The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 review: The Apostate

“The Creed teaches us of redemption.” Spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 follow.

The Mandalorian and Grogu have reunited thus giving Din his motivation to do what he’s been aching to do, find his redemption of the eyes of the other Mandalorians he calls family.

To do so, he must make his way to the ruined wasteland of Mandalor.

Here is everything that went down in the season 3 premiere of the returning Star Wars series.

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 1 review

Redemption

So, to start off with talking about the elephant in the room. Din and Grogu are back together again. So, for those of you who haven’t watched The Book of Boba Fett, they reunited in that series, basically concluding a pretty big story beat for this series in an entirely different show which, just a gut feeling, most people who watch The Mandalorian didn’t watch.

So, seeing Din talk about redemption for an act that happened in the season 2 finale, which led to his and Grogu’s separation, is weird now that Grogu is back with him, which happened in an entirely different show. I don’t know whose decision it was to do that, but it was an exceedingly poor decision to have made from a simple storytelling perspective. This is a criticism that comics have all the time. Having a huge development happen in a different book and then just going with it, but not explaining it in the series that you’re reading. It’s, often, rightfully criticized in that medium and so it should also be criticized here because it’s the same thing that happened.

However, they do make it clear that a decent chunk of time has passed since the end of season 2 with how much Navaro has changed, so it could be worse, as in, there could be nothing to show why Din and Grogu are together again. There’s an obvious time skip and it’s even possible that we’ll see Luke later on in the season, or even see flashbacks. Even if we don’t, which would be a shame, we at least know that time has passed and it hasn’t been like, a week, since the end of season 2.

Pirates and droids

With all that being said though, this episode is back to the type of serialized fun that The Mandalorian made a name for itself on throughout its first two seasons. It just feels nice to return to the serialized storytelling that the series made its staple so easily early on. At its core, The Mandalorian is a space western, so while there is that overarching story element to it, the serialized nature of the series will never, and should never, leave it.

Whether it’s dealing with pirates struggling to deal with the changes to Navaro to Din attempting to get IG-11 back online so that the droid can help him scour the Mandalorian surface. Seriously, it’s just fun to see Din fighting pirates. There’s just something about seeing the lone gunslinger having a shootout with dregs that is incredibly satisfying. Is the episode incredibly deep or thought-provoking? Nope. And it doesn’t really need to be. It just needed to be fun and enjoyable, which it was.

The Mandalorian season 3 starts off with several unexplained story  beats from another show, but just goes with it for a fun start to the new season.

What did you think of The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1? Let us know in the comments below!