This week on The Mandalorian, the Mandalorians try to take back Mandalore from their greatest foe, Moff Gideon; R5 gets to be a hero (again); and Grogu channels a particularly powerful scene from Rebels.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Chapter 24 of The Mandalorian, The Return.'
The Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian brings us the culmination of two storylines at once, with our merry band of Mandalorians making their final push to reclaim their homeworld while also facing off against their collective chief nemesis, Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito).
In story terms, the finale was effectively the second of a two-part episode, and it picked up right where last week ended. The main group of Mandalorians has escaped Gideon's clutches and are hiding in the ruins of Mandalore. Gideon's army of beskar-clad stormtroopers is hot on their trail, while Imperial fighters attack the Mandalorian fleet. And the titular Mandalorian, Din Djarin, is determined to deal with Gideon once and for all, but that's not going to be easy with Gideon rocking a powered beskar suit--not to mention those scary Praetorian Guards he has hanging around.
While the story will give you plenty to mull over as we end another season of The Mandalorian, this episode had some rather surprising Easter eggs as well--including one scene that features nods to four different scenes in three different Star Wars movies. Let's dive in.
1. "No, I'll take care of him myself"
Early in the episode, Moff Gideon is looking at a map of his secret base with the location of the titular Mandalorian Din Djarin marked on it. "Shall we engage?" asks one of his new beskar-clad stormtroopers as Gideon puts on his helmet. "No, I'll take care of him myself," Gideon replies, his helmet's Vader voice filter removing any question about whether he's making a reference.
This is a clear nod to Return of the Jedi, when Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca are on the Imperial shuttle trying to sneak into Endor. During their clearance check, Darth Vader asks about them because he can sense Luke's presence. Captain Piett asks Vader if they should hold the shuttle, to which Vader replies: "No, leave them to me. I will deal with them myself." And then he walks out of the room dramatically just like Gideon does.
2. R5's rocket jets
Five movies into the Star Wars franchise, near the end of Attack of the Clones, we learned that R2-D2 secretly had rockets in his legs the whole time, and for whatever reason never used them. It's apparently a standard feature in this brand of astromech droid, since R5-D4 casually flies around with his rocket feet in this episode.
3. R5's exciting data port scene
The reason why R5 is flying around is because Din Djarin needs him to hack into the system and open some doors using his little data port phallus, pretty much echoing R2 on the Death Star in A New Hope opening the garbage compactor door for Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.
4. Red laser doors
Amusingly, the doors that R5 needs to open are themselves a different reference to a different Star Wars movie. Din Djarin is facing a series of red energy doors in front of him, and between each set of doors is a pair of beskar troops. While the troops are an original flourish, the doors recall the end of The Phantom Menace when Darth Maul used a similar set of energy doors to hold Obi-Wan back while he fought Qui-Gon one on one.
5. Mouse droid
Just as R2 was hassled by stormtroopers during his hacking attempt on the Death Star, R5 also runs into some problems with authority--albeit somewhat shorter ones. Instead of being interrupted by stormtroopers, R5 is harassed by a little mouse droid who makes the same beeping sounds as the mouse droid that Chewbacca roars at on the Death Star in A New Hope.
6. Gideon clones call back to the original version of Thrawn
Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of the only characters created in the old Expanded Universe to also exist in the current Star Wars continuity, but it's long felt as though they borrowed a few pieces of Thrawn's old story for Gideon on The Mandalorian, since he's been the most prominent figure from the Imperial Remnant that we've seen on screen.
This episode gave us one more borrowed piece. In the 1990s novel Vision of the Future, Luke Skywalker learns that Thrawn, who has been dead for a decade in that story, had a clone of himself prepared at a secret base who was intended to take power in the Empire if the real Thrawn died. Luke doesn't want to kill the clone--he's a new person and hasn't done anything bad yet--but he's eventually forced to flood the cloning chamber to escape, just as Din Djarin floods the cloning chamber to kill the Gideon clones on this episode of The Mandalorian.
7. Grogu holds back the flames like Kanan
At the climax of the episode, Axe Woves crashes the wrecked Mandalorian cruiser into the Imperial base, killing Gideon. Din Djarin, Grogu, and Bo-Katan are about to be incinerated as well, but Grogu uses the Force to hold back the flames and keep his friends safe.
We've seen this trick before, on Rebels by the Jedi Kanan Jarrus. Though it didn't work out as well for Kanan. While he was able to protect his friends from the flames of an exploding fuel tank, he ended up dying for his efforts.
8. Dave Filoni and Peter Ramsay cameos
At the end of the finale, Din Djarin pays a visit to his New Republic pilot friend at that one remote base to let him know he's open to jobs from the Republic. And, as was the case last time we had a scene here, Rebels and Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni is hanging out at the bar, easily recognizable with his signature cowboy hat that he always wears in real life. And he's actually chatting with Peter Ramsay, one of the directors on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Ramsay directed Chapter 21 of The Mandalorian earlier this season.
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