In “The Mandalorian” recap, Din Djarin continues to search for redemption in the eyes of the Children of the Watch, which will require him to go on a whole new mission…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The long wait is finally over — “The Mandalorian” is back.
Following a long hiatus between seasons — and a brief stop on “The Book of Boba Fett” — Mando and Grogu have returned except this time they are facing an entirely new mission after being reunited.
As a brief reminder about where we left off — while “The Mandalorian” season 2 ended with the epic return of Luke Skywalker as he retrieved Grogu and returned with him to begin teaching the little one in the ways of the Jedi, it turns out his lessons would be short-lived.
During the events of “The Book of Boba Fett,” Mando decided to check in on Grogu while bringing him a present — some Beskar chainmail made specifically for his little body — but before they could be reunited, he first reconnected with Ahsoka Tano, who warned him that Grogu would never be able to focus on his training while still connected so deeply with the only father figure he’s ever known.
But Grogu grew conflicted regardless of Mando’s return and Luke eventually gave him the option — he could take the Beskar chainmail and return to the Mandalorian or he could take a lightsaber originally crafted for Master Yoda and continue to learn in the ways of the Jedi.
Grogu ultimately chose to be with Mando as they were reunited on Tattooine during a final battle to help Boba Fett finally win control over the empire once ruled over by Jabba the Hutt. During his stay on Tattooine, Mando also got a new ship thanks to old friend Peli Motto, who helped him reconstruct and refurbish an old N-1 starfighter from Naboo — the same ships as seen during “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” from Padme’s home planet.
Now that Mando has been reunited with Grogu, his next mission is seeking redemption with the Children of the Watch — the group of Mandalorians that took him in as an orphan and taught him the true ways of Mandalore. But because Mando willingly removed his helmet in the presence of others, he’s been cast out and ex-communicated from the group.
Mando is desperate to rejoin his former allies and that’s where we pick up with him at the start of season 3 as he seeks out answers to help him gain favor again with the Children of the Watch.
With that said, let’s get to our full recap for the first episode of “The Mandalorian” season 3….
Chapter 17: The Apostate
The episode opens with a ceremony being held by the Children of the Watch as the group continues to expand its numbers — now much larger than before — with The Armorer crafting a new helmet to help anoint the newest member.
As the group gathers for the ceremony, The Armorer walks into a lake where a young boy is waiting to take his oath to join the Children of the Watch. He pledges his loyalty while also promising to never remove his helmet.
It seems this will be the last time anybody will see his face after The Armorer places the helmet over the boy’s head as she prepares to finish the ceremony. After filling a bowl with water, The Armorer prepares for the final chapter of the ceremony but a noise alerts her to pull the boy out of the lake because danger is approaching.
A split second later a gigantic crocodile like creature emerges from under the water, snapping and actually chomping down on at least one member of the Children of the Watch before anybody has time to react. Everybody in the group begins firing blasters and flame throwers trying to slow down the great beast but it just keeps coming after them.
Even Paz Vizsla can’t break through the creature’s armor as he attempts to save The Armorer and the boy from falling into its gargantuan jaws.
That’s when a ship flies out of the sky and blasts the creature — and a second path around sees another series of shots finally tear through the beast’s plate like armor and it falls dead to the ground. When the ship finally circles to land, we see Mando and Grogu together again inside the N-1 starfighter as they arrive to seek an audience with The Armorer.
Din Djarin is desperate to find redemption with the Children of the Watch — they saved his life as an orphan after all — but the only way to be redeemed after ex-communication is to bathe in the living waters between the mines of Mandalore. The only problem is Mandalore was effectively destroyed when the Empire bombarded the planet, leaving nothing in their wake while also poisoning the surface from anyone actually living there.
Because Mandalore is a shell of a planet, The Armorer sees no way for Mando to find his redemption but he offers a sliver of hope.
He lays down a relic with Mandalorian script on it — it’s something he got in trade with a group of Jawas after they retrieved it from a traveler who claimed to have been to Mandalore recently. While The Armorer almost scoffs at the authenticity, she still doesn’t believe that the planet is habitable because the surface was ripped apart and demolished by The Empire.
