Season 3: few new faces
When I finished watching season 3 of The Mandalorian, something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It took me some time to realize, once I’d separated the show’s characters from this season’s messy plot – more on that here in my full season review – what exactly I was noticing. It was just that – the characters. There weren’t as many.
And there were too many. Both can be true.
In seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian, you can point to many iconic characters. Cara Dune, Greef Karga, Moff Gideon, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, Paz Vizsla, the Armorer. However, season 3 felt significantly lacking here. Make no mistake, I absolutely adore both Din and Bo-Katan and I’ll gladly watch them for hours. But there weren’t nearly as many new characters as we’d previously received, and even the ones who’d been seen before came from a cut-down list. Of all the characters I named above, only half of them were in season 3.
On a deeper look, I wonder if part of my frustration here came from not having as many female characters. We still have Bo-Katan and the Armorer, and they’re both incredibly badass and fantastically done. But I still find myself remembering the season 2 finale wistfully… that scene where you don’t realize until the climax that all four of the characters storming the bridge of Gideon’s ship are female is marvelous.
But hey, I don’t want female characters just for the sake of female characters. In general, I’d have liked a wider array of named characters in season 3. While there was a drop in new additions, the show still featured multiple groups of people in many different episodes, be it Bo-Katan’s former followers, Din’s tribe, or the inhabitants of some random city. It made things feel crowded and empty all at once.
(This is also a by-product of season 3’s plot. Unlike the previous ones, season 3 has a much less defined throughline, meaning that we don’t see new characters like Lizzo and Jack Black’s cameos ever crop up again. This was more so seen in the other seasons, where Din’s friendships and enemies all came full circle by the finales. But I digress.)
With all of this said, however, there was still one character felt was missing. One character who should’ve been in this season. One character whose influence was so strongly evident that it was absurd not to even mention her.
And that is Duchess Satine Kryze.
Satine Kryze, forgotten ruler
Originally from The Clone Wars, Satine was the pacifist ruler of Mandalore during the show’s titular war. She stood by her beliefs to remain neutral against both the Republic and the Separatists, even when a faction of her own Mandalorian people turned against her. A terrorist group called Death Watch sought to overthrow Satine’s rule by whatever means necessary – and the second-in-command of that sect was Bo-Katan Kryze, Satine’s younger sister.
In The Clone Wars, Death Watch tries to take control of Mandalore. However, their coup fails and they are faced with a much greater force that threatens both of their sides. Bo-Katan attempts to spirit her sister to safety, but she fails. Satine is captured and executed, and Bo-Katan makes a hard choice. She lets the Republic intercede and save Mandalore from destruction, knowing that accepting the Republic’s help will mean the invasion of Mandalore by outsiders. But she is confident that her people will survive.
Understandably, this is a lengthy backstory to be fully explored in The Mandalorian, not to mention very repetitive for viewers of The Clone Wars. But it would be so easy to reference Satine and Bo-Katan’s history without having to go too in-depth. The key to this is to keep Satine as a constant presence from the very beginning of season 3.
The crux of utilizing Satine in The Mandalorian would be to give heavy weight to Bo-Katan’s emotional arc. To do this, Satine would first have to be referenced early on in season 3. Episode 2, “The Mines of Mandalore,” is a perfect place to do so. After all, Satine and Bo-Katan both grew up on this planet.
My ideal scenario would be for Din and Bo-Katan to encounter a portrait of Satine in a semi-destroyed building. I’d love for Satine to have a live-action counterpart, but that isn’t necessary here. Either a painting of Satine as Duchess or a family portrait of both Satine and Bo-Katan in their younger days would be great. I’d vote for the former – it would allow Bo-Katan to briefly name her sister and reference her time ruling Mandalore.
We’d never heard any information on Satine and Bo-Katan’s parents before this season, so I was interested when this topic was brought up in episode 2. However, I was annoyed that only their father was mentioned – feels a lot like mother erasure. This line made more sense in episode 4, when Bo-Katan briefly compared Din training Grogu to her own father training her, but I still wanted more from this reference to the Kryze family.
Besides talking about her father, Bo-Katan also tells Din about how she was bathed in the Living Waters in a ceremony when she was a girl. Given the way she started this story, referring to herself as “the princess,” I initially expected her to be talking about watching Satine. Since Bo-Katan ran away at a young age to join Death Watch, I imagined that she’d never entered the Waters and had only ever seen Satine do so. This whole theory turned out to be moot two sentences later, but I’m still fond of it. Again, it would’ve been an easy place to discuss Satine.
Fulfilling legacies and growing beyond them
During her and Din’s time on Mandalore, Bo-Katan mentioned how she was once the leader of the planet when she had the Darksaber. In season 4 of Rebels, we see these events take place. This show takes place over 15 years after Satine’s death and Bo-Katan’s decision to let Mandalore temporarily be lost. In Rebels, Bo-Katan doesn’t believe she deserves to wield the Darksaber, but she is eventually convinced. She ends up taking the sword in her sister’s name, swearing to protect Mandalore.
As these events were easily referenced in The Mandalorian, so too can Satine’s reign. Bo-Katan’s line about ruling Mandalore would be an excellent place to talk about how Satine once ruled too, but now the Kryze bloodline has no claim left to their planet.
There are places where Satine could be brought up again across season 3, but these mentions in episode 2 would really be all the show needs. Then, when Bo-Katan is having her doubts later on, it would make sense for her to compare herself to her sister. The parallel would come naturally, and Bo-Katan could even confess to Din her part in Death Watch. Again, details aren’t needed, and a viewer who hasn’t seen The Clone Wars wouldn’t have to be confused. Bo-Katan would only need to admit that she ran away from her family when she was young, and when she came back it was too late to save Satine. Is she too late again to save Mandalore?
(Din gave a very lovely speech to Bo-Katan in episode 7, “The Spies.” Even in my rewrite, those lines should absolutely stay in, and a reference to Satine wouldn’t go amiss.)
As much as I love Bo-Katan and the path she took in season 3, Satine being entirely absent killed me. Familial dynamics are my favorite part of any media, Star Wars ones in particular. And these two opposing sisters were wonderfully written.
Terrorism vs. pacifism – no winners
The parallel between Bo-Katan and Satine held massive weight in The Clone Wars. They were two sides of a coin, two extremes of a spectrum – absolute peace or absolute war. In the end, neither of them was able to hold Mandalore with their views. When Bo-Katan finally made the decision to step up as leader of her planet in Rebels, it was a significant rise from where she had fallen in The Clone Wars. She’d become a balance between her old self and her sister, and in doing so she had become exactly who Mandalore needed. Season 3 of The Mandalorian is a beautiful return to form, with Bo-Katan reclaiming her lost confidence and power. It’s just a shame there wasn’t a single mention of the person who most affected her journey to victory.
