This Star Wars: The Mandalorian article contains spoilers.
The Mandalorian season 3 is coming to an end, and things aren’t looking great for the Mandalorians. Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) has finally united the Mandalorian clans behind the Darksaber, only for her landing party to fall into Moff Gideon’s (Giancarlo Esposito) trap at the Great Forge on Mandalore. Meanwhile, Grogu is once again separated from his father when Din is captured by the Empire. Things could get even worse: it’s possible the Mandalorians will soon discover that one of their own is a spy for Gideon.
Even though this season hasn’t been the most consistent, all of the pieces seem to come together in “The Spies,” and we can’t wait to see how this season wraps up all these story threads. Here’s everything you need to know before the season 3 finale of The Mandalorian…
When Does The Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 8 Come Out?
The Mandalorian season 3 finale will be available to watch Wednesday, April 19 on Disney+ at 12 am PT, 3 am ET, and 8 am GMT.
The Mandalorian Season 3 Recap
A lot has happened in The Mandalorian season 3, from trips to Coruscant and Nevarro to a fight with pirates and a dangerous mission to Mandalore, and there’s still so much to resolve! If you need a refresher of all the different storylines, here are the key things that have happened in season 3 of the Star Wars series up to this point…
This Is the Way
After being reunited with Grogu and kicked out of his Mandalorian covert in The Book of Boba Fett for removing his helmet, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is trying to find a way back in. The Armorer (Emily Swallow) tells Din that if he bathes in the Living Waters of Mandalore, and brings proof of his pilgrimage back to the covert, that he’ll be a Mandalorian once again. The problem is many believe that the surface of Mandalore is toxic and the planet’s volatile atmosphere makes it impossible to scan from space.
In order to make sure he and Grogu won’t die on the planet’s surface or within the mines, Din sets off to find a droid he can trust to fly with them to Mandalore and do reconnaissance. They go to Nevarro first, hoping to revive the remains of IG-11 left behind after the droid’s sacrifice in season 1. Unfortunately, that’s a non-starter as IG’s just too damaged. Fortunately, during a stop on Tatooine, Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) offers him one of her droids, the legendary R5-D4.
On the way to Mandalore, Din and Grogu stop at the nearby planet Kalevala to check-in on Bo-Katan Kryze and request her help in exploring the planet. After Din became the rightful owner of the Darksaber, and Bo-Katan refused to fight him for it, her disillusioned tribe of Mandalorians left to become mercenaries. Bo-Katan is grappling with the weight of this failure and what it means for the future of Mandalorians as a people when Din and Grogu show up. Even though Din didn’t set out to win the Darksaber from Moff Gideon, she still partially blames him for the loss of her clan and her claim to rule Mandalore. She sends Din on his way, hoping he’ll get the hint and leave her alone.
Din and Grogu arrive on Mandalore’s surface and Din sends R5 out ahead to scan the atmosphere of the surface and the mines. R5 is attacked by Alamites, savage creatures who live within the mines, and Din has to go out and rescue him. Once they realize that the atmosphere is breathable, Din goes back for Grogu and they head further into the mines together. Din is then attacked and captured by a cyborg creature, forcing Grogu and R5 to run back to Bo-Katan for help.
Bo-Katan is angry at first to see Din’s N1 Starfighter on her landing pad once again, but once she realizes that Grogu is on his own, she follows him back to Mandalore to rescue Din. After defeating the cyborg creature and freeing Din, she accompanies him to the mines. Din wades into the waters to cleanse himself, but immediately sinks into the lake’s depths. Bo-Katan dives in to rescue him again, and she makes her way back up with an unconscious Din, she sees something that changes her – a living, breathing Mythosaur!
After Din recovers, they head back to Kalevala only for Bo-Katan’s home to be destroyed by Imperial TIE Interceptors and Bombers. Shaken from seeing the Mythosaur and watching another home destroyed by the Empire, Bo-Katan follows Din back to his Mandalorian covert. Because she bathed in the waters to save Din and has yet to remove her helmet since that experience, Bo-Katan is able to join the Din’s tribe, the Children of the Watch.
Soon after they get to the covert, Din encourages Grogu to train with the other young Mandalorians, and he wins his first practice duel. But Grogu doesn’t have long to celebrate his victory before his opponent Ragnar Vizsla (Wesley Kimmel) is taken by a giant raptor. Bo-Katan leads a hunting party to rescue the boy. Bo-Katan and Din manage to save Ragnar before he becomes baby raptor food and bring him back to the clan unharmed, gaining the respect of his father Paz Vizsla (Tait Fletcher).
During the rescue mission, Bo-Katan loses a pauldron. When she goes to the Armorer for a replacement, Bo-Katan reveals what she saw in the mines. At first, the Armorer doesn’t appear to believe her, but she later comes around after the covert settles on Nevarro.
Grogu Remembers
While the hunting party goes after the raptor, Grogu stays behind with the Armorer. She makes him another piece of armor, this time a rondel bearing Din’s mudhorn sigil. The process of making the armor triggers flashbacks for Grogu to how he survived Order 66 and escaped the Jedi Temple on that fateful night. We learn he was rescued by the Jedi Master Kelleran Beq (Ahmed Best). Members of the Naboo armed forces were sympathetic to the Jedi and helped the pair escape Coruscant on one of their ships. What happened next remains to be continued.
