‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 Premiere Breakdown: Chapter 17 “The Apostate”

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"The Apostate" is designed to reorient the audience after a lengthy layoff, but the familiar formula efficiently, charmingly, and thrillingly reminds us where we’ve been while ensuring we want to keep taking the trip

As a friend of Din Djarin's once said: Hey look, everyone, it's Mando!

More than two years after the spectacular conclusion of The Mandalorian's second season, and more than a year after Mando and Grogu stole the spinoff on The Book of Boba Fett, the face (or, at least, the helmet) of Star Wars TV has returned. Wednesday's Season 3 premiere, "The Apostate"—written by series creator Jon Favreau and helmed by returning director and executive producer Rick Famuyiwa, who’ll also oversee the season's last two installments—is a slick, if overly familiar, reminder of what makes The Mandalorian work. Mando and Grogu visit three planets and see a few old friends. They do battle with a massive creature, engage in a standoff that ends in a hail of blaster bolts, and dogfight in an asteroid field. Grogu, the beloved bad baby, remains incredibly cute. The effects are still strong, the score is still thrilling, and the script is still stuffed with jokes, Easter eggs, and tantalizing allusions to Star Wars lore. And all of the action and scene-setting happens in half an hour.

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"A lot has changed around here," Mando muses on the new Nevarro. But the old formula that immediately made The Mandalorian the star of Star Wars also powers "The Apostate"—and it's as sturdy and endearing as it was when it debuted in late 2019. The premiere doesn't shed a lot of light on any of the core questions fans had entering this season, and it doesn't introduce many new ideas or raise the series’ stakes. It's an episode designed to reorient the audience after a lengthy layoff, so it's prone to repetition, and it wouldn't stand out to future viewers in a full-series binge. But it does efficiently, charmingly, and thrillingly remind those of us watching year-to-year and week-to-week where we’ve been, while also enticingly laying out where we’re going. More importantly, it makes us want to keep taking the trip.

Like the two season premieres that preceded it, "The Apostate" opens on a planet that the episode never names, a trick that makes The Mandalorian's vision of the Star Wars universe seem as expansive and magnetic as the original trilogy's. When we last visited Mando's adoptive tribe, the remnants of the Children of the Watch were seemingly reduced to two members, the Armorer and Paz Vizsla, who were hiding on the edge of vacuum in the nether regions of Glavis Ringworld. When we rejoin the group, its ranks have swollen significantly. The Armorer must be an extraordinary recruiter, given that (a) there aren't many premade Mandalorians left, (b) membership requires wearing a helmet at all times, and (c) all of her former followers either died or dispersed. Oh, and (d) the new covert headquarters are right next to a titanic space crocodile's hunting grounds. I would love to hear her pitch to prospective members. Then again, most foundlings can't be choosers. And, on the plus side, the local wildlife likely keeps property prices low.

As the episode starts, the Armorer is making a helmet. As she did before melting down a beskar spear to fashion Grogu's mail in The Book of Boba Fett, she unscrews a stopper and sprinkles a vial's liquid contents into a cauldron; it seems likely that this offering is a sample of the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore, which Mando must immerse himself in to atone for briefly breathing fresh air. When she leaves the cave, completed helmet in hand, we learn that it's intended for the newest addition to the tribe's ranks, who's about to be baptized in beskar. The scene seems like an intentional misdirect: Because we’re on a new planet, the tribe has so many more members than before, and we can't tell how old the Armorer and Vizsla are, this looks like a flashback to when Din got his starter helmet.

As we soon learn, though, this isn't an older version of the young Din we glimpsed in Season 1. It's a new pledge, whose helmet ceremony (attended by contingents bearing various clan banners) is interrupted by the arrival of the aforementioned reptile, which emerges from the water like a Krayt dragon from the sand. (Fortunately for the kid, the beast shows up just before he finishes vowing never to remove his helmet, so it's not too late for him to back out.) "Young ones, to the cave!" Vizsla shouts. If I were overseeing security at this event, I would tell everyone to retreat to the cave. That course seems smarter than launching a frontal assault on a monster that's impervious to blaster bolts and explosives, all while wearing armor that doesn't seem designed for fighting in water, but who am I to question a seasoned warrior?

