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Din Djarin journeys to reconcile with his people and tries to raise his son as a new season begins.

Hello all, and welcome to Season 3 of The Mandalorian! It’s here at last!

We’re back with our boys Din Djarin and Grogu as they head out on a new journey! Directed by Rick Famuyiwa and written by Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian Chapter 17 (“The Apostate”) is a little lean as far as the story goes, but it’s a solid reintroduction to a world and characters we haven’t seen for nearly three years. 

If you’re saying to yourself, “Hey, wait! Season Two ended with Grogu leaving with Luke Skywalker!” then let me direct you to Episodes Five and Seven of The Book of Boba Fett. It is there you shall find answers. If you refuse, I suppose we can summarize. 

Briefly: Din got the Armorer to craft the beskar spear into a chainmail shirt for Grogu. However, when he took it to Grogu at Luke’s school, Ahsoka told him he needed to cut ties. Din left disappointed, but Luke gave Grogu the choice. Pick the lightsaber, continue on the path of the Jedi. Choose the armor, get gone, and feel free to go live it up Mandalorian style. 

Grogu picked his dad because he’s a baby. Obviously, Luke didn’t think things through. Still, the Jedi master honored his student’s wishes and sent Grogu to Tatooine to reunite with Din. 

Oh, and Din admitted to the Armorer and Paz Vizsla that he removed his helmet. They excommunicated him. Now, the only chance of forgiveness is to bathe in sacred waters on Mandalore.  

And now, here we are at The Mandalorian Chapter 17.  

On an unnamed planet, the Armorer (Emily Swallow) makes a helmet for a young man who waits for her in the shallow part of a large lake. She, surrounded by a collection of Mandalorians, gives the boy his helmet and begins to give him the words to the oath. Why it’s in Basic rather than Mando’a is anyone’s guess. The appearance of a massive alligator/turtle/water beastie interrupts his oath as it promptly starts munching on Mandalorians. All the adults aid in the fighting, but it’s a seemingly lost battle until a Naboo N-1 Starfighter swoops in and takes the creature out. The fighter lands and, would you look at that, it’s Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu!  

Chapter 17 is a little lean as far as the story goes, but it’s a solid reintroduction to a world and characters we haven’t seen for nearly three years.

Din and Grogu head inside to see the Armorer. She repeats her earlier statement that Din is now an apostate for removing his helmet (okay, like three times ever, and for good reasons!). She reminds him (and us, really) of the destruction of Mandalore. Therefore, redemption is impossible. 

Din produces a piece of thick green glass with the remnants of a Mandalorian inscription. (Again. It’s called Mando’a). Din got the glass from Jawas, who got it from a trader who had been to Mandalore. The Armorer thinks this only proves that the planet is now glass, but it has convinced that Mandalore is, at the very least, survivable. If he can prove he’s been to Mandalore, will that redeem him? The Armorer: “This is the Way.”  

Clan Mudhorn makes their way to Nevarro, traveling through hyperspace. Din is asleep (he will never turn down an opportunity to sleep) while Grogu, up in the little droid bubble, gazes out at the lights flashing by. He coos as he sees shapes traveling alongside them in the hyperspace lane: purrgils. Finally, he clambers down to the pilot’s chair and snuggles up with Din.  

And now, a brief talk about purrgils, because their appearance here is almost definitely a way to ease them into the live-action canon. Purrgils are effectively deep space whales that can jump themselves into hyperspace. For example, in the cartoon Star Wars Rebels, Jedi padawan Ezra Bridger uses a pod of purrgils to transport Grand Admiral Thrawn’s flagship, the Chimaera (along with Thrawn and Ezra himself), to parts unknown. Since we know Ahsoka Tano is out there looking for Thrawn, and that Ezra will be a part of the upcoming Ahsoka series, it stands to reason that they want everyone to be up on the existence of purrgils as well.  

On Nevarro, the new fancy Nevarro, Din and Grogu make their way to High Magistrate Greef Karga’s office after a stop to look at the IG-11 memorial. Karga (Carl Weathers) comes out to greet them in his new magisterial duds, complete with two little wheeled droids that hold up his cape. It’s a look! He ushers them to his office, bragging about Nevarro’s growth and offering Din a parcel of land. Din, polite as always, refuses the offer. He explains he’s now an apostate and has to work on that first. Meanwhile, Grogu is using the Force to spin an office chair. They’re interrupted by an anxious droid. There are pirates in the courtyard asking for Karga.  

The pirates in question consist of Vane and his passel of no-goodniks. They used to do work for Karga back when he was a bad guy. Karga tries to get everyone back to his office for a drink. Vane refuses, though, so Karga shoots the blaster out of Vane’s hand and tells them to get out of Nevarro. When the pirates hesitate, Karga and Din shoot all but Vane, who, finally, follows Karga’s earlier suggestion to get the hell out of dodge. 

