Star Wars Proves The Mandalorian & Grogu’s Reunion Was Badly Done

Warning! Contains SPOILERS for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1.The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 episode proves that the reunion between Mando and Grogu was handled badly by Star Wars. The end of The Mandalorian season 2 was one of the show’s emotional high points; the scene where the pair say goodbye and Din Djarin shows Grogu his face for the first time solidified their bond and captured the true essence of what has made The Mandalorian so successful. It was surprising then, when The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian’s first proper spinoff show, dedicated two episodes to Mando and Grogu’s story as opposed to focusing on its titular character, conveniently bringing the Foundling and the Mandalorian back together in time for The Mandalorian season 3’s premiere.

It’s been clear for a while that Disney+ Star Wars has been setting up an interconnected web of stories with The Mandalorian as its flagship. The Book of Boba Fett was the first of these spinoffs – Ahsoka is up next, and even Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will be taking place in the same era. Though this gives Star Wars more room for character crossovers and epic storytelling, it also means some viewers will undoubtedly feel left out of the loop, just as The Mandalorian season 3’s premiere demonstrated. After the episode aired, online searches for what happened in The Book of Boba Fett skyrocketed, and viewers took to social media in droves to figure out what they’d missed.

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The Mandalorian Season 3 Had To Feature A Grogu Infodump

Strangely enough, The Mandalorian’s season 3 premiere didn’t even feature a full recap of what happened to the Mandalorian in The Book of Boba Fett. Though one had been released as part of the show’s overall promotion, it would have made sense to include it as part of the episode’s run time as well. To compensate for this, The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 featured a fleeting infodump about how Mando and Grogu were reunited. In one scene, High Magistrate Greef Karga essentially acts as a stand-in for The Mandalorian viewers who hadn’t watched The Book of Boba Fett, just as confused about why Mando and Grogu are still together as the audience.

Greef says, “Oh, I’m confused. I thought you had completed your mission, but you’re still running around here with the same little critter.” Mando answers, “It’s complicated. I completed my quest. He returned to me. I removed my helmet, and now I’m an apostate.” The gist of the story missed is there, and though the explanation seems to satisfy High Magistrate Greef Karga, it’s understandable if it does very little to satisfy those audiences that were invested in Mando and Grogu’s emotional bond, and what Mando sacrificed by giving Grogu to Luke Skywalker to train with his own kind.

The Mandalorian’s Exposition Doesn’t Make Up For Viewers Missing The Story

Though Mando’s bare-bones explanation to Greef Karga is the most basic version of the story from The Book of Boba Fett, it does nothing to give the viewers who missed out on the reunion any of the emotional nuances of those spinoff episodes. It may be cliché, but telling is not the same as showing. The fleeting recap of events that Din Djarin provides to Greef and the audience even feels shoehorned in – a way of saying the production team knew not everyone had watched The Book of Boba Fett, perhaps lightly teasing them that perhaps they should have, or that they should have at least taken the time to do some research before watching The Mandalorian season 3.

While this is a somewhat understandable perspective from a company trying to make a more interconnected universe happen, and these gaps in knowledge will undoubtedly occur more often in the future as more characters and narratives are introduced, one could argue this big of a stretch in knowledge has come too early in this story. It feels almost disingenuous to expect viewers who’ve come to love Din and Grogu over two seasons of The Mandalorian to have watched a spinoff focused on a completely different character – especially given The Book of Boba Fett had so many problems.

Related: Why The Mandalorian Calls Himself An Apostate

The Mandalorian & Grogu’s Reunion Was Too Important For The Book of Boba Fett

The overarching story for The Mandalorian season 3 is, of course, focused upon Din Djarin’s relationship with his people and his homeworld, Mandalore. Din will be trying to find redemption so that he may return to the covert, and uncover the true history and tragedy of Mandalore. Including Din and Grogu’s reunion within that story might be a stretch, as it’s technically a different narrative entirely. There is one arc, centered around Din Djarin and his Foundling; there is now another exploring Din and the Darksaber he now wields. The two can coexist, certainly, but including Mando and Grogu’s reunion within The Mandalorian season 3 would have made it feel like a season split in two parts. Arguably, this might have been too much for an 8-episode season to handle.

The obvious solution, then, would be to make a longer season. Split the release into two parts, if necessary – that would have lengthened The Mandalorian season 3’s hype, and after such a long hiatus between season 2 and season 3, viewers would have likely welcomed a longer season anyway. Another solution could have been to make a Star Wars special, akin to Marvel’s Special Presentations, a movie-length feature exclusive to Disney+ that could have told the exact same story told in The Book of Boba Fett, but under the show’s own name, and without impeding on Boba Fett’s own screen time. Din Djarin and Grogu’s reunion is The Mandalorian‘s narrative territory, not The Book of Boba Fett‘s – as is the Armorer’s mission for the Mandalorian.

If Din Djarin’s cameo in The Book of Boba Fett had simply been limited to him helping in the war against the Pyke Syndicate, Grogu’s presence wouldn’t have even been necessary. A mention of how much Mando missed him here, a reference to something that happened in an old episode of The Mandalorian there, and Mando’s appearance in The Book of Boba Fett would have been celebrated. Instead, it caused mass confusion, debate, and divisiveness.

Star Wars Needs To Learn From Its Grogu Mistake

Crossovers can be incredibly powerful tools – a reward for those viewers who have watched the entirety of a franchise unfold, and a gateway for newer audiences who might become interested in other corners of a story world. Used correctly, they can even enhance a narrative. Boba Fett’s appearance in The Mandalorian season 2 worked because it made sense in the context of the story, and the focus was never fully shifted from Mando to Boba. This is very different to The Book of Boba Fett, where the focus shifted entirely from its supposed star to Mando. One entire episode didn’t even feature the title character. That’s a mistake that Star Wars needs to learn from.

Related: 11 Biggest Questions After The Mandalorian Season 3, Episode 1

This is related to another danger, that cameos can sometimes overshadow main characters. As popular as Ahsoka Tano may be, another Luke Skywalker cameo could diminish her. Even Star Wars: The Bad Batch has had the same problem, with cameos from Star Wars: The Clone Wars sometimes taking over the narrative. These are all mistakes Lucasfilm need to avoid making again.

Hopefully, the confusion surrounding The Mandalorian season 3, episode 1 will prove to the team behind the various Disney+ Star Wars TV shows that telling an important part of Din Djarin and Grogu’s story in a different show was a mistake. It doesn’t matter that these stories all take place during the same period of Star Wars history – they are different shows, with different narratives, tones, themes, and characters. They can and should overlap in the future, but not to the extent that happened with The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

New episodes of The Mandalorian air Wednesdays on Disney+.

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