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Mando ex machina bails out the tribe before its enrollment is reduced again, as Din and Grogu swoop down in their N-1 starfighter. A torpedo makes quick work of the leviathan, which explodes like a beached whale, splattering its guts on all assembled. You’d think this timely rescue would get Mando back in the tribe's good graces, but as the Armorer reminds him, no number of kaiju killed can make up for his helmet lapse. Only a bath in those living waters will do that.

Despite her dogmatic stance and insistence on restricting Pedro Pascal's screen time, you have to feel for the Armorer when she explains, "Redemption is no longer possible since the destruction of our homeworld." Her commitment to a zero-tolerance policy makes a sort of sense, considering the destruction of Mandalore seemingly precludes the possibility of forgiveness, according to her creed. One can question whether the fundamentalist sect's central principle is rooted in reality (as Bo-Katan does later in the premiere), but in a post-Purge setting, the tribe's beliefs leave little room for lenience.

In an attempt to convince the Armorer that penance is possible, Mando shows her a shard of the Aggro Crag relic recovered from Mandalore, which the Jawas acquired. On the one hand, the Armorer observes, its appearance seems to confirm that the "entire surface has been crystalized by fusion rays." On the other hand, Mando points out, someone visited the planet and lived long enough to leave, which argues against the rumors that it's poisoned and impassable. (Maybe the planet has healed enough to support life again—or perhaps, in a classic sci-fi twist, the supposed poison will turn out to be a false rumor spread by the Empire to ward away the natives.) They leave things where The Book of Boba Fett left them last year: Exploring Mandalore's supposedly destroyed mines is the only way and (Way) for Din to undo his excommunication.

In a sense, this sequence—which takes up almost a third of the premiere's running time—is inessential. Mando and the Armorer have already discussed Din's punishment and possible path to redemption, so rehashing that here seems like a concession to the fact that some Mandalorian watchers may have missed Book of Boba. (Later in the episode, Mando asks Greef Karga what's become of Moff Gideon, and Greef informs him that Moff Gideon was sent before a New Republic war tribunal… which Mando already told Paz and the Armorer in Book of Boba Chapter 5.) It's also fair to wonder why Mando cares so much about the Armorer's acceptance, now that he's formed his own clan and learned more about Mandalorians outside his sect. (Is he planning to make Grogu wear a helmet too?!) Free your mind, Man(do), both figuratively and physically!

That said, the visit does serve a few purposes other than duplicating the "previously on." It furnishes a reason for Mando to believe his new quest can be completed; it brings us up to speed on the strength of the tribe, which may matter if multiple Mandalorian factions squabble over the planet (or join forces) later this season; and it affords Favreau and Famuyiwa an excuse for a fight scene. For the Mandoverse's most devoted viewers, the detour was a tad redundant, but hey, I had fun.

(While we’re on the subject: I agree that it was weird to resolve some of The Mandalorian's most pressing post-Season-2 questions in a spinoff series, but some of the concerns about audiences being bewildered by what happened between Seasons 2 and 3 seem overblown to me. Maybe Disney should more explicitly signpost the need to catch up on Din and Grogu's adventures in The Book of Boba Fett before watching "The Apostate," but those episodes are available on the same streaming service, and it's hardly a hardship to watch "Return of the Mandalorian" and "From the Desert Comes a Stranger," which would rank among the best chapters of The Mandalorian proper. (The finale, not so much.) From a certain point of view, Book of Boba 5 and 6 (plus part of 7) were the start of Season 3; ultimately, the distinction between The Mandalorian and Book of Boba comes down to which menu you click on the Disney+ Star Wars screen, which doesn't matter that much. For fans who are only in this for Mando, the first four Fett episodes can safely be skipped.)

