There wasn’t a thing wrong with this episode that I could find. I looked, and everything in me says it’s a 10 all day.
It’s The Mandalorian Season 3, Chapter 17, “The Apostate,” and I’m not alone for this one. If it’s Star Wars, it’s got Mrs. Know-It-All written all over it, so you know we had to have her on. “Hi, everyone. It’s so good to be back.” As time allows and she’s available, she’ll absolutely be on the show this season, and I’m super excited about it.
A Helmet for a Child
We open on the covert, and it’s a new covert. It’s somewhere different, sort of coastal-looking, and the Mandalorians are holding the ceremony where a youngling starts the training to become a Mandalorian. One kid is standing in the water, and the Armorer is back, which is awesome. She’s making his helmet.
We both thought at first that it was Din Djarin’s backstory. Then you look around and all the other Mandalorians are so bright and vibrant colored, and we know his current armor is beskar, the shiny pretty kind, not painted. So it’s not him.
At first I thought to myself, that’s a really small helmet. And then it hit me why. It’s for a child. I’m assuming she makes a new version when he gets older, or maybe he has to earn a final version. I don’t know what all the deal is with the Mandalorians on that, but it’s interesting to say the least.
The Thing in the Water
They’re doing all this on a shoreline, and they’re suddenly attacked by this ginormous creature. If you had to put it next to something that was ever on Earth, it’d be a prehistoric alligator, or a crocodile with a long turtle shell. It’s so weird-looking, and the way it comes up out of the water is all alligator.
They get their butts whooped. Dude, it’s eating fools, the whole nine yards. They’re using their little launch lasso thingies to try and wrangle it. The Armorer goes to rescue somebody who gets sucked underneath it, and the kid she was making the helmet for goes and tries to help her. It looks bad, because they can’t penetrate this creature’s outer shell with their equipment, with fire, with anything.
Then they hear the sound of a ship, and sure enough it’s a modified Naboo fighter, also known as Mando’s ship. He comes in, takes a couple of shots, and you see entrails and viscera flying everywhere. It’s so gross. It’s great. They didn’t hesitate to show it. It wasn’t bloody all over the place, there’s no spilling of blood, but a big pink ribbon of intestine just went flying.
“This Is the Way”
Din Djarin arrives, and we cut to him and the Armorer. She calls him out. What are you doing here? You took off your helmet. You’re not a Mandalorian anymore. And he comes back with the Creed: he can be redeemed if he goes and bathes in the waters of the mines of Mandalore.
Which, frankly, if you go take a bath, it’s probably a good idea anyway. Just saying. The suits can’t smell good. Okay, let me stop. It’s been a minute since she’s been on with me, so you’re going to have to forgive us.
So he holds up this green shard, and to me it looks like kryptonite. I feel like they raided the prop warehouse where Warner Brothers keeps the old kryptonite from the old Superman movies. The other comparison at our house was the broken glass in Encanto. She tells him it’s all been destroyed, and he says, if I find it and I can bring proof, will that restore me?
She’s quiet for a minute. That’s what’s great about the Mandalorian helmets, because you sit there and you put the emotions on them yourself. She just sits there stone-faced, looking, we assume, dead at him. Then she says, “This is the way,” gets up, and walks away. Very much with a go ahead, whatever, man attitude. If you know it, then do it. You do you, boo boo.
And can I just say, off rip, Grogu looks amazing. I swear, you guys, I’m watching it for the story of The Mandalorian. I swear. But man, that Grogu. I just can’t.
The Whales in Hyperspace
There’s a rule in film and television. It’s not Occam’s razor, and I forgot the name, but it’s the one where if you’re going to show a gun, then by the end that gun better be used.
So there’s this very interesting moment where they’re in hyperspace. Din is clearly taking a nap, and Grogu’s in the droid bay just looking around in awe, because he’s this little kid. We’ve all seen hyperspace, the whole stars streaking thing. The way they do it here, it looks like you’re underwater and there’s a storm above the water. And Grogu sees these silhouettes out in it that almost look like whales. Some kind of a space whale octopus thing. We drew the conclusion that it’s a creature that exists in hyperspace.
Now, for those of you playing at home: I may be a Star Trek fan, but I was also a big Star Wars extended universe fan. I used to read the novels all the time. I don’t remember which novel, and maybe somebody in the audience does, but I believe there were hyperspace creatures in the extended universe. They weren’t intelligent, meaning they didn’t talk to you. I can’t remember what book it was in. I kind of want to think it was one of the Young Jedi books, back in the Jedi Academy days with Han and Leia’s twins that they used to have in the old canon.
The more I think about it, the more comes back. The Imperials in this book were chasing the Jedi kids in hyperspace, and earlier in the book they’d introduced the concept of these creatures. I think it was either a Star Destroyer or some sort of smaller version, and one of these space whales crashed into it and knocked it out of warp. Out of hyperspace. I know.
I don’t know if these are the exact creatures I’m thinking of. But it’s another thing they’ve brought out of the old extended universe, and when I saw them I immediately went, that’s amazing. And like the rule says, I think these guys are clearly going to come back.
What I love is what they did with Grogu. He’s a child, and he got scared. You could see it in the way they made him, between his little ears and his eyes. So he rolls down and goes right into Daddy’s lap. Din’s laying there, and sure enough, right out from between his arms, Grogu pops up like, you know what, I’m staying here. Oh my God, it was cute.
They’re making him so adorably nuanced it’s ridiculous. He’s so articulate now, and I don’t know how much of that is CGI being added to the original puppet or if they’ve improved the puppet. I like to believe they’ve improved the puppet.
High Magistrate Greef Karga
The first place Din Djarin goes is back to Nevarro, the original planet where Greef Karga and Cara Dune were.
