I didn’t think we were going to get here. The finale of The Mandalorian Season 3 is 35 minutes of the most action-packed and intense filming I have ever seen, I’m blown away, and I believe you’re going to be too. I loved everything about this episode.

If you haven’t seen it, go watch it, because I’m about to spoil everything. That’s how we do it here in the Know-It-All Nation.

Din Djarin Knows How to Fight That Armor

The episode starts with Bo-Katan and the Mandalorians escaping. It literally just crashes into it. They’re running down the hall, so we pick up pretty much exactly where we left off. She contacts Axe on the way, because she knows for a fact they’re going to be sending their fleet soon, and she tells him you need to hurry up and get out here. He makes a complete break for it and he’s rocketing up into the sky.

Meanwhile Din Djarin’s being dragged off by the Imperials, the ones in the beskar trooper armor you saw last week. He did his best and ultimately he was captured, and I really feel like that was the goal. I don’t know why Moff Gideon has such a hard-on for him, other than the fact that he kept Grogu from him.

As he’s fighting these troopers, you have to remember something. They may have armor, but Mandalorians are specifically trained to fight with all of this, all the apparatus, all their tools, their accoutrement if you will. So as they’re competing over who’s going to get on top, you see him doing these really cool things where he’ll hit a guy in a sensitive spot, take his blaster, and put it right underneath the helmet. Bing. And I’m like, oh bro, he knows how to fight that setup, because it’s his setup. Love it.

They’ve got the whole thing. They’ve got the flamethrowers, they’ve got the little blazer things, the whole bit. And as they’re starting to center around him and he’s about to lose, all of a sudden, wham, IG-11’s arm shows up. It’s Grogu, man. It’s so great. He comes to the rescue, because who else is going to save Papa Mando?

Grogu’s pretty much ready to leave, and Din Djarin tells him, if we go, we’re going to keep running. We’ve got to stop him now. This is the place, this is the time. I need you to be brave for me. And Grogu’s like, let’s go. He didn’t say that, but you know, in his own little way. He communicated with me. I understood him. You did too. Shut up.

Axe Holds the Sky

So we cut to Bo-Katan, and Din Djarin tells her I’m here, I’ve got the kid, I’m going after Moff Gideon. She has to get the others to safety. She knows reinforcements are on the way, that’s why she sent Axe, but she’s got to keep the soldiers she has safe until then. And the Mandalorians who never left tell her, I think I know someplace where we might be safe.

Mando radios up to R5 and says, hey, I need a schematic. So R5 with his little rocket packs does the thing and ends up pulling an R2. He plugs in, does a little spinny deal, and sends a little hologram schematic, and now Din Djarin has a way of following him.

Above Mandalore, the fleet gets the signal from Axe. He arrives, he rushes in, and he says you guys take the fighters, everybody get down, I want everybody off this ship. I’m going to use it to keep them up here and distract them. You all go. They respect that, because that’s how Mandalorians do, man.

It’s so funny, because a part of me is like, did they just pass each other in the clouds? And that’s probably exactly what happened, because the clouds were super dark and it’s raining. You see the Mandalorian troops in their little fighters shoot below the clouds, and moments later all these Imperial ships come shooting out of the clouds. And he’s doing his best, man. Axe, bro. This is the way.

Three Shields and a Lab Full of Gideons

Arriving at the control center, Mando sees those red force shields almost immediately. I believe there’s a total of six of them: three force shields, with two guys here, two guys here, two guys there, in between each layer. He tells R5, I need you to lower the first shield. The first shield goes down, the soldiers are like, what? And Mando rushes in.

Again, remember, he knows how to fight people in this kind of armor. So what does he do? He’s just putting fools away, doing the whole thing I mentioned, shooting under the helmet. It’s awesome. And then he starts collecting stuff. He has a shield now. Lower the second shield. They lower the second shield, he’s knocking out fools, and he grabs a weapon off one of the guys, this electro type baton thing. He gets to the last shield, and R5 suddenly gets attacked.

(By the way, I did that sound for Mrs. Know-It-All. She’s going to watch this. She’s going to be tagging in later, so I’ll probably be doing an update so you can get her feedback.)

R5 has to fight those guys off, but then he finally comes through, because of course he does. He pushes the thing, the shield opens, and Mando takes them out. Grogu comes out front, still suited up in the IG-11, and they find themselves in the clone lab.

