The Mandalorian Season 3 Episode 4 Returns To Grogu's Origin Story
This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of The Mandalorian.
The twentieth chapter of "The Mandalorian" is called "The Foundling" and is directed by Greef Karga himself, Carl Weathers. It was a surprise, then, to not see Greef Karga in this installment at all. Instead, the episode, co-written by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, focused on the Mandalorian covert. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, et al) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) have settled into the culture of the covert, even if it's a bit uneasily. Grogu is content to play with creatures on the shore while the other Mandalorians train, but Din insists that Grogu must train with the others. After besting Ragnar in a match with training darts, Grogu watches as a massive flying creature abducts Ragnar and takes it to its lair. Din and Paz Vizsla give chase with their jetpacks, but they quickly run out of fuel before finding the beast's lair. Thinking more soundly, Bo-Katan hopped into her ship and chased it.
With the information about where the beast is, Bo-Katan leads a hunting party to rescue Ragnar. Leaving Grogu behind with the Armorer, the Armorer begins to teach him about Mandalorian culture as she fires the forge. That's when Grogu remembers more of his time on Coruscant during the Jedi purge and we discover that the Jedi Kelleran Beq (played by Ahmed Best, reprising his role from the "Jedi Temple Challenge") got him from the Jedi Temple and out into the broader galaxy.
Returning to the rescue of Ragnar, the Mandalorians led by Bo-Katan spend a night in the wild before ascending the peak to its nest. All the while, Bo-Katan learns what it means to be part of this group of Mandalorians. When they finally make it to the creature's nest, they find Ragnar alive, undigested by the monster, but ready to be fed to the babies in the nest. After a thrilling fight through the air and with Mandalorians on jetpacks, they're able to subdue the flying monster, rescue Ragnar, and return to the Mandalorian covert.
There, Bo-Katan has one of her shoulder pauldrons that she lost in battle replaced. Instead of the signet of the Nite Owls, though, she asks if it would be appropriate to take the sigil of the Mythosaur.
Then, she reveals to the Armorer (Emily Swallow) that she saw a Mythosaur. Alive on Mandalore.
The Armorer's only response?
"This is the way."
Kelleran Beq and Order 66
In the flashback of this episode, we see Grogu take one step further in his journey from the Jedi and into the wider galaxy, introducing us to a character named Kelleran Beq. Beq is played by Ahmed Best, who originated the character on the YouTube show "Jedi Temple Challenge." Beq — nicknamed "The Sabered Hand" — served aboard a ship training younglings in the canon-adjacent show. In this episode, though, we see him defending himself from the clone troops of the 501st and working to rescue other Jedi from the fate of the purge. Unfortunately, he's only able to escape with Grogu.
Others might recognize Ahmed Best in his most famous "Star Wars" role, the lovable and too-often maligned Jar Jar Binks from the prequel trilogy. Where Jar Jar Binks gets his physicality from the silent movie greats like Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton, Beq is much more inspired by the Kung Fu masters that Best loved watching in his formative years.
For me, this was definitely the best part of the episode, even though it opens up some questions about timelines and exactly what his plans were. And whatever happened to Beq's purple lightsaber?
Regardless, it was great to see such a wonderful actor return to "Star Wars" in such a cool part. And it makes one wonder if we'll get future installments of the adventures of Beq and Grogu that will eventually lead up and connect to Grogu's story on "The Mandalorian." No doubt it would end in tragedy, but it would be impossibly fun to watch.
Best is able to bring a gravitas to this sequence that really grounds it and makes it fun to watch. It really was just a delight.
Bo-Katan's struggle
The title of the episode — "The Foundling" — feels like it has as much to do with Bo-Katan and her struggle to fit in with her new adoptive family as it does with Ragnar or Grogu.
The beginning of the episode feels chaotic when all of the Mandlorians are training in twos and threes and she's left to wander through them, looking for a place to fit in. It's not until she's given a chance to lead that she truly starts to feel like a part of them, but even then, she's unsure of what the protocol is. Sitting around the campfire, she asks Din how she's supposed to eat with other people around and not remove her helmet, but Din lets her in on the secret that she doesn't. When she gets her food, she's just expected to go somewhere by herself and eat on her own.