Nevarro’s Pirate Problem
When Din first returns to Nevarro at the beginning of the season, he helps Greef Karga run off a group of pirates led by Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie). The pirates used to work with Karga back when Nevarro was a haven for bounty hunters and they don’t like that the High Magistrate has transformed the planet into a respectable place. Karga offers Din land and the role of marshal to further mitigate the situation, but Din insists that he must be redeemed in the mines before he can move forward.
Gorian Shard returns to Nevarro shortly after Din is redeemed in the Living Waters, firing upon the people when Karga refuses to surrender the planet to the pirates. Karga requests aid from New Republic Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). When Teva is unable to help, foiled by New Republic bureaucracy, he seeks out Din and his Mandalorian covert to help Nevarro. Even though the covert once fought with Karga to help Din and Grogu escape, they believe Din when he says that Karga and Nevarro have both changed for the better.
Led by Bo-Katan, the covert travels to Nevarro, where they defeat Gorian Shard and the pirates. Grateful for their help, Karga extends his invitation for land and a place to call home to the rest of Din’s covert.
Finding a Home and Reclaiming Mandalore
After accepting Karga’s offer, the covert begins to settle in Nevarro, at least temporarily. The Armorer meets with Bo-Katan, telling her that she believes the Mythosaur was an omen signifying that Bo-Katan is destined to reunite all Mandalorians. She allows Bo-Katan to remove her helmet to symbolize her ability to walk both ways of the Mandalorian and sends her off to recruit others. Despite her hesitations and doubts, Bo-Katan accepts this role and sets off with Din to convince Axe Woves (Simon Kassianides) and the rest of her former clan to join her again.
They travel to the planet Plazir-15 where Axe and the others have been hired as protectors. The planet is overseen by Captain Bombardier (Jack Black) and the Duchess (Lizzo), though most major decisions are made by the people in a direct democracy. Din and Bo-Katan are allowed to meet with Axe after helping Bombardier and the Duchess with a droid problem, but there’s some tension in their reunion.
Bo-Katan challenges Axe in combat for control of the Mandalorian fleet and forces him to yield because “enough blood has been spilled by our own hands.” Axe questions why she hasn’t tried to win the Darksaber from Din, and that’s when Din brings up an interesting loophole. Because Din was incapacitated by a cyborg creature on Mandalore and Bo-Katan then defeated that creature with the Darksaber, she technically has a rightful claim to the blade. This is good enough for Bo-Katan and everyone else too, and they agree to follow her back to Nevarro.
The fleet arrives at Nevarro, and soon after the Armorer decides that it’s time to reclaim Mandalore. Both clans travel to Mandalore, but only a few including Bo-Katan, Din, Grogu, Axe, the Armorer, Paz Vizsla, and Koska Reeves (Mercedes Varnado) go to the surface on the initial scouting mission. They find a clan of survivors who remained on the planet after the Great Purge, and the Armorer offers to take the weakest back to the fleet for medical care. The rest of the crew continue on to the Great Forge until they run into a trap laid by Moff Gideon and his Beskar-enhanced Imperial commandos.
The New Republic
While Din and Bo-Katan are on their respective journeys, the New Republic is struggling to establish itself in the wake of the Empire. The fledgling galactic government has accepted former Imperial officials, including Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi) and Elia Kane (Katy M. O’Brian), into New Republic society as part of an amnesty program that seeks to “rehabilitate” enemy soldiers. Pershing and Elia become friends, and she convinces him to try and pursue his cloning research despite New Republic rules against it. But Elia is actually playing him and sabotages his re-conditioning by turning a device known as the “mind flayer” to its highest setting, breaking the poor doctor.
Elia is also working closely with the New Republic’s Colonel Tuttle (Tim Meadows) when Teva comes to warn them of the pirate attack on Nevarro. Teva insists that the pirates are connected to a rising Imperial presence, but both Tuttle and Elia dismiss his concerns. But on his way back to Adelphi, Teva comes across a New Republic prisoner transport that has been attacked and abandoned. Because of the timing, it’s assumed to be Moff Gideon’s transport and proof that he never made it to trial.
Moff Gideon’s Return
In the penultimate episode of the season, Moff Gideon meets with the Imperial Shadow Council, proving that Teva was right all along. The Empire is planning a big comeback. Elia tells him that it was Mandalorians who defeated the pirates on Nevarro, prompting him to ask the council for commandos and Praetorian Guards to deal with them. The Shadow Council also mentions the search for Grand Admiral Thrawn and a mysterious Project Necromancer, which we assume is Palpatine’s cloning project.
Back on Mandalore, Gideon traps the search party at the Great Forge, except for Axe, who’s gone off to warn the rest of the fleet that the Empire is here. Grogu looks on from his new IG-12 suit (basically, a mech that Karga had built for him out of IG-11’s corpse) as Din is captured by Gideon’s troopers. But Paz sacrifices himself so that Bo-Katan can cut a hole through the blast doors and the others can escape.