Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 8 “The Return”: Review

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian, “Chapter 24: The Return.”]

For the first time, a season of The Mandalorian ended without us getting a single glimpse of Pedro Pascal’s face — and maybe we’ll never see it again in a Star Wars. The Season 3 finale might have set up a narrative path for a potential Season 4, but otherwise “Chapter 24: The Return” plays very much like a series finale, providing the answer to that one haunting, existential question: Can a single Mandalorian, in a galaxy far far away, really have it all?

The answer being, of course, yes — if “it all” can be defined as a nice little cabin of his own, a happy adorable son, and a shiny starship he can use for the occasional hunting of bounties (as an independent contractor for the New Republic). Save going back to that planet from Season 1 and picking up that hot widow, it’s hard to imagine a happier potential ending for the character.

“The Return” picked up on the dramatic cliffhanger of last week with the Mandalorians under attack by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and his forces, and the ensuing battle is an impressive multi-front assault with many thrilling sequences, including Din bare-knuckle brawling through a series of Imperial commandos, no shortage of aerial fights enabled by jetpacks, and Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides) jamming the Mandalorian capital ship right into the Imperial base.

After Baby Yoda Grogu (it still feels wrong) uses the Force to protect Din and Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) from the ensuing inferno, it’s all about wrapping up loose ends: Din officially adopts Grogu as his son, and Grogu takes the Creed; Din offers his services as a bounty hunter to our favorite New Republic captain (like any good freelancer, Din knows that the key to steady work is solid relationships); and Nevarro gets its own robot sheriff, thanks to a retrofitted IG-11 (still voiced by Taika Waititi).

There are maybe one or two loose ends here, still, and as a huge Amy Sedaris fan I’d be thrilled to see Peli Motto return again. But when we met Din Djarin all the way back in 2019, he was a loner with loose ties to a fragment of Mandalorian society, the Mandalorians themselves having been scattered across the galaxy. Season 3 ends, though, with the Mandalorians returned to a place of power on their homeworld (with no judgment if you do or don’t choose to keep your helmet on all the time), and the fires of the Great Forge relit.

The Mandalorian (Disney+)