On the Cara Dune front, obviously Gina Carano’s not in the show anymore, but they didn’t kill her off. She was recruited by New Republic special forces, so she’s gone. Remember when the dude showed up and asked if she wanted a real badge. She’s been written out of the show, so to speak.
When Din arrives there are new structures and whole new areas. It’s a brand new city and it’s beautiful. He lands, and here’s High Magistrate Greef Karga. Let’s just be for real, he was in charge of everything when he was slimy, so it doesn’t surprise me that he’s in charge of everything now that he’s gone the straight and narrow. But he’s a bit of a narcissist. Oh my gosh, he so is.
Carl Weathers is doing amazing work, by the way. The guy hasn’t missed a beat. I don’t care how old he is, he’s still amazing. When the two of them talk you can see the arrogance and the old personality in him. Hey, we got this for you over here, so what do you say, you going to hang out and be the marshal? I’m sure he’s legit now, but he’s like a salesperson. He’s a former pirate who’s been given responsibility, and he’s trying to recruit Mando the whole time.
Then this droid of his comes rushing into the office. “We have a problem. There’s someone here to see you.” “They can wait.” “It’s pirates.”
They go out to where the school is. If you remember, last season Grogu went to that school briefly when they visited, with the blue macarons. It’s that building. Apparently, back in the day, these pirates’ boss’s money helped pay for that structure, and it was a saloon. Now it’s not. Greef Karga lays the law down, Mando stands off to the side and backs him up, kills some of the guys, and the one called Vane runs off. He’s a really funny-looking alien, very reptilian. He actually looks like a Sleestak from the old Land of the Lost.
Bullying Him in Space
Mando finally says okay, I’ve got to go do some stuff, and he leaves. And when he leaves, he gets attacked by Vane and these pirates. And I’m sitting there going, you didn’t fare so well trying to bully him on land. What makes you think you’re going to bully him in space? You can see the dude’s face as his buddies are being picked off. All you’re doing is going to your doom.
Sure enough, Mando blows everybody up for the most part, except the main pirate guy. And then we meet his boss, the one who paid for that structure.
Mrs. Know-It-All asked to take this one, and she dug back in the crates for it. Do you remember Tales from the Darkside, and she said herself she hopes she has the title correct, where the last story in the anthology was a farmer, played by Stephen King, who touches a meteor? This dude looks like Stephen King at the end of that. This grassy, mossy living plant with eyeballs. The name at our house was seaweed Wookiee. I like bog Wookiee better.
He’s interesting. I like the guy doing the voice, he’s doing a really good job, and clearly it’s not the last time we’re going to see them.
Then Mando does the thing he does really well, which is a suicide run right at the ship just to get past it. No one expects it, and it’s hard to fire on something that’s flying at you that fast. He pushes the little hot speed button and goes.
Everything but “It’s Your Fault”
He arrives in the Mandalore system and stops at another planet there, at the Mandalorian castle, to visit Bo-Katan. The entire place looks empty and abandoned. Din says, I’m here to join you, what’s going on, are we still taking Mandalore? And she says everyone’s gone.
What happened? I came back without the sword. You have the sword. You go lead them. He asks what happened to the stolen fleet, and they’ve run off to go be mercenaries. That’s it. It’s kind of sad.
She does tell him exactly where the mines are, underneath a building in a town, and the where of it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she looked so beaten, and that she says everything but “it’s your fault.” That was Mrs. Know-It-All’s read and it’s brilliant. There’s this unspoken accusation sitting in the room the whole time.
After some conversation he starts walking away, and that’s when they cut to the credits. It was something like 35 minutes long. It went by fast, and it was over just as we were getting engrossed in it.
Watch the Chair
There are a couple of cool little things worth going back for. When they’re sitting in the High Magistrate’s office having that conversation, you see Grogu spinning around in a chair. He’s using the Force off of the desk to spin himself. You can hear it as he moves himself around. And if you stop and think about it, his legs are too short to be kicking himself around anyway. Then there’s when he goes to grab what I’ll call the red M&M, and it just comes on over to him. Go back and watch him spin himself with the Force. He acts like your typical three or four-year-old.
I like what they’re doing here. We’re getting to see Grogu grow up as a little whatever his species is. He’s a Yoda. They’ve never given that species a name. And I think he’s learning how to be a Mandalorian.
So do you give him a helmet? What do you do about the ears? Do they come out through ear holes, does the metal come out over them, or do they tuck underneath with leather straps or something? You could do something cool with it. Someone on DeviantArt has got to have done a Grogu as a Mandalorian, and I’m going to go find it.
The Verdict
The Mandalorian Season 3, Chapter 17 gets a 9 out of 10 from me and a 9.5 from Mrs. Know-It-All on the Know-It-All Index.
Out the gate this episode is a 10 for me. It blew me away. I was impressed with the story and with what they’re doing with Grogu, who’s so much more articulate now. They’re giving us character development just in the way he behaves. We got more in this episode than we got in probably most of last season, because they laid such a wonderful foundation for the season.
The crappy part is that a 10 means there’s only one direction this can go. So I’m giving it a 9, and 100% I’m only giving it a 9 so that I have somewhere to go.
Mrs. Know-It-All is at a 9.5, with her own wiggle room, and she had the one criticism between us. Either take more time with Grogu or less time with Grogu. We got just enough to make us want more, and they couldn’t find a happy medium. And that’s coming from the one who loves Grogu more than anything.
Tell me what you thought of the episode. If you’ve got questions about it, I do a show called the Know-It-All Files. So far I’ve only done them about Star Trek and Doctor Who, but I’m totally down to do one for Star Wars if there are enough questions for it. And if you remember which extended universe novel had the hyperspace creatures, I want to hear it. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
