A big surprise dropped online today as StarWars.com announced the release date of The Mandalorian season 3. On their Twitter account, it’s a simple message stating:
"“The Mandalorian and Grogu return March 1 only on Disney Plus.”"
The Mandalorian and Grogu return March 1 only on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/TArlFDw9ET
— Star Wars (@starwars) December 1, 2022
Picking up after the events of Book of Boba Fett, it looks like Din and Grogu are heading to Mandalore to have some kind of meet-up with the once Darksaber-wielding ruler, Bo-Katan Kryze. Having been stripped of his title of Mandalorian by the Armorer, it’s assumed that Din is seeking a way to redeem himself. He now has the Darksaber which makes him the ruler of the planet. Meanwhile, after spending time with Luke Skywalker, Grogu has regained some of his Jedi abilities which will be interesting to see how they play out in the next chapter of the story. It’s all set up to make for a banger of a season.
One thing I personally hope to see is more history and lore around Tarre Vizsla. He was both a Jedi and a Mandalorian being the creator of the Darksaber. That feels like the kind of character lore that could very thematically tie in with Din and Grogu’s story. Tarre was first introduced in Star Wars Rebels which, like The Mandalorian, has Dave Filoni as the showrunner.
What will also be stressful to watch is with this release date is that it looks like The Mandalorian will partially overlap with The Bad Batch. This hasn’t happened much with Star Wars shows outside of all of Tales of the Jedi dropping the same day as one episode of Andor. It wasn’t too much of a disruption for just a week. But The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian will be airing together for several weeks. While I don’t think it will lead to Star Wars fatigue (outside of writers like us having to cover the series), I do think it could potentially harm The Bad Batch’s performance as animation is often considered the lesser medium to live actions which you can read more about here. It will be interesting to see how it will all work out in the end. We can’t forget that Young Jedi Adventures is coming sometime in the spring as well, though I could see them bumping that back to late spring or early summer.
Still, it’s exciting to have The Mandalorian come back. As one of the flagship shows of Disney Plus and being a cultural phenomenon for a reason, it’ll be wonderful to have Din and Grogu back for their next adventure.
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