The Mandalorian Chapter 18 recap: Returning home
By Meg Dowell
WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 2 – Chapter 18: “The Mines of Mandalore.”
Din Djarin and Grogu return to Tatooine — if there’s anyone who can help them on their side quest, it’s Peli Motto. She may not be able to help them get the part they want, but she does offer up her R5 unit.
They’re off to Mandalore. Everyone (including R5) is afraid.
Landing on the planet’s surface, they discover the air is breathable after all — things aren’t quite as bad as they’ve been told … in the way they’ve been told, anyway. Going deeper into the mines, Mando and Grogu are closer than ever to completing their quest.
Except Din is captured by — what looks like a spider-like droid, operated by something even scarier. Unable to escape, he tells Grogu to go find Bo-Katan — he pointed her moon out to him as they were flying into the planet, so he knows where to go.
Grogu puts on a brave face, emerges from the mine, and enlists R5’s help in navigating his way back to Bo-Katan. The moment she realizes Grogu is alone and Din isn’t with him, she springs into action.
Despite her feelings toward him, he’s a Mandalorian. He needs her help.
They make it back to Mandalore, and Bo-Katan tells Grogu she needs him to lead her to Din. He is visibly afraid, his fear intensifying the deeper they get into the mines. But he persists, and they find Din injured and in desperate need of saving.
Bo fights off the threat, even using the darksaber to defend herself, Grogu, and Din. When he wakes up determined to complete his mission, she agrees to help him locate the mines as he wouldn’t be able to do so on his own. He did not grow up here, but she did.
When they reach the living waters below the mines, Bo tells him more about the history of Mandalore and the surrounding legends. In an emotionally raw and moving moment, he begins his ritual, preparing to enter the water and restore his status as a Mandalorian.
As he gets in, however, he is immediately pulled underwater, and Bo instantly dives in to rescue him, barely believing what she sees when she does.
They make it out of the water … but everything they thought they knew has been turned on its head. Everything, forever, has changed.
New episodes of The Mandalorian stream Wednesdays exclusively on Disney+.
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