The following contains spoilers for Season 3 of The Mandalorian (…and also for Season 1 of The Book of Boba Fett).

“Why wasn’t season 3 of The Mandalorian just a 2 hour summer popcorn flick?” I muttered to myself as I stared at the extravagant Hollywood fight scenes as the last remaining moments of the final episode of season three ticked off my iPad. A season marred by confusing subplots that seemed to go no where and have, at most, infinitesimal relevance to a cohesive narrative foundation. A season where even the show’s most loyal fans seemed to lose interest. A season that premiered after the introduction of three new Star Wars Disney + series since its jaw dropping season 2 conclusion. A season that seems like it will forever be defined by an all time TV shark jumping, law and order copycat episode boasting appearances by Jack black, Lizzo, and Grogu cheating at space cornhole (but we’ll get to that).

My expectations weren’t off the chart for The Mandalorian to begin with. I’ve been a fan of the series ever since its inception; albeit I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination a Star Wars fan. It’s a lot easier for someone like me (with no emotional attachment to the franchise) to say that I thought Season 3, despite its few highlights was mainly a draggy, subpar disappointment.

Mandalorian’s third season felt mostly like content out of obligation…but that’s true of so many franchises drenched in overkill now-a-days. The season started by assuming you watched The Book of Boba Fett, and if you didn’t then, WELP… you had some questions. Big questions! Questions that it never actually addressed…let alone answered. It didn’t even tell you to go watch Boba Fett. It really can’t be overstated how lazy it was for the series to fly on the wings of hope that all viewersr just knew what needed to be done…”The Way,” if you will.

It wasn’t that The Mandalorian didn’t try to keep pace with what made it great for two years. The always brilliant Kate Sackhoff was thrust into an all-out starring role this year partly as a result of Disney being forced to part ways with Gina Carano after she shared controversial opinions online in 2021. Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze seemed like the only pillar preventing the story from going off the rails…but off the rails it went.

And you can’t discuss going off the rails without talking about Chapter 22 “Guns For Hire.” The ridiculed disaster seems destined to live forever as The Mandalorian’s version of Grogu lacing up the waterskis and heading directly for the Great White. Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard (her third entry in the series), the episode channeled a bad “Law and Order” mystery with Mando and Bo-Katan inexplicably playing detectives for King Jack Black and Queen Lizzo. Lizzo and the Kung-Fu Panda babysit Baby Yoda as he helps her cheat at some weird space Cornhole game while Detectives Djarin and Kryze try to find the villainous traitor amongst them poisoning all the droids. It’s revealed (in scooby-doo fashion) to be Christopher Lloyd whose established legendary status was entirely wasted on a bit part they could’ve filled with a guy who played one of Biff Tannen’s henchmen in Back to the Future Part 2. Even describing the episode feels like trying to explain to your buddy the dream you had after drinking a bottle of Mountain Dew before bedtime.

The last two episodes of The Mandalorian’s third season were really the only part of it that felt like it was attached to the overall series in any fashion. Even those episodes felt more like a tying of loose ends of the first two seasons than actual elaboration of the series’ plot.

The Mandalorian, along with Marvel’s WandaVision was one of Disney+’s first children. It was its first toe-dip into the already massive sea of content that makes up the modern golden age of television. And it made a big splash. Star Wars fans saw it as a rejuvenation of the franchise that was dulling with three new films that didn’t seem to be holding their weight. It was nominated for Emmy’s. The Mandalorian was so successful that it made Pedro Pascal one of the biggest stars on the planet without ever showing his face.

Despite all of that it certainly feels like exhaustion is settling in….and there’s the elephant in the room. At the end of 2022, Disney released Andor; a wonderful new Star Wars story that was showered with universal critical admiration. In doing so, it pidgenholed The Mandalorian into a corner to fill some pretty big shoes. Even Mandalorian’s third episode of the season, “The Convert,” a mess of a heist story with new characters that time ultimately forgot fairly quickly, felt directly influenced by the best parts of Andor…if not completely copycatting them. By the middle of the season I was ready to start outright declare Andor a better series all-together. It was so good it actually hurt The Mandalorian’s brand.

The Mandalorian certainly feels like it’s suffering from franchise exhaustion. When there’s too much of a franchise, even the franchise’s best parts seem to get old, fast.