Chapter 20: The Foundling

Seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian brought my love for Star Wars back. Season 2 felt like a fireworks show, with each chapter getting better and better with a grand finale. I don't know what happened after, but from the start of The Book of Boba Fett to Kenobi to Season 3 of The Mandalorian, the quality, the writing, and the greatness of the first 2 Seasons of The Mandalorian have gone away. I was so hyped for the Mandalorian lore in this season, but it's been portrayed terribly. These cosplay Mandalorian extras with spray painted Boba Fett helmets and armor make the Mandalorians look like imbeciles. I was hoping that the Mandalorians would be similar to Jango Fett, Jaster Mereel, the True Mandalorians from the Open Seasons comic books, Gar Saxon, Pre Vizsla, etc. Real Mandalorian warriors who were smart, intimidating, leaders, and actually knew how to use their gear and surroundings. These Mandalorians are like a bunch of inept and incompetent Power Rangers. They remind me of that terrible biker gang from The Book of Boba Fett. So far, Season 3 has felt like something off of the Disney Channel. Grogu does something cute, the Mandalorians fight another creature, Din Djarin plays sidekick to Bo Katan, rinse and repeat. Halfway through, and there's no direction at all. It's just making the decision to bring Grogu back right away look worse and worse. It's getting to the point where they should've finished the series with the Season 2 finale. It was perfection, and now it's being stained. I'm really hoping that it gets better with these last 4 episodes.

As I am watching, it is becoming more clear to me that this sentence is going to be as important for Mandalorian's as Jedi's "May the force be with you".

The Lore of the Mandalorians is becoming more interesting and I am looking forward to seeing what myths will be revealed next. The character development is good. The layers are also getting revealed.

The story told us that this is preparation for something bigger yet to come. The arch of the story is still being built. Even new "Foundlings" characters are interesting.

If the show can keep its momentum like this, I will not be surprised if "This is the way" will be more well-known.

At times, it felt like a bad episode of Power Rangers. All of the depth we've come to know from some of the characters present in this episode went out the window. There isn't too much good I have to say about this one.

This very much felt like the episode earlier in the series with the Krayt dragon but not executed anywhere near as well, and with an exposition from Grogu's past which was almost completely disjointed from the rest of the episode.

Acting was sub-par, clear voice dubs for all of the Mandalorian characters and a script which felt like it came from a high school student made me wonder if I want to continue watching weekly or just wait and see what the consensus is at the end of Season 3.

Overall, this is not what I came to expect from the previous two seasons and really hope that it picks up again with more character development that I actually care about. Or even stakes which actually seem high.

After two seasons of bringing back some of the old magic from Star Wars, the writers really seem to have no idea what to do next with the mandalorian. It seems they are making it up as they go along. There is no storyline, there are no higher stakes, and everything that happens seems... filler content. Other than an interesting flash back we get some generic mando action scenes, that really add nothing to progress the story. What a complete change of pace for a show that was very entertaining in it's previous seasons. Of course it never had any grand storylines, but at least there was something there to tie all the events together. Now we're just muddling through events and episodes, and halfway the season there's still not much happening. After this episode I have completely lost interest. No storyline is bad enough, but when even logic is tossed out the window, I give up. That ending... really?

You would think they had learned from Andor. Now that was a great show with some amazing writing. Tense, gripping and gritty, with drama, action and fleshed out characters. Unfortunately, this doesn't have any of that. For it's third season this show has been reduced to yet another conveyor belt churning out content. Such a shame.

The Foundling attempts to give some more background on Grogu. He is old but somehow his development has been held back. Maybe Grogu should had matured more than he has.

There are flashbacks as to how he was in danger during the siege of the Jedi temple. Grogu was rescued to safety by Jedi Master Kelleran Beq and sent to safety.

These memories come through as Grogu starts his Mandalorian combat training. Something Grogu is nervous about but the Mandalorian encourages him to go through with.

Grogu wins his training match. His young opponent is then carried away by a large raptor. The Mandalorian, Bo-Katan and others give chase to recover the boy.

Both the rescue story and Grogu's own backstory was effective in this episode.