The Mandalorian Season 3 Finale Proves Moff Gideon Is The Biggest Nerd
"Star Wars" is full of memorable and instantly recognizable villains. As relatable as the heroes are, it is the villains who often steal the show. Whether it's a Sith like Darth Vader or Darth Maul, or even a non-Force user like Boba Fett or Captain Phasma. Indeed, there is no shortage of great villains with distinct personalities in the "Star Wars" galaxy.
Then there's Moff Gideon, the main antagonist of the three seasons of "The Mandalorian" to date. When we first meet him, he is a combination of Grand Moff Tarkin and Grand Admiral Thrawn, a calculating but not entirely cold and detached Imperial officer who is ruthless, ambitious, and fairly successful in his work. He is also a psycho who wants to hurt Baby Yoda.
But after being defeated twice in the first two seasons, Gideon returned for the season three finale of "The Mandalorian," where he tried to eradicate the Mandalorians once and for all. The problem is that any sense of menace or threat he gave off is gone. Instead, Moff Gideon is just a massive dweeb that makes Kylo Ren and Syril Karn look cool by comparison.
He is just a cosplayer
You remember Kylo Ren, right? Not the nuanced and conflicted villain of "The Last Jedi," who was disillusioned with the way his parents sent him off to boarding school cause they were scared of him, or who hated his uncle and master for trying to kill him rather than teach him to be good. No, Kylo Ren the collector of Darth Vader memorabilia, the dude who tried so hard to be the new Sith Lord that he even fashioned a little mask for himself despite not needing it to breathe — something his grandfather would have found amusing, no doubt.
The Moff Gideon we see in the season 3 finale of "The Mandalorian" puts Kylo's hobbies to shame. First off, he appropriates Mandalorian culture and makes a beskar armor for himself, even boasting about the shiny new cosplay that he made adjustments to because he just knows how to work the metal better than the people who have used it for millennia.
Gideon doesn't stop there, he also adds highly unnecessary blinking buttons and a circuit panel to his beskar armor, mimicking Vader's chest plate (which he needed for, you know, breathing), as well as Maul-like horns to his helmet. This makes his obsession with gaining the Darksaber even dumber, because he did not want to prevent Mandalorians from rising up against the Empire, maybe he simply wanted a lightsaber to complete his Sith cosplay!
Gideon the collector
Not only is Gideon a dork who likes to cosplay, but apparently the reason why he was doing horrible experiments on Grogu way back in season one was not to clone him, or even to help bring back Palpatine through Project Necromancer, but to make clones of his own egomaniac self.
Granted, that is a good way of ensuring you (sort of) live forever, but Gideon has other things in mind. He specifically wanted Grogu to make Force-sensitive clones of himself. That's right, because dressing up as Vader isn't enough, Gideon was ensuring some version of himself could Force choke people like he always dreamed of.
And because this is grand dork Gideon we're talking about, he keeps his clones in pristine condition inside vacuum-sealed containers, freaking out when Din Djarin breaks the case, almost as if he was a kid who saved all his money from his newspaper round to buy the figures and is mad because they aren't worth as much outside of their original packaging.
"Star Wars" is a vast franchise with a place for all kinds of characters and villains, even dumb ones like Gideon. Maybe when Gideon inevitably returns he will start cosplaying as someone else, perhaps Captain Phasma.