Here we are again, another week and another episode of The Mandalorian. It feels like a long time ago now that I was reviewing chapter 1, doing my absolute best to not spoil the baby Yoda-like creature reveal. Well now we’re three weeks into the show and ‘baby Yoda’ is arguably the hottest topic in pop culture right now, not because of his mysterious origins but because of just how damn cute everybody finds it. Here’s a true story, my wife was watching chapter 2 with me last week and her eyes were watering… I asked “what’s wrong? Why so sad?” To which she responded with “He’s just so cute!” That’s right, it’s so adorable it actually made her weep! Even people I know who don’t watch the show are obsessed! There’s no arguing that with a worldwide response like this, Star Wars have struck gold yet again with another famous character, a character that sits at the heart of chapter 3.
As always, I will do my best to avoid big spoilers but expect a few spoilers from the past two episodes to pop up.
As we saw at the end of an action packed second episode, the Mandalorian has finally gotten away from Tatooine (at least I assume it’s Tatooine purely based off the fact there were Jawas) with his bounty in tow. Straight away the audience’s strong connection with the child (which by the way I will not call baby Yoda as y’know… It’s not Yoda) starts to play its part, as every one of us was likely wanting to yell at the screen for Mando not to cash in on his high price bounty, and this is where the episode really shines, our hero is forced to wrestle with his feelings, to pick between his job as a bounty hunter or his accidental new role as father/baby sitter. This internal struggle is another testament to just how brilliant Pedro Pascal is in the role as he successfully portrays this emotion while still hidden behind that giant helmet, it’s a joy to watch.
One of my main issues in chapter 1 was the pacing which I feel they had fixed by chapter 2, but it was at the detriment of the story moving forward. Chapter 3 nails both of these as the action comes thick and fast just like the last episode, while still being able to tell a strong story along the way. Not only do we get incredibly fun action and more great narrative, we also get a lot of charm this time around, most of it unsurprisingly revolving around Mando’s relationship with the child. It’s really hard to talk story without spoiling anything but what I will say is that the final twenty minutes or so of this episode is some of the most exciting TV I have ever seen and had me at the edge of my seat until the credits. There’s one particular part towards the end that really excited me and gave me John Wick vibes, I hope we see more of this and thankfully I think we will.
As is now tradition with The Mandalorian, we end on a high. It was not quite the cliffhanger that the first two chapters end on, but by the time the credits hit I was left gutted that I once again have to wait a week to see where we go next. Visuals, soundtrack and performances were strong as always and even three episodes in, I still can’t get over how much this entire series feels like a blockbuster Star Wars movie. Supporting characters are still a real highlight, I don’t think I’ve mentioned him in any of my reviews so far but Carl Weathers (well known for his role as Apollo Creed) as Greef Karga is absolutely fantastic. Although nothing more than the man giving out the jobs previously, he really has time to shine in this episode and shows how important he may well be in the remaining episodes and I for one am I excited to see how his story plays out.
I am really struggling to find a fault in chapter 3, the only one I could think of is that after the opening five or ten minutes, it’s quite predictable exactly how the rest of the episode is going to go. Though predictability isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it’s pulled off this well.
I feel like I’ve had to be way more vague than usual for this spoiler free review, but that’s mostly down to just how much goes down in the episodes 37 minute runtime which I really don’t want to spoil. I really loved this episode, it’s had the most character development so far, the best action and even a fair amount of humour and charm with an absolute fantastic ending which has me dying for more. This has been my favourite episode to date and the only reason it’s not getting a 10 is that I really feel like there’s still a bit of room for this already brilliant series to get that little bit better. So far so good.
I give The Mandalorian Chapter 3: The Sin