Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 3 of The Mandalorian.The majority of the first two seasons of The Mandalorian gave audiences a perspective of the culture through one of its more extremist clans, the Children of the Watch. It makes sense to introduce audiences to the culture through this clan because they best exemplify the ancient Mandalorian ways. When Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) meets Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), we learn how his clan has broken off from the rest of the Mandalorians and views anyone else wearing the armor as unworthy of being considered true Mandalorians.
Throughout the timeline of The Clone Wars, the allegiances of the clans and who claims leadership changes many times over, but it gives a much better picture of all the different types of Mandalorians still out there, and with the current season’s focus on Bo-Katan becoming their true leader, this season could have raised the stakes considerably by introducing clans antagonistic to her rule.
Now Is the Time to Watch Dave Filoni’s Animated Shows
Dave Filoni is the executive producer on the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and many of the characters in this show are being brought to life in The Mandalorian and its spin-offs. The rich history of Mandalorians and the important role they play as an independent world is explored in detail throughout this series. Star Wars: Rebels is the sequel series that deepens the lore of Mandalorians and how their struggle for survival is intertwined with the struggle between the Empire and the Republic. These shows will bring you up to date with the events taking place in The Mandalorian. Throughout these series, there are three civil wars that take place on their home planet, one every 20 years, emphasizing the differences between the clans and how stubbornly they believe their Way of the Mandalore is the only right way.
In these stories, you’ll learn about Clan Vizsla or the Death Watch, who allied themselves with Darth Maul to take control of Mandalore from Bo-Katan’s peace-loving sister Satine. Darth Maul betrayed them by defeating Pre Vizsla and claiming leadership over them once he’d won the Darksaber. Bo-Katan refused to acknowledge his leadership, and this battle led to the Diaspora of every Mandalorian that didn’t join Darth Maul. Many clans that fled the planet blame the Death Watch, including Bo-Katan, for the ruination of their culture. As she travels the universe trying to convince the separate clans to rejoin her, she’s going to have a tough time convincing them to forgive her, let alone follow her.
At the end of Star Wars: Rebels, Bo-Katan leads her people to victory over Darth Maul and his enforcers in Clan Saxon to retake Mandalore. Once the dust settles, the remnants of Clan Vizsla, Clan Rook, Clan Eldar, and Clan Kryze all agree to follow Bo-Katan as their leader. The Empire, believing a reuniting Mandalore was too big of a threat to be allowed, initiated a bombing attack a few weeks later that was dubbed The Night of a Thousand Tears, destroying their home planet and scattering any remaining Mandalorians to the stars. In the most recent episode of The Mandalorian, Bo-Katan reveals how Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) ended up with the Darksaber after she surrendered to him with the promise the Empire would stop the bombing and let the rest of the Mandalorians live. As soon as he had the Darksaber, he betrayed her and finished the destruction of their planet. She feels incredible shame and regret for allowing everything to happen the way it did, and she will have to work on forgiving herself if she expects other clans to do the same.
Clans Working Against Bo-Katan Would Have Raised Tension
One of the biggest problems with the third season of The Mandalorian is that the stakes in each episode have not been high enough. Most of the tension has been built around whether Din Djarin would reclaim his place in the Children of the Watch, only for said tension to be lessened with the new effort to bring all the clans back together. There should have been a lot more conflict with Bo-Katan’s journey back to leadership. Up until the reveal of Moff Gideon this week, the major antagonists in the show have been pirates or stormtroopers in spaceships, malfunctioning droids, or odd creatures. Many of the separated clans around the universe would adversely react to any news that Bo-Katan was taking steps to reclaim her position as ruler of Mandalore. Introducing them to the show earlier in this season would have provided significantly more meaningful antagonists to the story than a bunch of monsters and spaceship battles.
Just before Bo-Katan had taken back Mandalore the last time, Clan Saxon was thoroughly loyal to Darth Maul’s rule and the Empire’s puppet prime minister. Many of them were killed in the battle, but plenty surrendered as well. Even if they were held in prison after Bo-Katan took over, it would only have been a few weeks until they’d be released and given the chance to flee the planet before it was destroyed. These remnants of Clan Saxon could easily have regrouped and gone into hiding after their escape. If news about Bo-Katan’s attempt to reclaim her place as ruler of Mandalore made it to Clan Saxon, they would immediately make moves to stop her if they could.
Audiences Invest in Shows with Higher Stakes
In order for audience members to return to a show week after week, the story has to give a reason for viewers to care about what happens. Most of the episodes this season have been neglecting the overall story arc while giving us plots that are wrapped up at the end of each episode. This prevents any unresolved tension from bringing audience members back to the next episode. If the showrunners wanted to wait for Moff Gideon’s reveal to have a big impact, introducing a secondary antagonist like Clan Saxon to challenge Bo-Katan’s journey every step of the way would have done a lot more to get the audience invested in this season’s story arc.
There are no stakes for the audience to speculate about in between episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3, but including a rival clan would cast a constant shadow of doubt over their dream of reuniting Mandalorians. Right now it seems like only Moff Gideon stands in the way of that dream, but we will hopefully find out that the other clans Bo-Katan finds won’t fall in line so easily and give the fans some real stakes to care about.
The Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian premieres Wednesday on Disney+.