The following story is going to get into spoilers for the season finale of The Mandalorian, available to anyone with a Disney+ subscription as we speak. The third season started off slow, but really picked up, and the finale was solid. So we highly recommend you go and catch up with the season… then come back and read all of our excellent content!
In the grand finale of the third season of the Star Wars program The Mandalorian, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), Grogu, and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) unite the forces of the Mandalorian against the recently surfaced Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), who has been using Mandalore as his secret base of operations. Yes, Baby Yoda embraced his toddler mode in the finale, and Mando plowed through rows of enhanced Stormtroopers, it was Bo-Katan who was able to emerge triumphant because she possessed the Darksaber, with which she has a complicated history.
Recently, we caught up with Katee Sackhoff at Star Wars Celebration 2023, where she was promoting the final episodes of this season of The Mandalorian, and making connections to the other upcoming live-action Star Wars stories being told in this universe. And because her character Bo-Katan was in possession of the valuable Darksaber through a chunk of this episode, I wanted to know what that prop looked like on set. And as the actress joked to CinemaBlend:
There are times when I’m holding something that looks a lot like it. There are times I’m holding something that looks more like a green thing. And there are times when I’m holding a stick with a handle. It’s sort of all of those things.
Ah, the magic of Star Wars. There has been a lot of conversation about the Darksaber, and how its rightful ownership has been treated over the years by the Star Wars storytellers. The end of The Mandalorian Season 2 raised some major questions about who had the ability to wield the weapon in Star Wars Rebels. Beyond the Darksaber, though, The Mandalorian this past season really expanded our knowledge of the Mandalorian culture, putting it into perspective as the shows and movies begin to lead us as an audience into the formation of The First Order, which we know will become relevant through the Sequel Trilogy. Katee Sackhoff made it clear that these evolutions were all by design, as she told CinemaBlend:
We’re in a season right now where you almost had to take a step back from him to understand the Mandalorian people. And therefore to understand him a little bit better. And I think that’s basically what we’ve done.
Those who saw The Mandalorian season finale understood that it almost felt like a series finale. But from what we know, a fourth season of The Mandalorian is happening, and Dave Filoni’s announced Star Wars movie will rely on story threads teased in both this show, Ahsoka (watch that show’s trailer right here), and possibly Skeleton Crew. In other words, prepare for the arrival of Grand Admiral Thrawn! Things are getting very exciting in Star Wars land, so keep it here for all of the latest developments.
