There is a lot of ground to cover as The Mandalorian makes a comeback on Disney+ with a third season that starts up where the haphazard season 2 and Book of Boba Fett narrative left off. The showrunners were aware of this coming in, so they made an effort to start the situation off on the right foot by cranking out an episode meant to rekindle the enthusiasm of a fan base that had been suffering due to having to put up with Obi-Wan and Andor’s dreadful acting.
Is it successful? Has creator/showrunner Jon Favreau been able to put everything back on track and in the right focus? He’s obviously focused on selling a tighter and leaner narrative, but it’s too early to tell because this is the first episode. So, “The Apostate” is by no means a subpar episode. With the exception of a few obvious mistakes that foreshadow some major speed bumps to come, it’s actually rather fantastic.
The first episode’s main appeal is how it picks up Din Djarin’s story after The Book of Boba Fett’s events. When it shelved its titular bounty hunter with a plot that was wholly uncharacteristic, not to mention boring and aimless, that spinoff series committed a blunder on the scale of the Death Star. The show didn’t really take off until Din Djarin and Grogu returned.
Even if it wasn’t enough to redeem The Book of Boba Fett, it did serve as a setup for the third season, and it’s obvious that Favreau is trying to make up for some of the mistakes that were made. There may be an enjoyable season to be had if the story can adhere to the guidelines outlined in the first episode. The third or fourth episode could be the last one before Disney’s most critically acclaimed Star Wars project starts to become cross-eyed.
Din Djarin is forced to cope with expulsion from a radicalised breakaway group of Mandalorians known as the Children of the Watch for the mortal offence of taking off his helmet, and “The Apostate” wastes no time in setting the table for him. He returns to the group in time to save them from the jaws of a large crocodile-like beast that disrupted one of their rituals out of desperation to win their favour.
The Armorer, however, tells him that his fault has not been absolved, therefore it is insufficient for him to receive his gratitude. The two talk of an old custom in which a banished Mandalorian can take a bath in waters found in mines buried deep beneath the planet Mandalore, which purges wrongdoings. As the Galactic Empire carried out a horrifying bombing campaign against the planet, the question is if these “alive waters” still exist.
Djarin makes a few detours on his way to Mandalore, the first of which is to Nevarro, where he meets up with Greef Karga, an old friend who is now in charge of a significant economic and industrialisation boom. The body of IG-11, a bounty hunter robot that assisted in keeping Grogu safe from Moff Gideon and the Imperial remnant in season 1, will be rebuilt by Djarin. IG-11’s body was damaged and destroyed.
The second stop entails asking for help from Bo-Katan Kryze, only to discover that her Mandalorians had left her in the wake of Din Djarin obtaining the Darksaber. She acknowledges and abides by the code of her own people, but it is obvious that her hostility for Djarin is growing. It’s still unknown how things will turn out at this point.
When Disney acquired the rights from George Lucas, fans of Star Wars have had to endure one Disney-led misstep after another. But over the past two years, it has become worse and worse, with Obi-Wan Kenobi trashing the legacy of the titular character with one of the worst scripts ever written. Then followed Andor, a confusing muddle of a tale that was just somewhat more engaging than completing a tax return.
Yet the first indication that anything was seriously awry in Star Wars TV realm came with The Book of Boba Fett. It appeared as though a power struggle was in progress at the moment, throwing the franchise even more off course than what happened with The Last Jedi, if the allegations of internal tensions between Jon Favreau and Kathleen Kennedy were to be believed at the time.
The Mandalorian appears to be the only Star Wars property where fans can unite because it is the only Star Wars property to yet that has been able to protect itself from some of this harm. Despite its flaws, it offers more Star Wars heart than any other movie LucasFilm has produced while working under Disney’s strict direction. For “The Apostate,” the same is true. It knows the kind of story it intends to tell and strives to delight its viewers, like the majority of Mandalorian episodes.
The season starts off with the Mandalorians facing off against a huge alien crocodile in the opening combat. However, it does so extremely deftly by deceiving the spectator into thinking that the entire scenario is a flashback to when Din Djarin was just a young boy receiving his first helmet. The conflict itself serves as a good introduction to the expansive and intricate set designs, ship-to-ship space fights, shootouts, and lore references that will follow.
It’s important to note that Cara Dune is referenced in this first episode, albeit very briefly, in order to explain why her character was removed from the Star Wars spotlight. The hatred of Disney among fans stems from Gina Carano’s termination for tweeting that Americans ought to treat one another as neighbours rather than acting like Nazis during World War II. Perhaps this is why Disney was included in the article.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t exactly fit with what we already know about Dune’s character, but let’s be honest, this is the best we can hope for in a time when Lucasfilm and Disney are run by blatant hypocrites who gave lead actor Pedro Pascal a pass despite the fact that he compared 74 million Americans to the Third Reich on Twitter, which was the exact opposite of what Carano was advocating at the time.