Review: ‘The Mandalorian’ Chapter 21 – ‘The Pirate’ Is the True Season 3 Premiere
The Mandalorian season 3 began all over again this week with Chapter 21, an episode that essentially feels like the true start of the season we were waiting for. Besides Bo-Katan being integrated into the Children of the Watch and a few small developments here and there, not much has been going on so far. But let’s not forget this is not entirely new for the series; besides setting up a few characters, the first four episodes of the second season didn’t move the plot forward very much either.
Chapter 21, titled The Pirate, feels like Jon Favreau revisiting his ideas for the season premiere and actually writing a good script out of them. The key here is the structure — Chapter 17 felt all over the place, visiting four major locations in barely 30 minutes, meeting up with many different characters, and setting up so many more things to come… in this series and for others down the line. Chapter 21 took all of those bullet points and structured them in a coherent way that flowed much better in the edit and that felt like it had a purpose. Without spoiling anything yet, the ending perfectly set up what most of us thought would be the actual plot of the season, and the best thing is that they’ve mostly blown through all the marketing footage by now, so we literally have no idea of what’s coming our way (though we can and definitely will make some guesses).
Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) stepped in to direct the new episode, and whether this was a training exercise for what he plans to do on Ahsoka, or what landed him a seat at the table for the spin-off show, we don’t know; but the way he staged non-trivial action sequences was excellent and could be the best work a first-time director on the series has done. The tone is more serious than in the last episode, but there is still plenty of Star Wars silliness to go around. It is arguably the season’s best so far.
Spoilers ahead…
First of all, let’s address the Lasat in the room. As many fans may have spotted immediately, the character Zeb from Star Wars: Rebels makes his live-action appearance in this episode as the alien that reaches out to Carson Teva right after he first listens to the message from Greef Karga. After recognizing the voice, my jaw hit the floor a second time when I realized how good he looked in live-action. I had many hesitations about whether they could pull it off or not, but next to Bo-Katan, this has to be the best transition from animation to live-action yet. His scene was not very long, but he was both recognizable and believable as the character. Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka, however, still looks like solid cosplay work and not a full realization of the character, while Cad Bane looked very good, but I will give Zeb the edge.
Most importantly, though, this was the definition of a perfect cameo. He didn’t overtake the scene (in fact, he remained in the back of the frame for the most part, credit to Peter Ramsey for that), and it could have been any other human or alien character, so it wasn’t pure fan service. The fact that he was there was enough to raise a lot of questions and also get us excited about what is to come. Dave Filoni teased last year that the Rebels crew would be reuniting in live-action, but given the closure the character of Zeb was given in the epilogue of the animated series, I wasn’t sure he would be joining the party. Well, he is, and he also has a story to tell about joining the New Republic.
This episode hits on all the major points that Chapter 17 also did, but in a much more effective way. We set up Ahsoka, and we may have also set up Skeleton Crew, with a certain pirate going rogue by the end (we haven’t seen the end of that guy). We have also covered some of the New Republic politics and how the Empire has cast a massive shadow over the way the galaxy operates — while its fascist mentality may be over, its bureaucracy and inaction are still in order, which will inevitably give way for an emerging threat to take over. And above all else, the actual plot of the season is now in motion.
Up until now, we needed some time to introduce Bo-Katan to the Children of the Watch and allow her to familiarize herself with their ways. She has learned a lot from them, but so has the Armorer. She can now see that there is bigger fish to fry than to keep The Way of the Mand’alor alive, and that’s where the mythosaur vision plays a huge role in this season. It has shown both Bo-Katan and by extension the Armorer that they have the potential to retake Mandalore and unite all Mandalorians, and if they intend to do that, they must accept that there are people that will accept The Way and people who will take their helmets off. That the season would be actually about reuniting all Mandalorians has been clear for some time, but I thought it would take both Din and Bo-Katan to do it, each representing opposite sides of the table. But it seems like Bo-Katan has taken on that role, now being a bridge between two worlds (and in part rendering Din useless to the plot right now).
We’ve also known for a long time that Moff Gideon is on the loose, but besides namedropping him here and there, we’ve barely spent any time with him. I must admit that when they said “he never made it to trial” I just assumed the New Republic had incarcerated him without getting him in front of a jury first, not that he literally didn’t make it to the trial. The fact that Mandalorians could’ve let him loose is intriguing enough, especially taking into account Giancarlo Esposito’s comments about him desiring to be a Mandalorian. Is this where Christopher Lloyd‘s character will come in the next episode, as a leader of a Mandalorian cell with ties to the Empire? We’ve seen a similar plot happen in Star Wars: Rebels, when the crew met Fenn Rau and his gang.
But there’s so much more to come. The Darksaber has barely been ignited this season, and in fact played a larger role in The Book of Boba Fett than it has in season 3 so far. We will see it again very soon. Bo-Katan and Din are probably going to be dividing territory and recruiting Mandalorians — this is where Sabine Wren will definitely appear in the seventh episode (co-written by Dave Filoni). Next week, Bryce Dallas Howard is coming back to the director’s chair, and who knows what they have in store for her. I expect to finally meet Moff Gideon (though I’ve been singing that tune for three weeks straight now), and hopefully, we will continue with the cloning subplot and meet back up with Dr. Pershing.
And for that, stay tuned! The Mandalorian returns next Wednesday with Chapter 22.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
