Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 3 of The Mandalorian.There's a lot of star power in The Mandalorian already, and, as if it weren't enough, Season 3 keeps bringing more every week. Last week's episode, "Guns For Hire," brought not one, not two, but three huge cameos: Lizzo as the Duchess of Plazir-15, Jack Black as Captain Bombardier, and Christopher Lloyd as Helgait. The episode itself was one of the few actual compelling stories told so far in Season 3 and another great one directed by Bryce Dallas Howard. Still, our attention couldn't help but constantly wander back to the episode's three huge cameos, despite the story. Is this really how it should be in a show this big?
Don't get us wrong; we love Lizzo, Black, and Lloyd, and this is not a criticism towards them. Quite the contrary. It's just that, as of late, Season 3 of The Mandalorian has been struggling with a plot that seems to be going nowhere, and, for a show that used to be mandatory viewing, that's like a yellow traffic light about to turn red. It doesn't feel right that we should be talking about the cameos for their own sake right after one of the few good episodes of the season. Now, before anyone draws their Darksaber against us, let us explain. This is the way.
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'The Mandalorian' Has Never Known How to Balance Its Cameos
It's no secret that Season 3 of The Mandalorian has been tough to watch. The show seems to have lost its touch, and much of what made it special in Season 1 is nowhere to be found. As Season 2 started to bring forth Star Wars characters known to fans and have famous actors making cameos, the main narrative slowly began to lose its importance, to the point where, now, it just doesn't matter what's going to happen in an episode, as long as there's a cute memeable moment with Grogu and a cameo big enough to create demand for viewership.
It shouldn't be like that. What made The Mandalorian special in the first place was precisely the fact that we didn't know much about who we were dealing with. There were well-known names involved like Carl Weathers, Nick Nolte, and Taika Waititi, but their roles were small enough not to conflict with the main storyline, so they weren't on-screen as often. Back then, Pedro Pascal was still consolidating himself as Hollywood's go-to daddy-for-hire, and, even though he played the title character, we only saw his face for mere seconds in the season finale. Less is more, and that was the rule.
Now the logic behind the writing of The Mandalorian has been inverted. Before, every major cameo or regular character played by a star was written carefully enough so as not to cast a shadow on Din Djarin and Grogu's journey. It was their show, and these two unknowns formed an unlikely bond that, by itself, was strong and meaningful enough to have us coming for more week after week. But, as the galaxy started to expand for our clan of two, so did the cast sheet for each episode. Star power began growing bigger and bigger, with actors like Rosario Dawson and Katee Sackhoff being brought to play fan-favorite characters, and that culminated in the return of none other than Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Now, even his cameo, the biggest you could have in Star Wars, seems to have been meaningless, its importance diminished by a couple of episodes in a spin-off series.
The impression that we get, as viewers, is that The Mandalorian has become overwhelmed with its own potential. It's grown so big that perhaps the creative team involved thinks there's no need to work too hard for the fans' attention anymore — because you can just give them a big cameo or a cool Easter egg, and they will keep coming back, and that's not really how it works. Recently, series creator Jon Favreau revealed he has no end in mind for the series, and, even if he hadn't said as much, it's starting to show, because the story is now going in circles. Not so long ago, Star Wars fans have been made fools by people who didn't know what they were doing. Being a fan himself, Favreau should know better.
Cameos Are Cool, but It’s Not What We’re Here For
Five years ago, the idea of having someone like Lizzo playing a cameo on a show with the word "Mandalorian" on its name would have been surprising, to say the least. The fact that we now have a Star Wars show big enough to attract such names is awesome in itself, and we should enjoy it. Even so, here we are, talking about the latest episode because of the names attached to it, instead of what it brought in terms of development and story.
The cameos themselves are definitely not the problem here — if anything, we want more of them. But it doesn't matter that Lizzo is awesome, that Jack Black is funny, or that Christopher Lloyd is a sci-fi icon that did bring some gravitas to the role of Helgait. We're talking about three icons being placed on-screen at once, each of them with their own gravitational pull to our attention. "Guns For Hire" is a good episode, above the average of Season 3, and it did try to bring new stuff to the table, but it'll never be talked about because of that — it'll only be remembered as the one with the cameos.
Instead of throwing three big names like those together, why not give them each a proper opportunity to shine apart from one another? Lizzo and Jack Black are capable of even more comedy than what we briefly saw, and Christopher Lloyd was given an interesting and morally complex character to play but didn't have the chance to do much with it given what little screentime he did receive in an already-packed episode. Stars that big should be given more meaningful opportunities to shine and leave a mark in Star Wars — they deserve that much, instead of playing caricatures of themselves.
We know the cameos are likely not stopping, and we sincerely hope they don't. Besides, the more interest there is in Star Wars, the more content we, the fans, get. But The Mandalorian Season 3 has started to lose sight of what it needs to prioritize over its runtime, with no concern whatsoever about balancing the star power it attracts with the deeper story it should be telling.
New episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3 premiere every Wednesday on Disney+.