It shows a lot of growth from Paz Vizsla to give her the honor of staying by the campfire as the leader of the war party. When Bo-Katan takes her helmet off there in front of the fire, we can see the strain she's under. By the end of the episode, when she adopts the Mythosaur sigil on her other arm, she finally reveals to the Armorer that she saw one and it almost feels like she's testing the story out. Will they believe her if she tells them? Will it help her take them to a new age of Mandalore? Will she be able to lead her people once again?
That seems to be a central question of this episode and the entire season, one I hope we'll get an answer to sooner or later.
Details to watch out For
The opening of this episode, with the competition between Grogu and Ragnar locked in martial combat for training almost felt like a nod to "The Karate Kid," especially when you add Grogu's acrobatics into the equation. It's a very subtle thing, but it resonates.
At one point, Bo-Katan mentions that the nest of the creature is no higher than the Kyrimorut Peaks that she trained to climb during her basic training, and these have a long legend in the old "Star Wars" canon. According to the old books, Kyrimorut was a place where misfits in Mandalorian culture went. They also took in many clones looking to desert as well as many Jedi escaping the wrath of the Empire. In a storyline that mirrors a little bit of what's going on currently in "The Bad Batch," and would be a fascinating direction for some of this storytelling to go, the Skirata clan at Kyrimorut kidnapped a Kaminoan scientist, hoping to reverse the accelerated aging of the clones. You can read more about the Legends of Kyrimorut in the "Republic Commando" series of novels, as well as the highly underrated epic "The Legacy of the Force."
During the Order 66 sequence, we also got another look at Monument Plaza, where Dr. Pershing and Elia Kane had their walk and talk in the previous episode. Here, though, we see it in a time before the Empire or the New Republic, even if it's for a fleeting glance. Where is Beq going to help? To the Naboo of course. Those soldiers that are helping him escape are from Naboo and give him what appears to be an H-Type Nubian yacht, much like the one that Anakin and Padmé used in "Attack of the Clones." But since Padmé didn't know of the attack on the temple until much later when Anakin told her, the highest ranking official from Naboo that could have been helping Beq was actually none other than Jar Jar Binks.
It's also important to note the resemblance between the flying creature in this episode and the face of the mount Boba Fett rides in the "Star Wars Holiday Special." It almost looks like they put wings on the creature referred to as Paar's ichthyodont.
Coda
This episode had some leaps in logic that left me scratching my head, but none enough to break my disbelief in the episode. There's an absurdity to thinking about how the Mandalorians go about their rescue of Ragnar and it makes one wonder what it must have been like for that kid to spend a day, a night, and another day in that monster's throat. It also raised questions about how Ragnar is Paz Vizsla's son. Is he an adopted son? An actual son? The Mandalorian covert was only two strong when we saw it in "The Book of Boba Fett," Paz Vizsla included.
It also had me scratching my head about a few other things, but it didn't really matter because the episode was so fun. And, I'll be honest, I was just so damned excited to see Ahmed Best back in "Star Wars," especially as a character I'd already known from the YouTube show, that it almost didn't matter what else was in the episode. This is the sort of "Star Wars" I'm here for.
Having said that, though, I'm increasingly compelled by Bo-Katan's story and trajectory. I'm torn between the idea that she's playing a long con with the Watch and thinking that she's becoming a true believer because she keeps seeing and experiencing things that are beyond belief and challenge her in many of the same ways her attitudes challenge Din Djarin. She and Grogu felt much more like the main characters of this episode than Din Djarin did, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.
This season is shaping up to be terrific, though, and I can't wait to see the story threads hinted at in the last episode and those in this storyline start to collide. It's going to be nothing short of explosive.
"Star Wars: The Mandalorian" is streaming only on Disney+. New episodes come every Wednesday.