The Mandalorian Season Two arrived last Friday, loaded with Easter eggs and surprises. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, maybe this isn’t the video and article for you, but if you’re looking for a deeper dive into the episode in preparation for tomorrow’s Chapter 10, this is the Chapter 9 breakdown you needed! The Season Two premiere had a big moment at the end and enough Easter eggs along the way to make the house smell bad if you don’t find them all, so major spoilers follow as we run through them all and talk about what some of these details might mean.
The episode picks up where Season Two left off; Mando is on a mission to find The Child’s home planet which may or may not be full of adorable Baby Yodas, so we can’t wait to see it and possibly explode. On their first new adventure, walking through a city shows off graffiti on the wall which calls to C-3PO and some stormtroopers because, you know, it’s Star Wars, so there’s also a Rebel symbol and maybe Darth Vader’s mask. For the sake of Easter eggs, we’ll say it was definitely his mask.
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Mando heads into a cosmic fight club where a couple of Warcraft look-a-likes, properly named “Gamorreans” are having an axe fight. These horned, green creatures first appeared in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, so that’s cool, this is Star Wars, after all.
Mando fights his way out after Gor Koresh tries to make a play for his armor. We have a bunch of Star Wars alien races in the early scene, like a Zabrak, which is similar to Darth Maul, and also had another member of its species in Season One. Something tells us we won’t be seeing this horned little fella again, though. Spoiler alert: he got a knife through his chest. That’s why he won’t be back.
Side bar: why did Gor Koresh think it was a good idea to try to hold Mando at gun point? This guy is collecting Beskar steel, so he knows it’s valuable not only because it’s so rare with Mandalorians dying off, but also because of how tough it is, right?
Next, we’re off to Tatooine, home planet of Luke Skywalker before The Mandalorian, and the same place Rey declared herself “Rey Skywalker” at the end of the sequel trilogy, but we don’t need to talk about those.
The first big cameo from a named character in the Star Wars world comes when R5-D4 shows up. Luke used to call R5 “Red” and it’s good to know he’s been doing well since avoiding being sold. To think, he could have had all the adventures and fame of R2-D2 if he hadn’t played dumb when facing being sold!
On Tatooine, Mando and the baby ride into town, encountering some creatures. Something else might look familiar: Timothy Olyphant’s Marshal character, Cobb Vanth,is wearing Boba Fett’s armor. At first glance, we’re all sitting here thinking that the damage to it is the product of being digested after Boba Fett fell into a sarlacc pit and was presumed dead, but he’s definitely not dead, and we’ll get to that.
Ultimately, Cobb and Mando agree that if Mando can help take down the Alaskan bullworm-looking beast that has been menacing the Tattooine village of Mos Pelgo, Cobb will hand over the Mandalorian armor. Mando brokers a deal with the Tusken Raiders to take down the krayt dragon using their own people and too many sacrificial banthas.
The Tusken Raiders probably took Mando’s deal because they knew they would find the pearl inside the krayt dragon — those things are like winning the lottery in Star Wars lore and also show that you’re tough enough to kill one of those bad boys.
When all is said and done, Mando gets Boba Fett’s armor, Timothy Olyphant better come back because he was great in the episode, we get some cute moments with Baby Yoda. Then, boom, some mysterious being is watching from a mountain top and it’s Boba Fett!
The episode ends with Boba Fett watching from the distance. There are stories outside of the movies that explain how he survived, but if the live-action canon wants to change that, it might’ve done that right here in this episode. When Mando beat the krayt dragon, which apparently beat the sarlacc that we thought killed Boba, he did it from the inside. He used Mandalorian armor and tech to plant a bomb inside, make his way out, and blow it like a Death Star — which is another thing we saw earlier in this episode in hologram form.
The thing is, Boba Fett almost certainly knew Cobb Vanth was using his armor and made a choice not to go take it back. Maybe the near-death experience changed him? Or maybe he found a way out of the bounty-hunting responsibilities? We’ve been trained to think he’s a villain, but what if he’s not? Our next trip to Tatooine will probably explain it!
What Easter eggs and references did you catch in the Season Two premiere of The Mandalorian? Drop them in the comments or send them my way on Instagram and subscribe to ComicBook.com’s YouTube channel for Mandalorian breakdowns every Friday!
