Star Wars: Who Is the Mystery Mandalorian Character From Episode 5's Ending?

The newest episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian was released on Disney+ early Friday morning, giving fans a brand new half-hour of blasters, Beskar steel armor, Pedro Pascal's voice, and of course, Baby Yoda. Episode 5, titled "The Gunslinger," also took viewers back to one of the more iconic locations in all of Star Wars lore and delivered the series' biggest cliffhanger since Baby Yoda first appeared at the conclusion of the series premiere. There is a brand new mystery set to unfold on The Mandalorian, and it could lead back to a popular character from the past.

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of The Mandalorian! Continue reading at your own risk...

The majority of this episode takes place on Tatooine, the former home of both Luke and Anakin Skywalker, where the Mandalorian lands to get his ship repaired. In order to pay the mechanic, he agrees to help a hopeful bounty hunter track down the dangerous assassin Fennec Shand, played by Ming-Na Wen. The episode concludes with a shot of Fennec, lying lifeless in the dirt after being shot by the young hunter. Someone approaches and a pair of tall boots comes into the frame, but the camera cuts to black as soon as the mysterious character kneels down.

There's no telling who this character could be, setting up one of the biggest mysteries of the series so far. The leading theory is that the boots belong to none other than Boba Fett, the bounty hunter that was featured in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Fennec's body is on Tatooine, the planet where Boba Fett was seemingly killed when he was pushed into a Sarlacc pit in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, so that adds up. Nothing explains how he would have survived the pit, but fans have long theorized that Fett somehow made it out alive, an idea that carried even more weight when it was revealed that Darth Maul was still alive after being cut in half.

None of that means that Boba Fett appears at the end of this episode of The Mandalorian, but it does help add some credibility to the biggest piece of evidence pointing toward his return. Boba Fett has long been known to wear cowboy spurs on his boots, causing a slight jingle of metal whenever he takes a step. If you listen closely to the boots as they walk through Fennec Shand's body, the same jingling sound can be heard.

Of course, all of these things could simply be Easter eggs inserted by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni in order to throw dedicated fans off the trail of whoever the boots do belong to. Favreau did say ahead of the premiere of The Mandalorian that he wasn't going to include Boba Fett.

Was that just a fib to keep one of The Mandalorian's biggest secrets? Or does the creative team have something totally unexpected up their sleeves? We'll find out soon enough.

New episodes of The Mandalorian are released every Friday on Disney+.