We saw this an episode ago, and I wasn’t sure what clones they were. I thought they might’ve been some earlier version of Snoke, or possibly even some earlier Emperor clones. In a lot of the original Expanded Universe stuff, Legends if you will, there was this whole series. It wasn’t Heir to the Empire, that was the Thrawn stuff. I believe it was Dark Empire. You got to see these clone banks, and they were all various stages of the Emperor. The experimental, kind of Snokey looking clones were what you saw in Season 2 of The Mandalorian when they go back to Nevarro.

This is different. These are clones of Moff Gideon. As Grogu’s looking at one, it opens its eyes, and Din Djarin’s like, yeah, you need to come on, let’s take these out. They blow them up and destroy all of the clones. Moff Gideon has no clones now. On its face that’s bad. It’s even worse than you think.

The Gardens, and a War in the Sky

There’s this brief moment where the Mandalorians who stayed have taken everyone to these surface gardens. Apparently things used to grow there, and over time it all got industrialized out, and then of course came the purge of Mandalore. He explains that once everything got left alone, it all started to sprout, and as it sprouted they converted it into farms, and that’s how they’ve survived all this time. There are these cavernous, almost Genesis caverns (sorry, I’m a Star Trek fan) with food and growth and all kinds of stuff happening, pockmarked throughout the entire planet. It’s a really interesting way for them to have survived.

Then the reinforcements show up. You see these Mandalorians and their ships, Bo-Katan’s like, let’s go, and everyone takes to the sky. Watching this, I swear all I wanted to hear was “Ride of the Valkyries,” because they’re just coming down and it’s dope. And here come the beskar troopers, and you see these two giant groups collide.

I didn’t realize how epic a jetpack powered fight in the sky with multiple soldiers would look. Do you remember the scene from, what’s that movie, oh my gosh, with William Wallace? Freedom! With Mel Gibson. I can’t remember the name right this second. But those armies crashing into each other on the field? It’s like that, but in the sky. And you see the Armorer taking her giant hammer in the sky and just whacking fools. It’s amazing.

What Moff Gideon Wanted Grogu For

Mando makes it to Moff Gideon, and Moff Gideon is pissed about his clones. He’s pissed like a father would be, and it’s kind of weird, especially because this is where you find out why it was so important that they not get destroyed. They’re the reason he was after Grogu in the beginning.

He’s been trying to perfect himself, or versions of himself, physically. But he’s also cross-bred them so they can use the Force. I had these pegged as backup bodies, the way the Emperor does it. He can’t do that. He’s not a Force user, so he can’t transfer his personality or his mind or his thought patterns to another body. He’s flat out wanting to use the clones of himself, stronger and Force capable, as his new troopers. Because for him it was never just about the armor and the suit. He had the perfect Dark Trooper before, with the droid ones. What he wants is somebody with his level of prowess, physically stronger, who can use the Force. It’s the perfect soldier. It’s the fascist dystopia anybody could possibly want.

Then the Imperial guards show up, the big boys in red. I do love that when they show up they walk in what looks like semi-slow motion, but it’s this dramatic stride they have, and it looks just dope.

They start fighting, and Mando’s doing poorly, man. He’s not doing good until Grogu shows up, and it’s the best. They turn on Grogu, and he’s trying to distract them long enough to give Din Djarin some chance to do something. As Din Djarin gets up to go after them, Gideon shoots him with a little stringy deal around the neck, of course, because that’s the only place you hit people, and drags him back.

Bo-Katan’s in the sky, fighting through, and she sees where she has to get to. Just as Mando’s getting talked down to by Moff Gideon, she shows up, knocks Gideon out of the way, and it’s you go save your kid. Mando doesn’t waste any time.

Grogu Earns His Song

In the other room, the Imperial guards destroy the IG-11 suit. Grogu jumps out and he’s running along this circular light fixture up in the air, very reminiscent of Yoda, running and flipping and doing all kinds of stuff. It’s amazing.

Bo-Katan and Gideon are fighting, and it’s rough. It’s really rough. But she’s holding her own, somewhat.

Then you cut back, and Din Djarin and Grogu manage to defeat the Imperial guards, and Grogu is so much a part of that. He’s using the Force to keep their weapons away, to push them back. If one of them’s about to kill Mando, he’s just pushing them off. He’s doing so good. I’m really, really proud of him for keeping it together. Dude, he earns what happens. He’s earning his place in the Mandalorian mythos, or as they like to say, his song is getting sung, bro. And I’m excited.

