The Mandalorian Tries to Find Its Place in Third Season | TV/Streaming

A throwaway line discards Gina Carano forever in kind of a funny way (her character was “recruited by special forces”) and Karga informs Din that they need some law around this two-horse town, hoping that he could become the Marshal. He has other plans, revealing that he’s going to travel to the Mines of Mandalore to find the waters that will allow for his redemption. He needs the IG-11 that sacrificed itself to save his friends, but that’s not so easy. It leads to a scene with an Anzellan, the same species as Babu Frik from “Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker,” meaning these little guys aren’t going anywhere. Expect a Funko Pop any day now.

Without spoiling, the rest of the premiere and much of the second episode reveals that Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze is going to be a major part of the season, which is a good thing. Sackhoff is able to sell character back story with limited screen time, including her moment in the premiere when she’s sitting in a massive throne room alone, a queen with no kingdom. Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) also returns in episode two, a chapter that follows the standard “Mandalorian” structure of problem-action-resolution-cliffhanger in a way that’s satisfying enough without being groundbreaking.

And that’s kind of where both of the season three episodes sent to press landed for me: satisfying enough. Neither has an action scene to rival the season two premiere. Neither has major plot developments to rock the Star Wars landscape. And yet there’s something to be said for a show that’s consistently satisfying. It’s an escape. It’s a way to enjoy this well-crafted world. Its familiarity could be read as repetitious or unambitious but there’s also something to a show that knows what it does well and does it. After all, sometimes all you want is an adventure.

Two episodes screened for review.