But Mando isn’t willing to give up hope — so he asks The Armorer if he can bring back proof that he made it to Mandalore and found his way into the living waters beneath the minds, would he be redeemed?
“This is the Way”
That’s all Mando needed to hear to know he’s got his next mission — but before he can go directly to Mandalore, he’s going to need some extra help to determine just how safe or harmful returning to his adopted homeworld might actually be.
So Mando and Grogu get back in their ship and set a course for Nevarro.
Before arriving as they fly through light speed, Grogu sees some sort of creature with tentacles flying alongside the ship, which frightens him enough that he climbs down into the cockpit and cuddles up with Mando as he continues sleeping while awaiting the arrival at their destination.
The creature outside the ship is known as a Purrgil — a whale like species with tentacles that flies through hyper space and are best known for being pests due to their tendency to fly near starships, which can cause all sorts of issues while traveling at those kinds of speed. The introduction of a Purrgil is important to the bigger story, however, because these were the creatures that Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger was able to establish a connection with and use against Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn and his fleet during events that took place on “Star Wars: Rebels.”
In the end, the purrgil latched onto Thrawn’s command ship Chimaera and jumped into hyperspace taking Ezra along with them. The ship disappeared into deep space and neither Thrawn nor Ezra were heard from again.
That’s important because Ezra Bridger will be a key figure in the upcoming Ahsoka Tano series, which will be the next major “Star Wars” spinoff coming later this year. If you remember when Ahsoka Tano appeared during “The Mandalorian” season 2, she was looking for Thrawn and discovered that he was still alive, which means her old friend Ezra might still be alive as well.
That all adds up to Ahsoka Tano seeking out Ezra Bridger during the events of her own series, which will undoubtedly bring her into conflict with Thrawn again, too.
Back to our story — Mando and Grogu approach the planet Nevarro, which is a much different place than the one they left. The planet has been transformed into an independent port filled with happy citizens and a thriving town overseen by High Magistrate Greef Karga.
Long gone are the days when Greef Karga was handing out bounties in seedy bars in a dangerous settlement on Nevarro. Now he’s leading the planet while giving the people who live there real hope and prosperity.
After reunited with Greef Karga, they all retire to his office to talk.
Greef is happy to see his old friend as well as his companion Grogu, who has been returned to him after a desperate mission to save him from the remnants of the Galactic Empire. With his mission completed, Greef Karga offers Mando a stretch of land and an opportunity to settle down on Nevarro — but before they can discuss things even further, the High Magistrate gets a message that pirates of landed on the planet.
The pirates belong to Pirate King Gorian Shard — a former ally and perhaps even enemy to Greef Karga back in the day — and they have returned expecting to find the same old Nevarro.
Unfortunately, Vane — the leader of this particular group under Gorian Shard’s command — is trying to enter what used to be a saloon that has now been transformed into a school. When Greef Karga arrives and attempts to tell them that the bar is no longer open but they can have a drink with him back at his office, Vane doesn’t seem all that interested.
In fact, Vane is ready to draw blood — or better yet he’s ready to draw a weapon against Greef Karga.
Despite his new role as a dignitary and leader of the planet, Greef Karga is still quick on the trigger because ehe easily gets the drop on Vane and disarms the pirate. He tells Vane to return to his ship and leave Nevarro alone but it can never be that easy.
Vane’s men pull their weapons, which forces Mando to do the same as he and Greef Karga quickly shoot down all of the pirates minus one. They leave Vane alive to return to his boss with a message that Nevarro is off limits to pirates.
In the aftermath of the fight, Greef Karga asks Mando to stay on the planet and become the Marshal of Nevarro. It’s then we get an update on the long lost Cara Dune, who it seems left Nevarro after she turned in Moff Gideon and was recruited by Special Forces. As for Moff Gideon, he was sent off to a New Republic War Tribunal.
But as much as Mando might want to help his friend, he can’t stay and become the Marshal with his need to seek redemption on Mandalore. He then reveals to Greef Karga the reason behind his visit — he wants to resurrect IG-11 to help him return to Mandalore, protect Grogu and ensure the planet is safe enough so he can look for the Living Waters beneath the mines.