After adding one supersized crocodile to his kill list, Mando grabs a nap in the N-1's cockpit as Grogu goggles at the splendor of hyperspace. These 70 seconds of screen time aren't just connective tissue inserted to explain how our heroes get from one planet to another; The Mandalorian's audience understands how hyperspace works. No, this interlude supplies the premiere's most mystical, consequential, and potentially confusing sight.

Compared to the Razor Crest, the N-1 doesn't offer many creature comforts; there's not a lot of legroom for anyone whose legs are longer than Grogu. But it does give its pilot and passenger front-row seats to hyperspace's psychedelic display, and though Mando may have seen the show too many times to pay attention, Grogu is enthralled. It's not just those spiraling black-and-blue lines that hold the little green guy's gaze; he also sees something flying (or is it swimming?) alongside.

These shadowy shapes are purrgil, a species of semi-sentient, starship-sized space whales that first appeared on Season 2 of Star Wars Rebels. (Although they haven't previously appeared in live action, you may remember Bail Organa invoking the creatures in a chat with little Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi.) Purrgil are hyperspace-capable, and because they tend to travel in pods, they can cause collisions with spacers. Without them, though, those spacers might never have learned to skip across the stars. Just as birds inspired Earth's inventors to take flight, purrgil inspired the galaxy far, far away's pioneers to invent hyperdrives, a really long time ago.

Maybe they’re actually there, or maybe Grogu is getting a vision. Either way, purrgil loom large not only in Grogu's field of view, but in the future of Star Wars on the small screen. In the series finale of Rebels, force-sensitive freedom fighter Ezra Bridger enlists the purrgils’ aid to defeat the fleet of Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn. (One of Ezra's signature Force skills is his ability to bond with animals; Grogu has already done that with Boba's rancor, and a mythosaur mind-meld may lie ahead.) At the conflict's climax, the purrgil grab Thrawn's flagship and drag Thrawn and Bridger into hyperspace, bound for parts unknown.

This likely isn't the last time Star Wars fans will see purrgil on TV in 2023: In Ahsoka, which will premiere sometime this year, the eponymous protagonist will team up with Sabine Wren to search for Ezra, as the last scene of Rebels foretold. (In Chapter 13 of The Mandalorian, remember, Ahsoka asks the magistrate of Corvus, "Where is Grand Admiral Thrawn?") This sequence, then, is a tease not only for the next Star Wars spinoff, but potentially for a crossover event that could encompass The Mandalorian too. This first taste of the latest live-action transplant from Mandalorian EP Dave Filoni's animated series takes a trippy trope of science fiction that—let's face it—could potentially look a little silly outside of animation, and makes it seem majestic and mysterious. Among fans who’d prefer for The Mandalorian to tell a self-contained story, silhouettes of space whales may be a strange distraction. For those who are into the animated universe that Filoni seeded and that he and Favreau are now harvesting for the franchise's suite of live-action shows, this is a tantalizing, magical moment, much as close encounters with real-life cetaceans can be.

One nice thing about being 17 chapters into The Mandalorian, though, is that the series itself has a substantial history and cast of creatures and characters to draw on. Mando and Grogu's next destination is not a new one, though it looks a lot different than it did in Season 1: Nevarro, the former location of Mando's clan's covert. As we saw for the first time in Chapter 12, magistrate—sorry, high magistrate—Greef Karga has done wonders for the place, and enriched himself in the process. When it was home to Imperials, Mandalorians, and an outpost of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, Nevarro couldn't have called itself a "gem of the outer rim," but these days, the description seems to fit (aside from a lingering pirate problem). Even the Kowakian monkey-lizards that were once caged or roasting on spits are free to roam in the treetops.

