The Mandalorian’s third season has ended, and fans are naturally wondering what’s next. How does the Season 3 finale set the stage for Season 4? Is Season 4 even happening? And what about the upcoming Star Wars: Ahsoka spinoff series?
We believe we can answer some of those questions. Despite neatly wrapping up this stage of Din Djarin and Din Grogu’s journey, the finale does provide some major clues as to what’s coming for the franchise. Let’s take a closer look at what we know and why Ahsoka Tano may be even more crucial to the post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars era than we realized.
Mandalore’s Evolution in Season 4
Despite the neat and tidy ending to Season 3, it’s safe to say there will be a fourth season of The Mandalorian eventually. Jon Favreau confirmed he’s already finished writing Season 4, even if there’s no clear timetable for when production will begin or a release date (we’d guess no sooner than 2025 at this point). Regardless, the ending to Season 3 does give us some idea of where the series is headed.
The Season 3 finale establishes a new status quo for both Din Djarin and Mandalore as a whole. Din is no longer a simple bounty hunter, taking whatever assignments come his way. He’s now “an independent contractor” working exclusively for the New Republic. His future quarry will likely be leaders of the Imperial Remnant or pirates like Gorian Shard. Based on what we know of the post-Return of the Jedi timeline, pirate uprisings are a major factor in the downfall of the New Republic and the rise of the First Order, so expect the series to continue to lay some groundwork there.
And though Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon’s death is surely a huge blow to the already struggling Imperial Remnant, the Shadow Council scene from Chapter 23 shows us that there are still a number of Imperial commanders alive and active. Apart from Brian Gleeson’s Brendol Hux, whom we know eventually goes into hiding and helps spearhead the First Order, the fates of these characters remain up in the air. Don’t be surprised if some of the characters glimpsed in Chapter 23 wind up becoming Din’s bounties in Season 4.
We’ll also probably see the impact of Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan’s return to Mandalore, a planet finally freed from Moff Gideon’s destructive occupation. She and her people will no doubt start the long, arduous process of rebuilding their shattered world. As she discovered, Mandalore’s surface is still capable of sustaining plant life, so there’s hope that Mandalore can be transformed into something more than the desolate, Cubist landscape fans know from the animated shows. Relighting the Great Forge is the first step on the long road to rebuilding Mandalore.
There’s also the question of whether Mandalore will align itself with the New Republic. That would be bad news for the Empire, as we saw in Chapter 23 that Gideon was given reinforcements specifically to eliminate the Mandalorian threat. Gideon failed, and it may be in Mandalore’s best interests to form a treaty with or outright join the New Republic and earn some payback against the Empire. There’s some precedent for a Mandalore/New Republic alliance in the classic Expanded Universe, and maybe that will carry over to the Disney timeline.
That said, we could just as easily see the New Republic’s policy of peace and disarmament clashing with Mandalore’s more proactive outlook. Let’s also not forget one of the bigger loose ends of Season 3 - Katy O’Brian’s character Elia Kane. She’s still working as a double agent for the Empire, and we assume she’ll continue to serve another commander after Gideon’s apparent death. She and other Imperial spies may be charged with doing everything in their power to prevent Mandalore from joining the New Republic.
Very little is known about how Mandalore factors into the galaxy’s larger conflicts at this point in the Star Wars timeline, so Season 4 has plenty of room to explore. There’s no telling what role Bo-Katan and her people may play in the build-up to the era of the Sequel Trilogy.
How The Mandalorian Sets Up Star Wars: Ahsoka
The Mandalorian: Season 2 already set the stage for the upcoming Star Wars: Ahsoka series with the reveal that Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano is seeking Grand Admiral Thrawn. Season 3 has been further building on that foundation. Chapter 23 gave fans a glimpse of the Imperial Shadow Council, a group of warlords struggling to hold the dying Empire together (when they aren’t squabbling amongst themselves). Thrawn was specifically name-dropped in that episode, with Xander Berkley’s Captain Pellaeon urging his colleagues to accept Thrawn as the Empire’s last, best hope for reclaiming its lost power.
The Shadow Council may be more willing to listen to Pellaeon following the events of “The Return.” Their support of Gideon only served to squander more precious resources, and the end result is a Mandalore that’s strong and united. Even as Ahsoka hunts for her old enemy, the Imperial Remnant may be stepping up its efforts to locate Thrawn and crown him “Heir to the Empire.”
It should also be interesting to see how the events of Season 3 affect Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s Sabine Wren in the Ahsoka series. Sabine briefly wielded the Darksaber herself, and she was instrumental in overthrowing Mandalore’s pro-Imperial government. But what has she been up to since then? How was her family impacted by the Great Purge of Mandalore? And how does she feel about seeing her people rising from the ashes? There’s a lot that could carry over into the Ahsoka series here.
Will Ahsoka Unite the Mandalorians and the Jedi?
We’ve covered how the events of The Mandalorian: Season 3 could be setting up the Ahsoka series, but how could that series shape the course of the wider Mando-verse? There are some interesting possibilities here, especially considering the long, bloody history between the Mandalorians and the Jedi Order.
Historically, back before Mandalorians spent most of their energy killing each other in one civil war or another, they waged war on the Jedi. With well-honed combat skills and unbreakable armor, they were the only force in the galaxy besides the Sith that could oppose the Jedi. That history of Jedi vs. Mandalorian wars is better documented in the non-canon Star Wars Legends universe, but the basics remain the same. These two cultures don’t get along. Could that finally change thanks to Ahsoka?
At this point, there’s no reason for the feud to continue. The old Jedi Order is dead and gone. Only a handful of Jedi like Ahsoka, Luke Skywalker, Ezra Bridger and Grogu (who’s more of an honorable mention than a true Jedi) remain. Ahsoka herself helps bridge the gap between the two cultures thanks to her friendship with Sabine and Bo-Katan. Perhaps once her quest for Thrawn is complete, Ahsoka could take on a new purpose as an ambassador promoting peace between two groups who once slaughtered each other by the thousands.
The issue of peace between Mandalore and the Jedi may become more urgent with time. Before his death, Moff Gideon claimed to have unlocked the secret to creating Force-sensitive clones. If he’s to be believed, Gideon has accomplished something even Emperor Palpatine couldn’t. And whether or not Gideon himself returns as a Force-wielding clone, there’s certainly the potential for some villain (Thrawn, maybe?) to misuse that technology and create an army of Dark Jedi super-soldiers.
It’s easy to picture that conflict playing out in a future season of The Mandalorian or Star Wars: Ahsoka. It could even be the plot of Dave Filoni’s Star Wars movie, a project we know is meant to tie together all of these Mando-verse shows a la The Avengers.
Another possibility is that this thread pays off in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s movie, which is set 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker and stars Daisy Ridley’s Rey Skywalker. With Palpatine and the Final Order defeated and Rey tasked with rebuilding the Jedi Order, an army of Sith clones would make for a natural choice of villains. And perhaps that’s where Ahsoka comes in, ready to unite what’s left of Mandalore and the Jedi in a fight against a common enemy.
Whatever happens, it’s clear the events of The Mandalorian’s Season 3 finale could affect the course of the franchise for years to come.
For more on the future of the Star Wars franchise, find out what Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy had to say about the three upcoming Star Wars movies and brush up on everything announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
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