The Mandalorian Season 3 Finale Twist Is a Massive Disappointment

By Nathan Johnson Posted:
Mandalorian Season 3 finale Moff Gideon

A plot twist that happened in The Mandalorian Season 3 finale turned out to be a major disappointment due to its importance throughout the entire series.

Star Wars is known for having some of the biggest plot twists of all time - Darth Vader being the father of Luke Skywalker, Luke and Leia being siblings, and even Din Djarin's bounty in The Mandalorian's premiere being from Yoda's species.

For the most part, these out-of-left-field developments in the galaxy far, far away deeply resonate with fans and make the overall story that much more compelling.

However, there are some instances where a major plot twist only brings disappointment.

Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Chapter 24 of The Mandalorian.

Moff Gideon's Disappointing Clone Plot Twist

In the Season 3 finale of The Mandalorian, the reasoning behind Moff Gideon's obsession with cloning was revealed.

After R5 opened the barriers leading to Gideon's command center on Mandalore, Din Djarin and Grogu entered a room filled with multiple pods that contained clones of Gideon himself.

The Mandalorian, Grogu, Din Djarin, Clone Pods
The Mandalorian

Grogu, who was noticeably curious about what he was seeing, even walked up to one of the pods, which resulted in a close-up shot of one of Gideon's clones opening its eyes.

The Mandalorian, Moff Gideon Clone
The Mandalorian

However, the scene ended as quickly as it began when Din Djarin destroyed all the pods at once, seemingly putting an end to all of Gideon's clones as well.

The Mandalorian, Grogu, Clone Pods Destroyed
The Mandalorian

When Din Djarin and Gideon then came face-to-face just seconds later, a plot twist revealed that Gideon was constructing clones of himself and making them Force-sensitive so that they could be more powerful than he ever was.

This plot twist disappointingly was revealed through expository dialogue from Gideon, and explained why he kept wanting to get his hands on Grogu throughout the show's first two seasons.

The Mandalorian, Moff Gideon
The Mandalorian

Also, just like the previous scene where the Mandalorian destroyed all of the pods, this plot twist and explanation of such an important plot point were quickly thrown aside when Gideon and Din Djarin began to fight.

Why Moff Gideon's Clones Were a Disappointment

The very first episode of The Mandalorian featured Din Djarin retrieving Grogu as a bounty for the Empire.

More specifically, Djarin was retrieving Grogu for Dr. Pershing, who was ordered to retrieve Grogu's DNA.

At the time, fans didn't know what it could be for, but it was known that Pershing was a cloning expert, leading many fans to believe that Gideon was all part of Emperor Palpatine's contingency plan to eventually return as a clone.

It was even theorized at one point that Gideon could have been the one to eventually create Snoke. That would have obviously directly tied The Mandalorian in with the sequel trilogy and also explained how Palpatine ultimately returned, which is something The Rise of Skywalker failed to do.

The first two seasons of The Mandalorian continued the trend of keeping Gideon's cloning obsession extremely mysterious.

Even though his intentions were theorized and many believed The Mandalorian would eventually tie into the sequels, the Season 3 finale just proved that the entire plot point essentially built to nothing when Gideon revealed his intentions and then the twist was just cast aside.

Chapter 24 of The Mandalorian is available to stream on Disney+.

- About The Author: Nathan Johnson
Nathan is a writer at The Direct where he covers Star Wars, the MCU, and DC news. He joined The Direct in April 2021 and currently writes news and feature articles about all three brands mentioned above, but his main specialty is his knowledge about anything and everything Star Wars.