Karga has clearly taken the Lando Calrissian MasterClass in transforming from an unsavory scoundrel into the responsible administrator of a thriving mining hub. (He's sporting a Lando-esque wardrobe, too; it takes two droids to carry his cloak's train.) "Nevarro is respectable now," Greef tells Mando, echoing Han Solo's label for Lando. But Din doesn't want any part of Greef's urban-renewal plan or investment opportunities. He's here for another old ally: IG-11, the destroyed droid that, like Mando, went from hunting Grogu to protecting him. Din's kinship with IG was born from the fact that they both changed their programming and became much more nurturing; IG was also the first character to see Mando's face, and by sacrificing itself for its friends, the reformed assassin cured Din of his (understandably) deep-seated antipathy toward droids.

Before Din can try to reactivate IG, whose reconstructed parts preside as a statue over Nevarro City's square, he has to help Greef out of a jam. Unlike Lando, Greef doesn't double-cross his old friend, but his unsavory past does come back to haunt him, in the form of a few pirates who think Greef's new school is a waste of a perfectly good saloon. Their resulting showdown plays out almost exactly like Cobb Vanth's run-in with Pyke spicers on The Book of Boba. (Maybe Cobb can be Karga's new marshal, now that Boba and Co. have handled Tatooine's spice problem.) Greef isn't so respectable that he's forgotten the value of a blaster at your side, and he's quicker on the draw than Vane, a Weequay miniboss with an authentically piratical name. After Vane is disarmed, he signals his henchmen to fire, but Din guns them down. Despite Din's reservations, Greef lets Vane live to tell his leader, Gorian Shard, that Nevarro no longer serves their kind.

With that threat dispatched, droid surgery can commence, but IG's activation doesn't go as planned; the unarmed (and one-armed) droid, which bears a disturbing resemblance to the legless T-800 at the end of The Terminator, has reverted to its original programming. For the second time, Mando prevents it from killing Grogu, and the droid is deactivated again, pending installation of a chip that can curb its murderous impulses. The Mandalorian has always been big on fetch quests; before he can accomplish his goals, Mando must journey from planet to planet, assembling assets and sidekicks that allow him to mount dangerous missions and daring rescues. A droid could explore regions on Mandalore that are hazardous to humans, and IG-11 is the droid Mando trusts most. Scavenging a rare piece of equipment seems like a job for Jawas, so another visit to Tatooine may be on Din's to-do list.

Most of the episode's comic relief comes on Nevarro. There's the (possibly unintentional?) humor of Greef explaining Gina Carano's absence by noting that Cara Dune was "recruited by special forces" (a.k.a. Ben Shapiro). There's the running joke of nobody but Mando caring that Grogu has a name. ("Oh, if you say so," Greef says when Din informs him, which is far more polite than Peli Motto's reaction.) There's Grogu using the Force to swivel his chair and nab a Nevarro M&M, which doesn't faze his gregarious host. There's the prequel-caliber groaner Din delivers after Greef's protocol droid knocks over a bust of its boss to stop IG: "Now that's using your head." (A line that's right up there—or down there—with C-3PO's "This is such a drag" and "I’m quite beside myself.")

And, of course, there's the scene in which Mando squeezes into the Anzellan droid workshop as Grogu menaces the workers (voiced by Babu Frik actress Shirley Henderson) and Greef overzealously interprets from outside. Years ago, Star Wars fans debated who was cuter: Baby Yoda or Babu Frik. Now that "The Apostate" has given us the gift of the pure, uncut cuteness that is Baby Yoda hugging an Anzellan, there's no need to choose. (It doesn't seem that Babu was among these Anzellans, but his species specializes in repair work, thanks to its special, really tiny instruments.)

The prosperity of Nevarro despite Greef's refusal to align the planet with the New Republic is a rebuke of the idea that affiliation with, and protection by, galactic governments is the only hope of establishing order. Back in Chapter 7, Werner Herzog's "Client" lamented what was supposedly lost in the Empire's defeat: "safety, prosperity, trade, opportunity, peace." Yet all of those attributes are in evidence on Nevarro, without intercession from Coruscant. In Chapter 12, Greef remarked that the New Republic "should leave the Outer Rim alone. If the Empire couldn't settle it, what makes them think they can?" Now he's putting his money where his mouth is—while, presumably, putting plenty of money in his own pockets, too. The Republic may be different from the Empire, but as Migs Mayfeld observed in Chapter 15, they’re "all the same" to some people—"invaders on their land." Greef could use a peacekeeper—how inconvenient that Cara was called away!—but he can do without the galaxy-long arm of the law.

