Reviews

"Well, that certainly was a show that happened." This is not the takeaway that I ever thought I would have with the show that brought the fandom together for its first two seasons, completely revitalizing the Star Wars brand for both the fans and those who previously showed disinterest in the franchise as a whole. It's sad. I feel sad. Not angry or frustrated, just miserable at what they did to this show. I really want to understand what happened to the writers, directors, and producers that prompted them to create a cynical and bastardized version of the material that had been relatively solid up until the start of season 3. Was it COVID? Was it a budget cut? Creative differences between the leading figures? I'm genuinely curious. After both Book of Boba and Kenobi being massive narrative misses, why did nobody stand up and say, "Hey, let's not do this with the show that brought everyone together."

Now let me tear this particular episode to pieces.

• Why do we always get a "this is the way" line whenever a character decides to do something? It comes across as "we don't know how to write thought-provoking dialogue, so let's lean on the thing we can put on T-shirts." It's super lazy at best, cynical and mocking at worst.

• Moff Gideon is a great villain in season 1 and 2 and had a lot of intelligence and intrigue. In season 3, he is reduced to a mockery and used as cannon fodder in the last couple of episodes. His death was... How do I put this? Dumb? Like, silly dumb. And it's not in line with his character previously.

• Grogu gets meched. The mech is used to fight only once. The mech gets destroyed. Grogu runs around on beams while guards try to get him. A beam breaks and falls on Grogu, trapping him. Din saves Grogu from the guards. Grogu saves Din and Bo from an explosion. Grogu lives happily ever after with Din, his new dad. This is the plot for his character this season. I'm almost 1000% certain that ChatGPT could have come up with something better. So, what is this?

• The Dark saber breaks. The person who broke it was obsessed with it. He then says that the Dark saber was a dumb Mandalorian tradition. Huh? X10

• There is no spy. So why bring up the spy?

• The previous episode alludes to a conflict with the Mandalorians and the New Republic with Moth Gideon's escape during the ending of one episode. But, the New Republic just forgets. What the hell?

• The CG is subpar. I guess Disney is tightening their purse strings.

• The writing overall is bad.

• The directing varied from mediocre to okay.

• The final shot of Grogu and Din ends with a literal Looney Tunes circle in. Wow, we just gave up, didn't we?

So, like this season, I'll rush my final thoughts. Seasons 1 and 2 were very good. Season 3 makes Boba Fett and Kenobi blush. Bye.

It's hard not to compare it to Chernobyl based on the first episode, and the vibe that it gave off; especially with both show runners being the same person. Each subsequent episode after that completely removed that sense of dread and horror that the first episode presented so beautifully, but with a few exceptions here and there.

Pros: + Faithful adaptation + Movie budget + Acting is generally good to amazing + Additional context not in source material + Episodes 1 & 3 are GOATED.

Neutral: +- Felt "video game-like" during most of the action.

+- a little rushed in moments.

+- Marvin arc changes +- episode 8. Joel finding Ellie felt weird.

Cons:

• The sense of horror and dread completely died after the first episode
• character performances can't be matched by source, with the exception of Bill.

• No Spores?!?! Kinda trivializes the urgency of the cure.

• If Marlene knew Ellie got her immunity from her infected mother why did she need Ellie for the cure? Couldn't she have recreated that with other pregnant mothers? Kind of a glaring plothole in my opinion that the games didn't have, because this moment never happened in the games.

• where are all the infected? Again I'm begging the question why the cure is so urgent.

From my personal perspective I really like the idea of a bunch of whacky characters seemingly going through a pretty normal anticlimactic situation that mirrors real life to some capacity. It's like watching a real life scenario through an animated lense. I noticed some people complaining about it being a whole episode of nothing, but I'd argue that's sorta the beauty of it.

The end of a franchise couldn't have been any more bitter sweet. In the end justice was served and the Saul that we knew died that way Jimmy could live on. Perfect end to a nearly perfect run. Thank you to everyone who worked on this series.

The transition from Jimmy to Saul is fully realized now. It's probably one of the most heartbreaking transitions. Everyone that tried to help Jimmy be a better person is either dead or gone and all that is left is Saul Goodman. His name being a funny goof in Breaking Bad now has a more depressing twist. Saul Goodman is just Jimmy's way of coping with the aweful that he did. Tragic but so so so well executed.

It's not that I didn't like this episode because I really did, however Lalo's end seemed a little... Anticlimactic? Also he just made such a stupid mistake... Like it's pretty out of character however it makes sense the more I think about it, because Gus goes out almost the same way Lalo does in a way. Just making one dumb mistake costs you no matter how smart you are. Lalo wanted Gus to suffer before he got what was coming to him just like how Gus wanted Hector to suffer before he got what was coming to him. So consequently playing with there food ended biting both of them in the arse. Kind of poetic, but after the last episode it was a little limp.

One part I do really like is when Jimmy is saying that Nacho "did it" while pleading with his life with Lalo, because it's a direct reference to when he was kidnapped and threatened by Walt and Jessie in Breaking Bad. This event obviously scarred him big time.

This episode seems like it had 2x more care and attention given to it than the past 4 episodes. I'm a huge fan of this direction. The writing is still falling flat for me personally... I really mean no offense to Joby Harold, but maybe he is at his best when he has a little more supervision from veterans in starwars? At the very least I think Joby should run his scripts by Dave, but I like that he isn't afraid to write some dark stuff (Padawans getting slayed is pretty nutty in Star wars). This show is at its best when it goes dark and the action goes hard. It should embrace it's strengths fully because that's what makes it great.

The only major issues would be maybe a little more de-ageing on Hayden Christensen because the flashback takes place during episode 2 era. Also sending two ships and Reva even though Vader knows she's a traitor... Is definitely a choice. Maybe we'll get an explanation as to why Vader seems to purposely let Obi-Wan get away on multiple occasions throughout this show.

You can feel every single moment that Obi-Wan is going through. You can feel his dread throughout the entire episode. And I think it makes some of the bigger moments in the episode that more impactful.

What made me think it was originally an 8 out of 10 was some glaring issues with the tunnel scene and the very end of the episode when Vader just lets Obi-Wan get away.

This episode seems to be about Paper Boi and wanting to recapture his lost love of the art of rapping.

What we see is a person that represents that personification right in front of his eyes (who he thinks stole his phone). It's the final song that he plays to Paper Boi that seems to be a haunting reflection of paper bois love and therefore loss of the music he plays. Darius had brought up that the venue they played at is haunted, so this seems to be a literal and metaphorical ghost (Wiley) of paper boi that speaks to the group.

The only thing I don't understand is why the group would continue to let Sox continue with them after his demeanor last episode, however I have a sneaking suspicion that he has a lot more of a part to play in this seasons wild ride of symbolism.

My only complaint with this season as a whole is the CGI has just been not that great of a use of their budget. Also there's just some obvious pacing issues due to the fact that there's only eight episodes this season they really needed the full 10 because the jump from episode 7 to episode 8 is kind of ridiculous. The comedy is still pretty much the golden standard so if there's just some weird plot shenanigans it is what it is, however I'm a bit disappointed still by the lack of reveals this season I think Charlie's dad is still Frank and we still don't know what waitresses name is in the show and I think it would have been a good idea if they were going all out with Ireland episodes to have at least one major reveal besides the fact that the gang is a representation of America which I thought was more or less obvious throughout the past 15 seasons it's just now there actually just saying it out right.