Okay, so I’ll keep this as brief as possible, because pretty much everyone has said what I was gonna say. And honestly, there’s really not much to say.
I really, really liked this episode. I had a lot of fun with it. Cinematography was on point this episode. It was cool seeing Moff Gideon back in new attire, the Imperial Remnant/beginnings of the First Order, and the brief mentions of Thrawn. Grogu in his new, IG-12 mech was adorable. I like seeing Mandalorians doing Mandalorian stuff. Everything in this episode was cool, and it was cool seeing all of the story threads coming together finally.
The thing is, that’s just it. Everything was cool, but nothing emotionally connected with me, and that all goes back to that one decision they made it in Book of Boba Fett with Grogu that had rippling effects on the rest of this show’s story and it’s progression and undercut the emotional core of this show. The show obviously wants me to care about the stuff that’s going on, but it’s so at odds with itself and how it wants to tell its story that I just don’t feel much of anything other than just excitement.
For example, when they killed off Paz, I’m sure I was supposed to feel something, but we never really got to know him as a character. So, instead of being like “Oh, no!!! Poor Paz!!!”, my reaction was more like “Bummer.”
So, I’ll just say, as far as investment In in the main characters, it’s pretty low right now. The show as it is now wants to be so many other things other than the very thing that drew me to it in the first place, and that’s a real bummer. Hope the finale sticks the landing and fixes/alleviates some of my current concerns, but it’s not looking good right now.
At the very least, I still have Andor season 2, The Acolyte, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew and the last season of The Bad Batch on the TV side of things look forward to.