The third season of The Mandalorian concluded true to this year's established form--with weak writing and some nice action sequences. This time, I have a stronger feeling that the problems may not have been entirely Jon Favreau's fault, despite the fact that he has sole writing credit. There are a few instances of very obviously looped dialogue I think may well have been added by meddlers at Disney.
The previous episode ended with Din getting cut off from the other Mandalorians as well as Grogu on the secret Imperial base. This episode begins with one of the Mandalorians flying straight up into the sky. Over the comm, Bo-Katan fills him in about what we've seen and instructs him to get reinforcements from the fleet in orbit. Meanwhile, I'm wondering, why was this guy flying straight up into the sky in the first place?
I suspect an early version of this opening scene featured no dialogue at all. We saw some Mandalorians moving through corridors and another one flying towards the fleet. Explanations wouldn't have been necessary if we can remember things established in previous episodes--comms can't get through Mandalore's atmosphere and the folks planetside are in hot water. When this guy gets to the bridge of the capital ship and asks for aid, all would have made sense. Someone at Disney saw this and thought everything had to be spelled out for the two-year-olds in the audience. Since the Mandalorians are all wearing helmets, it's easy dub over dialogue so they had Bo-Katan give her instructions while the guy was in flight. But ironically, this makes things much more confusing because we're left asking--why the hell was this guy flying straight up at the sky to begin with?
This is almost immediately followed by a scene where Gideon is watching Din and Grogu rendered as dots on a schematic and he remarks from off-camera, "The Mandalorian has escaped." I laughed out loud at that one. Wouldn't the nearby Dark Trooper feel compelled to ask, "Uh, which one, Sir?" Gideon could've replied, "Who do you think? The star of this show!" That was probably the thinking of whoever dubbed that line in. I bet they were thinking, "The kids at home know him best as the Mandalorian." Again, trying to make things absurdly clear has rendered them ridiculous and confusing.
There are some other things I don't think can be blamed on looped dialogue, like Bo-Katan suddenly swooping in to fight Moff Gideon. I was really digging the grand jet pack melee and how dizzying it was. How Bo-Katan alone spotted what was going on down below I don't know. A shot establishing a connexion between the two locations would have been nice. Many of the problems could be attributable to director Rick Famuyiwa who directed three of the episodes this season despite being one of the weakest directors from previous seasons.
I did enjoy most of the fight, it was well choreographed. Though Gideon destroying the Dark Sabre after demanding that Bo-Katan relinquish it struck another blow to the clarity of Gideon's motives. Also, after establishing how cool the Dark Sabre is and how cool Bo-Katan is with it, destroying it now feels pretty lame. Maybe it'll be repaired.
Grogu was cute in the episode but once again his story made little sense. I thought Din had already adopted him so I don't know why he needed to again here. Grogu's inability to talk doesn't seem like it should be an issue if they could give him a device that speaks "Yes" and "No" when he presses corresponding buttons. I thought he would have his first words by the end of this season. So much for that. It seems Grogu may be the Maggie Simpson of the Star Wars universe, though even Maggie had that episode where Elizabeth Taylor voiced her. Who could they bring in for Grogu? I nominate Faye Dunaway.
The Mandalorian is available on Disney+.
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