I agree with everyone else here, in that I’m almost shocked how good this episode was. It’s not a monumental storytelling achievement by any means, but it brought back a sense of emotion, drama, and good old fashioned fun that has been sorely missing from this season. The previous few episodes just made me roll my eyes in frustration, but this one made me remember why I even liked Mando in the first place.

As for the whole “desperately making excuses for why the sequels happened” thing, I think it’s something we just have to accept. The sequels were a botched attempt at recapturing the OT’s magic that just ended up feeling bleak and cynical, but they’ll always be there, and erasing them from canon would just divide the fandom further. It’s better to salvage at least something worthwhile out of those movies, rather than treating 3 installments of the main saga like the Holiday Special.

But overall, both the recent Celebration announcements and this newest episode of Mando have me cautiously optimistic for the future of Star Wars. If Disney can pull their act together and return to form after the increasingly diminishing returns of both their major franchises, I might start feeling happy to be a Star Wars fan again.