A quick reminder — IG-11 was the killer droid sent to capture the bounty by taking Grogu but eventually reprogrammed and served as his protector before eventually sacrificing itself to stop the Stormtroopers coming after the baby who looks a lot like Yoda.
Now IG-11’s remnants are a statue on Nevarro but Mando wants to try and resurrect the droid because it’s the only one he could possibly trust to help him.
Through his own mechanical expertise, Mando is able to get IG-11 powered back up again — at least the top half of the droid that’s still functional — but the results don’t go as expected. Rather than waking up as the same droid that helped save Grogu, the programming had reverted to the killer droid seeking to destroy the little guy.
One of Greef Karga’s helper droids eventually stops IG-11 before they take the parts to a group of Anzellans — the same species as Babu Frik, the droidsmith who appeared in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” — with hopes of restoring him to full capacity along with the correct programming.
The only problem is the memory board used to program IG-11 is fried and there’s no way to repair it. To make matters worse, that model of memory board is no longer available so the Anzellans can’t save the droid unless they find another as a replacement.
Mando promises to do just that so he prepares to leave Nevarro to find the memory board so he can eventually return to Nevarro, reprogram IG-11 and then all of them can travel to Mandalore to see about finding those living waters.
But as soon as he reaches the space outside of Nevarro, Mando is besieged by the pirates he fought down on the surface. Vane has returned looking for vengeance along with a group of his pirate friends under the command of Pirate King Gorian Shard.
It’s a harrowing game of cat and mouse through an asteroid field but Mando eventually gets the upper hand and destroys all of the pirates minus Vane and his ship. Sadly it seems this was all part of a plan to run Mando into the larger star destroyer type ship operated by Gorian Shard and he’s out for his pound of flesh as revenge for so many of his men being killed.
Rather than execute Mando, however, Gorian Shard offers to just take Mando’s ship and then he would be free to leave. Mando obviously passes on that deal before timing his jump into hyperspace to get away from the pirates before he could even possibly get captured.
It’s safe to assume that Pirate King Gorian Shard will return this season.
As for Mando, he sets a course for Kalevala — a planet in the Mandalorian system where a Mandalorian castle resides. He arrives to reunite with Bo-Katan Kryze, who sits on the throne in this particular castle although it appears she’s ruling over an empty kingdom.
In the wake of the battle with Moff Gideon and Bo-Katan being unable to capture the Darksaber, her stolen fleet and the Mandalorians who served her have now split apart to set out in the galaxy to serve as mercenaries. After learning that Mando still has the Darksaber, Bo-Katan tells him to wave it around and her former soldiers will follow him wherever he goes and do whatever he says.
By all accounts, Bo-Katan has been defeated and she’s no longer interested in trying to restore Mandalore to its former glory. She also scoffs at Mando’s dedication to the Children of the Watch after his cult and others like it fractured the people of Mandalore long before the Empire dropped bombs to destroy the entire planet.
At this stage, Bo-Katan has given up on Mandalore while calling it a broken and poisoned home world.
But Mando refuses to give up on his mission so he tells her that he’s returning to Mandalore regardless of her warning because he needs to bathe in the Living Waters beneath the mines. Bo-Katan shrugs at his devotion to a cult-like religion with those waters serving no purpose other than sitting beneath the mines that used to provide Beskar ore to the Mandalorians.
No matter, Mando needs to seek out the Living Waters so Bo-Katan divulges the location beneath the civic center in the city of Sundari. Mando thanks her for the information and he promises to find out if Mandalore is really poisoned or not.
Judging by this interaction it would certainly appear that Bo-Katan is nothing short of jaded and angry about her failure to retrieve the Darksaber and reunite the Mandalorians with their home planet. By that account, Mando might want to start watching his back because there’s a good chance Bo-Katan will eventually come gunning for him because the only way she can lead Mandalore is through capturing the Darksaber in battle — and that might mean more to her than any passing friendship or alliance with Din Djarin.
“The Mandalorian” returns with a new episode next Wednesday on Disney+.
