What to know from Book of Boba Fett for Mandalorian season 3

Now that the book is closed on The Book of Boba Fett, the writing appears to be on the wall: It’s a less-than-ideal look at everyone’s favorite Star Wars bounty hunter (original trilogy version).

For all the promise Boba Fett held over the years for Star Wars fans as an alluring antihero, by the time he finally got his own spotlight, he had been eclipsed by several other characters, including a new favorite Star Wars bounty hunter in Mandalorian armor — the Mandalorian, aka Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), aka Baby Yoda’s dad.

That eclipsing happened literally in The Book of Boba Fett, which ceded several episodes to Din Djarin and Grogu, beginning with the aptly titled episode “Return of the Mandalorian.” It was meant as a sort of crossover sequence, but it felt more like a full-scale colonization of the spinoff, as Book of Boba Fett became The Mandalorian season 2.5. In the process, it teased some details that are sure to be important for Mandalorian season 3.

[Ed. note: In case it wasn’t clear, this post contains spoilers for Din Djarin’s and Grogu’s fates in The Book of Boba Fett to prepare you for season 3 of The Mandalorian. If you don’t want to know what happens in Boba Fett, don’t scroll further.]

Grogu is back with The Mandalorian

Image: Disney

Though season 2 saw Grogu dropped off with Luke Skywalker for Jedi training, in Book of Boba Fett, the Child just misses Din too much to stay away. Young, weirdly de-aged Luke can sense that Grogu’s attachment is affecting his training, so he gives him the choice to stay with Luke or go with Din. In lucky news for all of us who love that little green puppet, he chooses Din.

The two end the Book of Boba Fett season flying off together, setting up Mandalorian season 3 as they start over somewhere. But odds are that they’re on a collision course with some Mandalorian legends of their own.

Mandalore and Mandalorian lore came up a lot

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Image: Disney

Though Din only briefly stops by to see the Armorer in Book of Boba Fett, their conversations are packed with a lot of teases about Mandalorian lore, including the fated return to the homeworld — Mandalore — that was ravaged by war. As the Armorer idly mentions to Din, “The songs of eons past foretold of the Mythosaur rising up to herald a new age of Mandalore. Sadly, it only exists in legends.”

But it might not be as legendary as she thinks, once season 3 of The Mandalorian starts. In season 2, Mandalorian loyalist leader Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) promised to reunite the people of Mandalore who are scattered throughout the galaxy and reclaim their planet — while also securing the throne for herself. She’ll need the Darksaber to do that, which means there’s a good chance that she’ll intersect with Din and Grogu, since Din currently has the Darksaber.

What is the Darksaber?

Image: Disney

In “Return of the Mandalorian,” Din brings his Darksaber to a blaster fight, and walks out alive but injured. He shows the blade to the Armorer, who gives him a short history lesson: The blade is around a thousand years old, forged by a Mandalorian Jedi. Whoever wields it can rule all of Mandalore — at least if it is won in battle, per the Mandalorian Creed. She does note that if it changes hands any other way, it’s in the hands of the “undeserving,” and will be a “curse on our nation” — suggesting that Din can’t just hand the thing to Bo-Katan to prevent future strife with her.

Since Mandalorian season 3 is meant to shift some of the story’s action to Mandalore, it seems important that Din is now wielding a token of the fate of his people. Particularly since…

Din isn’t technically a Mandalorian right now

The Armorer takes time to train him in using the Darksaber, telling him to fight his opponent and not the saber itself, since she fears it’s too powerful for him. But Paz Vizsla, another Mandalorian hanging out with the Armorer, challenges him to a duel in order to take the saber from him. Din wins, but when the Armorer asks if he’s kept their sect’s Creed, he has to admit that he’s broken it by taking off his helmet in front of other people.

The Armorer tells him he’s “a Mandalorian no more,” at least in the eyes of The Children of the Watch, Din’s separatist sect. But she reminds him: “According to Creed, one may only be redeemed in the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore.” Though the mines have all been destroyed, this is the way.

Where did the Mandalorian’s spear go?

Image: Disney

When Din meets with the Armorer, she quizzes him about where he got the weapon he’s carrying, a spear made of valuable Mandalorian steel known as beskar. (It’s from Ahsoka Tano, in Mandalorian season 2, in case you forgot.) She tells him that beskar is meant for armor, not weapons, and that its existence puts other Mandalorians at risk, since it could pierce their armor. So he asks her to melt it down and turn it into a little chainmail shirt for Grogu. When Din gets excommunicated from the Children of the Watch, he packs up the beskar shirt and heads out to visit his foundling.

The Mandalorian’s new ship

Image: Disney

Din’s Razor Crest was destroyed during a faceoff with season 1 villain Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). But luckily, kooky mechanic Peli (Amy Sedaris) has found him a replacement: an N-1 Starfighter handmade for her royal guard and commissioned personally by the queen of Naboo! It’s got a ton of bells and whistles (Peli fabricated him an induction intake charter that will double his output coefficient! Let’s go, team!) but Din is unimpressed… at least until the end of the episode, when he gets to take it for a joyride and finds out how readily he can make other ships eat his space-dust.