With them squared away, Karga and Din reopen their talk. The High Magistrate asks Din what he needs for his journey. Din wants IG-11. See, Din needs a droid to help him explore Mandalore (where are you gonna put it in that starfighter?), and IG-11 is the only droid he trusts. I mean…I guess that makes some sense, but Din has been better about droids for ages now. Karga agrees that he can have what’s left of IG-11 (the parts they used for the memorial), but he’s none too convinced that this will work.  

Karga, Grogu, and a droid watch as Din works on IG-11’s upper body, trying to hook the droid back up to power. IG-11 wakes up but has regressed to his original programming, which was to kill Grogu. Din grabs his son as the droid falls to the floor. It starts crawling after them, with Din shooting it all the while. When it grabs Din’s leg, the apostate tosses–literally hurls–Grogu over to Karga. Then he’s right back to shooting at IG-11 as it turns toward Karga. Finally, the helper droid tips a metal bust of Karga onto IG-11’s head, crushing it. “Now that’s using your head,” Din quips, much to all of our horrors.

Karga takes Din to the workshop of a group of Anzellans (Shirley Henderson). He waits outside while Grogu and Din (somehow) go inside. The head Anzellan declares that they can’t fix IG-11 without a new memory circuit, which is impossible to find. Karga helpfully translates the Anzellan (who is speaking some Basic) for Din, who is not having a great day. Unbowe, Din gets them to agree that if he gets the part, they’ll fix the droid. 

Grogu scoops the head Anzellan and gives him a far too tight hug. The Anzellan is understandably unenthused, yelling Grogu is a “bad baby! Oh, he’s a bad baby!”. Eventually, Din frees the little guy from his son’s clutches and apologizes on Grogu’s behalf. 

Din and Grogu head out so father can give son a little lesson on how to fly the starfighter. Alas, the session is interrupted by a warning system going off. The rest of the pirates have arrived. Grogu slips under Din’s bandolier as a makeshift seatbelt while the bounty hunter goes into defensive flying. Din manages to take out all but Vane, with Grogu giggling all the way. Unfortunately, Vane has led them to his boss’s much bigger and better-equipped ship. The Pirate King offers to set them free in exchange for Din’s ship. Din tells his son never to trust a pirate and instead presses the super speed button. Away they go!  

Was [The Mandalorian Chapter 17] particularly thrilling or groundbreaking? Well, no, but it was a nice solid foundation on which to start crafting this new portion of their tale.

And to where? To Kalevala, a planet in the Mandalore system, and homeworld of Clan Kryze. Din and Grogu head into the Kryze castle and find Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) sitting on her throne in an empty throne room. Din tells her that he’s here to join her, but she bitterly tells him there’s nothing to join. Bo-Katan lost her forces when she returned without the Darksaber. 

She asks if Din still has it, which he does. She tells him that he can go and lead everyone then. He’s stunned that she’s just abandoning her quest to retake Mandalore. Bo-Katan fires back that his cult abandoned Mandalore a long time ago. It was that splintering that caused them to fall. Ma’am, I hope you take a lot of good long looks in the mirror sometimes. 

She’s dismissive of Din’s quest for redemption since, to her, the water under the Mines is nothing magical. Nevertheless, she overcomes her personal belief that he is a fool and tells him the location of the mines. Information acquired, Din and Grogu leave her to her solitude. 

So starts a brand new season! Was The Mandalorian Chapter 17 particularly thrilling or groundbreaking? Well, no, but it was a nice solid foundation on which to start crafting this new portion of their tale. IG-11’s regression reminds us all that there are undoubtedly forces still looking for Grogu. Additionally, even though he’s left Luke’s school, that hardly means he’s left the entirety of any training behind. Though Din had started to realize that removing his helmet wasn’t the shattering experience he expected, he’s still struggling with the consequences. The double whammy of losing Grogu and then being shunned by the only remaining pair of his people slammed many of his internal doors shut once more. Let’s see where we go with Din the Mand’alor and his little green guy.

Bantha Droppings:

• Din Djarin stuntmen/the guys usually in the armor, Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, have been added to the main end credits.  
• Nevarro is just lousy with Kowakian monkey-lizards. 
• Karga needs to get a new Marshal because Cara Dune left to join the New Republic. 
• Din, close your ship when it’s raining. It’s gonna get everything all damp. 
• I’ll never be thrilled to see Bo-Katan, but they got her a new wig, and I’m grateful for that. 
• Mando’a word of the week: Ad’ika. It means “little one,” like Grogu!   

The Mandalorian airs every Wednesday on Disney+.