't have to worry about that at the beginning of season 3. I found that the first couple of episodes of season 2 dragged a little bit because there wasn't a whole lot going on that advanced the season's story apart from reintroducing Din and Grogu, and introducing us to Paul Sun-Hyung Lee's character, New Republic pilot Captain Carson Teva in "Chapter 10". They were still good episodes, but, they slowed the season down for me.

According to Jon Favreau, who is the showrunner and writer for season 3, this season is going to delve more into the culture and history of the Mandalorian race, and we're going to be going to Mandalore itself. While I'm not a huge fan of the Mandalorians, being that I haven't seen all of The Clone Wars or Rebels and they didn't really start to be given much attention outside of the occasional appearance of Boba Fett in the comics and novels until they began showing up towards the end of The New Jedi Order novel series in 2004 and then didn't start getting fleshed out until Karen Traviss got a hold of them in the second book in the Legacy of the Force series, Bloodlines, in 2006, I'm interested to see how Favreau handles the Mandalorian mythos that Dave Filoni set up in both Clone Wars and Rebels, since they've been using that material for all three seasons of this show, rather than the Legends stuff that Karen Traviss worked out and wrote about in an article published in Star Wars Insider #86 back in 2006, just before Bloodlines came out. 

I'm also excited to see what the fall out of Grogu's decision to abandon his Jedi training with Luke to go back to Din at the end of The Book of Boba Fett is going to be. It was such a quick, offscreen, decision for him to make so it'll be interesting to see where that goes as season 3 progresses.

There's also the fate of the Darksaber, and what Moff Gideon has in store for the Mandalorians. He's gonna be out for revenge given that the Mandos defeated him on his own cruiser in "Chapter 16" (season 2, episode 8) and destroyed his Dark Troopers with the help of Luke Skywalker.

I don't know if Favreau and/or Filoni have said this, but I wonder if anything will be setup for Ahsoka, which is coming out later this year. I mean we got setup for this season in The Book of Boba Fett, and we got little bits of Ahsoka's story in season 2 of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and in the Tales of the Jedi animated series. So it's possible that there will be some sort of setup at some point in this season, possibly either in "Chapter 20" (episode 4) or "Chapter 23" (episode 7) since Filoni cowrote those two episodes with Favreau AND Favreau co-developed Ahsoka with Filoni, it being a spin-off of The Mandalorian. I don't know for sure though as I don't think either of them have said anything about that in any interview or press event leading up to the season premiere, which is coming up on Wednesday. 

Honestly, I'm really excited for this season. Apart from it having been a little over two years since this show has been on, there's so much lore to discover this season. Some was hinted at in both season 1 and season 2, some will be follow-ups and additions to what Filoni did in both Clone Wars and Rebels, and some will be brand new information given to us, the audience, for the first time. It's exciting and fun and I'm interested to see where it all goes. Who knows, it might give me the incentive to watch The Clone Wars and Rebels all the way through just so I understand what's going on a little bit better. We'll see though.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back soon for more blog posts, including a review of the season premiere of The Mandalorian on Wednesday. So until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.