Mandalorians Are Stronger Together

So everybody’s doing their best to win out in their various pockets. You’ve got the Mandalorians in the sky fighting beskar troopers, you’ve got Bo-Katan facing off against Gideon, you’ve got Din Djarin and Grogu. And Axe announces the ship is dying. He says you guys have got to get clear. If he’s going down, he’s taking this cruiser and turning it into a giant spear. Very reminiscent of the Star Destroyer crashing into the other Star Destroyer in Rogue One.

While that’s all going down, Bo-Katan has the Darksaber, and Gideon catches her hand, squeezes, and crushes the Darksaber. He’s like, you’ve lost everything, what are you going to do, you’re all by yourself. And she looks up and says Mandalorians are stronger together. That’s when Din Djarin walks in, and you’re like, oh. Again, they’re giving you everything you wanted from all of this.

The Mandalorians who escaped the crashing cruiser go flying off in either direction, and the giant ship just cuts straight down. Gideon’s shooting, Bo-Katan rushes in front of Mando with her energy shield thing, and while he’s sitting there shooting the shield, the ship comes down and explodes. You see Moff Gideon enveloped. Everyone’s enveloped by flames, and after an explosion of that magnitude you kind of assume everyone’s done.

Oh man. No sir. We push through the flames and you see Grogu sitting there holding his hands out, and there’s this shield, and they’re underneath it. Then they do this awesome side shot and it looks like something out of an anime, because the flames are all moving and running around the shield. Oh, bro. It’s one of the coolest moments ever. And that’s the end of that. For now, anyway, as far as we know.

Din Grogu

When the dust settles you get this wonderful moment in the aftermath that’s very genuine and pure. Paz Vizsla’s kid takes the Creed in the Living Waters of Mandalore, the first Mandalorian of any ilk to take the Creed in the Living Waters in probably 30, 40 years, since the purge. It’s a really good moment.

When they’re done, Din Djarin brings Grogu out, and the Armorer says he can’t. He’s not old enough to speak the Creed, so he has to stay a foundling. He can’t be raised to apprentice. Well, what if he gets permission? His parents are far, far away. How would you get permission? Take him to go find them. And he goes, no. I’m going to adopt him. And she accepts that. This is the way.

I genuinely had an affinity for this moment. I get that parental feeling, and it meant so much in that moment. I’m watching this and I’m just gone.

He gets dubbed Din Grogu. That’s his new family name, and it’s amazing. This was the way.

A Deposit, a Deed, and a New Cop on Nevarro

Then we get this really nice coda. Mando stops off at that New Republic watering hole and runs into the captain. I call him Blue Leader. I know for a fact he’s got a name, it’s Captain Teva or something like that. And Mando says, listen, I’m a bounty hunter by trade. My son’s going to start learning the same trade, but I want to be more selective, because I’m raising him. So why don’t you let me chase down these former Imperial people?

It’s good, because they announced at Celebration that there’s going to be a Mandalorian movie, a film that’s going to put a button on all of these, what we’ll call street level shows. They’re not big giant epic Skywalker sagas. They’re the bounty hunters and Mandalorians and Imperials. Plus there’s so much story left to tell. How are we ever going to find out about Elia Kane? There are a lot of question marks that need to be talked about.

So the captain tells him, they’re never going to approve it. And Mando goes, that’s because you’re not going to tell them. I’m here for you, man. Just call me, let me know when you need help. What I’d like is a small deposit on my work in the future. What do you want? He wants that IG unit head that’s in the bar.

Then we go to Nevarro, where Greef Karga gives him a deed. It’s a nice, beautiful cabin. Between adventures you and your son can come here, relax, and know that you’re safe. And Mando says thank you, I really appreciate it. I’ve got something for you.

It’s a restored IG-11, who’s the new magistrate. Or not magistrate. He’s the new constable, like the cop. He’s a police officer for Nevarro, and we know he’s awesome, and it looks great. There are elements on him that don’t look like they’re just buffed metal. I think they’re beskar. I think he might’ve used the beskar armor from those beskar troopers to make this IG unit even stronger, which is great.

So yeah, man. There you go, now you know, and if knowing is half the battle you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself. I’ve enjoyed this run through The Mandalorian, and I hope you have too. Whether it’s The Mandalorian, Star Trek, Doctor Who, whatever it is, I’m all about it, and I love doing this with you guys.

Tell me what you thought of the finale and where you want Din Djarin and Din Grogu to go from here. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.