The second season is quite possibly the best season of Television that I have ever seen, alongside side the second season of The Orville and season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks. At least the second half. The first half of the season worried me a bit, but the pay off was worth it. I am going to get into spoilers for the entire season in this review, so if you're not caught up on this season yet, then please do so before reading this review.
The first thing I want to talk about is the cameos we got this season. Going in order we had Cobb Vanth in Chapter 9, Bo Katan in Chapter 11 and Chapter 16, Ahsoka Tano in Chapter 13, Boba Fett in Chapter 14, Chapter 15 and Chapter 16, and Luke Skywalker in Chapter 16. Luke was really the only one I got excited about in the entire season. Vanth was in the novels back in 2015 with the Aftermath trilogy, but he was so unmemorable in Star Wars: Aftermath that even though I read that book, I didn't remember that he was in it at all. With Bo Katan and Ahsoka, I didn't really care because I've only seen the movie and the first season and a half of The Clone Wars and the first two seasons of Rebels and so I didn't have any attachment to those characters. They were good characters and made sense to appear in this show, but I didn't get the hype surrounding their appearances because I'm not super familiar with either of them.
While it was cool to see that they couldn't help but save Boba from the Sarlacc in Canon like they had thirty years ago in Legends, I'm not a huge fan of that character because when I was growing up and even into my teen years there was no material that showed Boba Fett as an interesting character. The few comics he was in that I read continued to show him as an incompetent character, and he was in so few of the novels in the Bantam era and early second Del Rey/Ballantine era that he just did not impress me. Like Windows said in Fanboys "You guys both got to stop perpetuating this myth that Boba Fett is a bad ass. All right? He has a jet pack. So did the Rocketeer. Really cool. When it comes time for battle, the man's Michael Bay - all style, no substance".
The Luke Skywalker cameo was pretty amazing at the end of the season. And a very big surprise, since unlike with Cobb Vanth, Fett, Bo Katan and Ahsoka, it was not announced that Mark Hamill would be reprising his role of Luke Skywalker in the season finale. I actually like the de-aging technology they used to make Mark look the way he would've had the Sequel Trilogy been made in 1988-1992 instead of 2015-2019 and been set five years after Return of the Jedi. It shouldn't be used all the time, but in specific instances like this, it works pretty well.
And while I didn't have any attachment to most of the cameos this season, I have to say that they did it in a way that isn't super lore heavy. You don't need to have seen The Clone Wars and Rebels or have read the Aftermath trilogy, to understand what was going on with Vanth, Bo Katan or Ahsoka. The lore is there, but you don't need to have read or seen it to be invested in these characters.
I love the relationship that Mando has with Grogu (Baby Yoda to some of you) this season. It's very different than it was in the first season. While there it was more of a protective type of relationship, where Mando is protecting the kid just so the Empire doesn't get their hands on him, here it's more of a two-way familial relationship. I honestly feel like The Mandalorian as a whole is very much a character driven show while the movies and shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels, are very much plot driven and extremely lore heavy. And so it's harder to become invested in the characters. Especially in the shows where there's alot of characters being thrown at you at once, and they aren't necessarily the same characters from episode to episode. The Mandalorian is very good at introducing new characters and effectively utilizing a very small cast.
My one issue with this season is that the early part of the season, right up until about Chapter 12 or 13, was so slow and meandering that I found it really difficult to get through despite all the great character moments between Mando and Grogu. We didn't really need an episode where Mando is stuck on a snow planet with an amphibian character, being chased by giant spiders while Grogu eats the Amphibian's eggs. It was a very well done episode, but in the grand scheme of things it really didn't do a whole lot to push the plot forward or to develop the characters further. And because it felt like half the season was filler, when it was only an eight episode season, they left so much out there regarding what Moff Gideon was trying to do with whatever they wanted Grogu for. There's been more speculation and not enough answers. I don't know if that's because they already know they're getting a third and fourth seasons, or if they just wound up trying to do too much in only eight episodes. I just know that I was more invested in the characters and in whatever Moff Gideon's plan was that the more time we spent doing other things and not getting to the inevitable rematch between Mando and Gideon, the less I was invested in what was going on in the series outside of Mando and Grogu's relationship.
Luckily the season did pick up by the time Ahsoka showed up in Chapter 13 and from there it just blew me away with the story and the other characters too. And it kept getting better as we reached the end of the season too. In fact, starting around Chapter 13 I started watching the show right after breakfast on Friday mornings so I didn't have to wait all day and then be potentially spoiled on certain things on social media. Before that episode I was waiting until Friday night to watch it. I did pretty well avoiding spoilers, but it was mainly the filler stuff or things I wasn't as familiar with like Bo Katan and her Mandalorian companions. There's one more thing I want to talk about here.
At the end of the season finale there's a post-Credits scene where Boba Fett and Fennic Shan take Jabba's Palace from Bib Fortuna, Jabba's long time Twi'lek Majordomo and then there's a title card that says "The Book of Boba Fett coming in December, 2021". Like everyone I thought that was a teaser for an upcoming Boba Fett series or a teaser for what season 3 of The Mandalorian is going to be since they're suspiciously coming out at the same time. But I got to thinking about it, and the episode was directed by Robert Rodriguez and I feel like that post-Credits scene was an homage to his movies that have post-Credits scenes teasing the next movie (even if a next movie is never made) rather than a reveal for any upcoming series. Just because that seems to be a little too weird, with nothing having come out that even hinted at an upcoming Boba Fett series. Plus the title sounds more like the title of a Rodriguez film rather than a Star Wars series. Especially when the live action shows coming out on Disney+ have a one or two word title like Ahsoka, Lando, Andor, or Obi-Wan Kenobi. So it doesn't really make sense for them to have that title or to have it come out the same month as season 3 of The Mandalorian, and not to have any prior announcements for a show based on such a high profile character like Boba Fett. If it was actually happening I think we would've heard about it long before now.
Overall, this season was a pretty solid season of Television. Like I said, it was slow to start and I wish we'd gotten more with Moff Gideon, just because Giancarlo Esposito does a very good job playing that role and the character is more menacing than even Tarkin was in the original movie. Plus I was interested in that storyline and I just feel like they did enough with it due to the time constraints they ended up putting on themselves with the slower start to the season. Again, they might've done it on purpose so they can keep Esposito around for the third and fourth seasons since he's already confirmed that he will be showing up in those seasons too. We'll see what happens though. So now we have a year to wait until season 3 starts. Should be interesting.
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