Admittedly, the Nevarro system isn't entirely safe. On their way off planet, Mando and Grogu are ambushed by the banished pirates, led by Vane. In an asteroid chase that rivals those of the movies, Mando gives the pirates the slip and picks them off one by one, only to be lured within firing range of Shard's flagship. The pirate king, played by Nonso Anozie, looks like he stepped out of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean costume department. (Was Hondo Ohnaka not available?) Shard blathers a bit and then rages ineffectually after Mando uses his starfighter's nitro boost to blow by the cruiser and jump to hyperspace.

The Mando-Grogu Express makes one more stop before episode's end, this time at Kalevala, a planet in the Mandalore system that was mentioned (but not shown) in The Clone Wars. Kalevala is House Kryze's homeworld, and Mando finds Bo-Katan occupying the Kryze castle. However, she has the place to herself, save for one droid. Bo's power has waned as the Armorer's has waxed: Without the Darksaber, she can't command loyalty, and her forces have abandoned their goal of retaking Mandalore. Instead, they’re doing mercenary work with Moff Gideon's captured fleet.

Although Bo makes no attempt to challenge Mando for possession of the blade, she's bitter about her history with it, and how dependent upon it her authority is: "You lead them," she tells Din. "Wave that thing around and they’ll do whatever you say." She's also affecting a classic "Slouch of Villainy" on the throne, which doesn't bode well for a restoration of last season's alliance.

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Star Wars fans may have varying appetites for Mandalorian lore and politics, but the points of dispute between Bo and the Armorer set up an intriguing philosophical conflict for Din to navigate over this season. "There's nothing magic about the mines of Mandalore," Bo declares, dismissing the beliefs of the Children of the Watch. "They supplied beskar ore to our ancestors, and the rest is superstition." For a warrior culture that's so tied to its armor, though, the site of the source of beskar is somewhat magical, whether supernatural or not. And now Mando knows where to search for it: beneath the civic center in Sundari, the capital city whose dome was destroyed in the Night of a Thousand Tears.

Even before the bombing, Sundari was the site of multiple civil wars, the latter of which was between warring factions of Mandalorian splinter group Death Watch (one of them led by Bo-Katan). (The details of Mandalorian history are hard enough for fans of The Clone Wars and Rebels to retain, so it may be challenging for this season to summarize it succinctly for newcomers.) Bo's sister Satine died in Sundari prior to the Purge, and Bo has soured on the infighting that left the planet vulnerable to takeover. "Your cult gave up on Mandalore long before the Purge," she tells Din, referring to the fact that the Children survived the bombing because they’d decamped to Mandalore's moon. "Where were you then? The Children of the Watch and all the factions that came before fractured and shattered our people." (Left unstated by Bo is that she had a hand in a whole lot of the discord.) If Mando is going to make Mandalore great again, he’ll have to liberate it not only from outside attackers, but also internal strife.

"Being a Mandalorian's not just learning about how to fight," Mando instructs his tiny clanmate. "You also have to learn how to navigate the galaxy, because you never know where you might be headed next." The duo's path through this season will, as always, wend through unanticipated turns, but we can anticipate where it will culminate: Mandalore. We won't know for a while whether Mando's evolution into a leader of many Mandalorians will be as satisfying an arc as his transformation into a father figure to one foundling, but as long as Grogu is along for the ride—and undergoing his own growth—there's a lot to look forward to. "Goodbye, Din Djarin," Bo says at the end of "The Apostate." But the premiere leaves its viewers saying something else: Welcome back.

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