Mando season 3

[Zardnaar]

OK. That sounds interesting enough.

One of the greatest Star Wars stories ever. There's a reason Zahn has done the new Thrawn novels and bring consulted on Ahsoka show.

His novels essentially resurrected Star Wars. I remember 90's polls in Star Wars magazines and Thrawn was being voted 1st or 2nd greatest Star Wars villain (other one was Vader).

 

[Hussar]

Speaking of Maul, I some some clickbait link or other that suggested that Lucas had once thought to use General Grievieous as a resurrected Maul. That would have been VERY cool. But, I suppose, a bit too similar to Vader at the end of the day.

 

[Argyle King]

Good episode...
I think the big guy fighting off the enemy made some amount of sense as a last stand with a big gun. There were definitely elements of "why don't they just do x" in that scene, but it was at least filmed in a way that I could understand that genre conventions and looking cool were taking over for a moment. Earlier in the episode, it seems that the Mandalorians finally realized the idea of covering fire, so yay.

Though, I have to ask: wtf happened which prevented the first half of season 3 from being written better?

A lot of good ideas were littered throughout the first half of the season. The execution was just bad.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One of them did use a grapple on a super-commando early in the fight.

It was a bit silly how many jetpack-wearing fighters on both sides were vulnerable to being knocked off a ledge.

Also, it seems obvious to me that Gideon is evoking Maul’s brief tenure as ruler of Mandalore with that spiky helmet of his.

Also: who were the spies plural that the episode title was referring to? There was Elia Kane on Coruscant at the beginning, but who else? All I can think is that the Mandalorians must have a traitor in their ranks because Gideon already knew that Bo-Katan had the darksaber again.

Re: spies, well we can narrow it down to three people because there are only three Mandalorians with personalities who aren't Din or Bo Katan. The Armorer, Handsome British Guy and WWE Wrestler Lady. My odds would be on Handsome British Guy because it's the most tropey and obvious, which seems to be how The Mandalorian is playing things. WWE Wrestler Lady barely has an established personality and The Armorer has been consistently pro-Mandalorian with no interest in anything else. Whereas Handsome British Guy has been like "We'll do whatever the guy who pays us best tells us to do".

Of course that's assuming it's not just a bad title.

Only argument against I can see is that The Armorer very quickly volunteered to take the injured home, which seemed a little out of character, and there were several unnecessary and unexplained shots of her ship leaving through the clouds and heading to the ships in orbit.

Ironically once again, the main issue here is that The Mandalorian's writing and directing is of such inconsistent quality and confused nature that that it's possible those shots and The Armorer's behaviour were simply bad writing/directing rather than intended to signify anything or even to be a misdirect.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Re: spies, well we can narrow it down to three people because there are only three Mandalorians with personalities who aren't Din or Bo Katan. The Armorer, Handsome British Guy and WWE Wrestler Lady. My odds would be on Handsome British Guy because it's the most tropey and obvious, which seems to be how The Mandalorian is playing things. WWE Wrestler Lady barely has an established personality and The Armorer has been consistently pro-Mandalorian with no interest in anything else. Whereas Handsome British Guy has been like "We'll do whatever the guy who pays us best tells us to do".

Of course that's assuming it's not just a bad title.

Only argument against I can see is that The Armorer very quickly volunteered to take the injured home, which seemed a little out of character, and there were several unnecessary and unexplained shots of her ship leaving through the clouds and heading to the ships in orbit.

Ironically once again, the main issue here is that The Mandalorian's writing and directing is of such inconsistent quality and confused nature that that it's possible those shots and The Armorer's behaviour were simply bad writing/directing rather than intended to signify anything or even to be a misdirect.

When you have spies, you have to ask "spying for who?" It might not be Gideon.

Maybe The Armorer, but maybe she is spying - for Thrawn. Thus, she could be a spy and still be pro-Mandalorian. Twist ending, Thrawn shows up but attacks Gideon's forces (who then gets to yell "THRAAAWN" if only in headcanon). Thus leaving the Mandalorians victorious, but on Team Thrawn. Bo-Katan has always been more Neutral than Good. With Mandalore onside, you could have a domino effect of worlds declaring for Thrawn, starting with Nevarro.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

When you have spies, you have to ask "spying for who?" It might not be Gideon.

Maybe The Armorer, but maybe she is spying - for Thrawn. Thus, she could be a spy and still be pro-Mandalorian. Twist ending, Thrawn shows up but attacks Gideon's forces (who then gets to yell "THRAAAWN" if only in headcanon). Thus leaving the Mandalorians victorious, but on Team Thrawn. Bo-Katan has always been more Neutral than Good. With Mandalore onside, you could have a domino effect of worlds declaring for Thrawn, starting with Nevarro.

I think that's incredibly unlikely given how tropey and obvious The Mandalorian has been BUT like all the best fan theories it would be excellent if true, because the alignment between the honorable, smart and evil Thrawn and the honourable and amoral Mandalorians would work extremely well and give Din, Bo Katan and later Sabine something to struggle with.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think that's incredibly unlikely given how tropey and obvious The Mandalorian has been BUT like all the best fan theories it would be excellent if true, because the alignment between the honorable, smart and evil Thrawn and the honourable and amoral Mandalorians would work extremely well and give Din, Bo Katan and later Sabine something to struggle with.

Thrawn is so cunning and devious that he was disguising it as bad writing all along!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh, and Doctor Pershing - maybe he was "accidently" mind flayed in order to sabotage Project Necromancer. Hello triple agent Whatsername.

 

[MarkB]

When you have spies, you have to ask "spying for who?" It might not be Gideon.

Maybe The Armorer, but maybe she is spying - for Thrawn. Thus, she could be a spy and still be pro-Mandalorian. Twist ending, Thrawn shows up but attacks Gideon's forces (who then gets to yell "THRAAAWN" if only in headcanon). Thus leaving the Mandalorians victorious, but on Team Thrawn. Bo-Katan has always been more Neutral than Good. With Mandalore onside, you could have a domino effect of worlds declaring for Thrawn, starting with Nevarro.

Twist ending: The Armourer betrays everyone, and as Din is kneeling there defeated crying "Whyyyyy?" she takes off her helmet and reveals that she was Thrawn all along.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Twist ending: The Armourer betrays everyone, and as Din is kneeling there defeated crying "Whyyyyy?" she takes off her helmet and reveals that she was Thrawn all along.

Bonus as they try and use CGI to cover for the fact that her actor is is well over eight inches shorter than Thrawn's actor.

(PS I'm impressed The Armorer's actor hasn't self-destructed like Gine Carano as she has previously expressed similar views previously and her husband even more extreme ones than Carano did.)