The Mandalorian: 11 Questions Coming Out of the Season 2 Premiere
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Thank the Force! The Mandalorian returned with Season 2 on Friday, a full 10 months after its freshman finale landed on Disney+. And with it came some questions.
Chapter 9 aka “The Marshal,” fully recapped here, revolved around the titular Mando (played by Pedro Pascal) teaming with Cobb Vanth (Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant) — the self-appointed, Boba Fett’s armor-wearing lawman of a Tatooine town — and a local band of Tusken raiders to vanquish a Krayt dragon. Once that bit of pest control was tended to, Mando and the Child resumed their quest, as a familiar figure looked on….
Here are some of the questions that I and others had coming out of the premiere — keeping in mind that my own Star Wars consumption never ventured much further than the movies and a few EU novels).
Was Peli Mott’s R5 unit the same droid from Episode IV: A New Hope?
Yes, as TVLine reader Playhouse was quick to comment on our recap, that was the same R5-D4 that Luke Skywalker’s uncle nearly bought from the Jawas — but when it malfunctioned, C3PO nudged the farmer to go with R2-D2 instead.
Has Mando’s POV on droids changed?
It appears so, given how he OK’d Peli Mott’s trio to give the Razor Crest a once-over — possibly because of how IG-11 helped out in so many ways in the finale?
Have we seen a Krayt dragon before?
Live-action, and in the flesh? No. But we did see the skeletal remains of one in Episode IV: A New Hope, shortly before C3PO was “rescued” on Tatooine by the Jawas’ Sandcrawler.
Why did Cobb Vanth’s landspeeder look a bit familiar?
Because it seems to be driven by a single engine that is very much in the vein of young Anakin Skywalker’s custom-made podracer from whatever Episode I was called — which makes sense, since that sequence of course took place on Tatooine as well.
Was the Krayt dragon’s cave the Sarlacc pit (from Return of the Jedi)?
Ha, that’d be quite a coinky dink. And as was indicated, there are many Sarlacc pits. I think if they wanted us to think/know it was the same one from Return of the Jedi, into which Boba Fett eventually “fatally” plunged, they would have hammered us on the head a lot more with, like, a flyover shot hinting at its familiar mouth.
What was the sphere the Tusken triumphantly fished out of the dragon’s remains?
As we saw, when a Krayt dragon rises up for a big chomp of something, he gobbles a lot of dirt and rocks along the way. The bigger rocks that don’t get digested instead tumble and rumble around in its stomach, slowly but surely polished to a high gloss. In Star Wars lore, such a pearl has considerable value, rare as they are to be taken from a slayed Krayt dragon. (They can sometimes also contain fragments of Kyber crystals, as in those that power a lightsaber.)
What did Cobb Vanth mean by pointing out upon returning his armor, “You tell your people I wasn’t one who broke that”?
He was specifically pointing at the jet pack, either alluding to when a “blind” Han Solo in Return of the Jedi unwittingly jabbed Boba Fett in the back with a stick, igniting the jet pack unit — or, possibly, to when Mando himself purposely struck/triggered Vanth’s jet pack during their scuffle with the dragon.
Was that definitely Boba Fett at the end?
It’s very, very likely, much as some may deem it sacrilege to retcon the character’s grisly death by a thousand years of slow digestion. It’s no small leap to accept that once Boba Fett somehow cheated that fate, he would stick around that same desert planet and maybe even keep close to Cobb Vanth, the one who wound up in possession of his armor. (Plus, this particular Jango Fett clone was allowed to age normally, so his older appearance — played as he is by Temuera Morrison of 2002’s Attack of the Clones — makes sense.) But will Boba now stay on Mando’s heels? We shall see.
What exactly is the plan to locate the Child’s kind?
Though Mando said that finding another Mandalorian will let him “chart a path“ through their “network of coverts,” it’s unclear at this point how that will help lead him to Baby Yoda’s kind — unless the idea is to find someone well versed in Mandalore the Great who might have a bead on other Jedi.
Was “The Marshal” the longest episode of The Mandalorian thus far?
Yes, whether counting by total running time (52 minutes, minus recap) or actual content (47 minutes, also subtracting the closing credits) — besting the record set by the first season finale.
Is Baby Yoda still cute?
Do both suns sometime shine on a womp rat’s tail?
Want scoop on The Mandalorian, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
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