The Mandalorian Season 2 Finale’s Star Wars Cameo, Season 3 Explained

The Mandalorian Season 2 finale had so many spoilers that if we say anything else before a spoiler warning you will literally hate us. It’s hard to believe but this is really the final recap and breakdown of a new episode of The Mandalorian for 2020. Season 2 is through! We’re about to take a deep dive into the Season 2 finale, Chapter 16: the Rescue, and full spoilers follow as a new spinoff show was announced and a major cameo just rocked our galaxy after somehow being completely prevented from leaking to provide a major surprise in the season’s final moments!

The episode jumps right in with Mando hunting down Gideon and Grogu. The Slave I chases down an Imperial ship, disabling it so that everyone on board survives, but one pilot kills the other before mouthing off about destroying Alderaan, where Cara just recently revealed she lost everyone — which, of course she did, the whole planet blew up — and so she sends this guys face out the way of the Death Star. After that, Pershing is quick to sell out Gideon’s location.

The group goes to recruit Bo-Katan and we see her Gauntlet ship, which is pulled out of animated form outsider the cantina and then we see that Sasha Banks straight up lied to me when I interviewed her a few weeks ago — they’re back, except for Axe Woves who might be off on a separate mission that could come into play later. We have three very different Mandalorian viewpoints in one place — Mando is in the we don’t show our face camp, Bo-Katan is in the we can show our face and we should be proud to be warriors, and Boba is in the I’m a clone and my coded message a few weeks ago confirmed I’m a Mandalorian but I’ll stand here and say “I never said I was a Mandalorian” camp.” This leads to a bar fight including a tornado DDT by Sasha Banks, and then it’s, “Differences aside, let’s go get the Darksaber and Child.”

Long story short, we get another Trojan Horse effort with the Imperial Ship being used to get Bo-Katan, Koska Reeves, Fennec, and Cara aboard Gideon’s ship. The women blast their way out which feels a whole lot more like fitting and awesome girl power than when the A Force randomly assembled on a battlefield in Endgame, but that was cool, so we allowed it. This is just.. Cooler.

Mando has a clear path to Grogu, and he passes a droid from a line similar to that of 3D6-RA-7 from A New Hope and that’s the last remotely machine he’s going to see. A moment later, a fight shows just how difficult it is to kill just one Darktrooper and Gideon has deployed a whole fleet. However, Mando is quick to send them off the way of the Ravagers (out into space).

Mando and Gideon have an exposition dump where Gideon reveals he has gotten what he needs from Grogu which is his blood, and this all really seems to mean that The Mandalorian is a prequel to the movie sequels because we’re on our way to learning how Snoke was created or Palpatine was revived — and Baby Yoda’s blood was the key.

Mando vs. Gideon is an epic fight, especially because Mando uses his Beskar steel to combat the Darksaber, and everyone gathers in the main control room. Bo-Katan wants the Darksaber but she can only get it from Mando if she defeats him in genuine combat, which is probably how Season 3 is going to have to play out, because we won’t have Grogu or Boba Fett to drive Mando’s story after this episode. Back in Rebels, Sabine handed over the Darksaber to Bo without a fight so there’s a chance we might see something like that again, or that we’ll just have to act like it didn’t happen. Either way, Din Djarin is now the ruler of Mandalore and Bo-Katan is coming for the throne.

The Darktroopers are knocking on the door but a lone X-Wing swoops in — it’s none other than the Jedi who Grogu connected with on the Seeing Stone, Lukee Skywalker himself. The old phrase “Like father, like son,” applies here because Luke’s entrance and slaughter of this Darktroopers is not unlike Darth Vader making EASY WORK of his enemies in that end scene from Rogue One.

The big reveal of Luke’s face comes and it is a de-aged Mark Hamill, not Sebastian Stan as some were hoping for, and it looks a little mechanical but it’s still impressive that they can do this at all. This episode was directed by Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed, possibly selected because of his experience with this de-aging tech as he used it on Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeeiffer in those first two Ant-Man movies with Marvel. Speaking of Marvel, one of their upcoming movies where a bunch of former stars are returning to play iconic roles could have learned from this awesome reveal that no one saw coming, but I digress.

Gideon pops Sasha Banks and then targets Grogu, possibly showing that he realizes Grogu could be a big threat to the Empire going forward, and after he fails he tries to off himself and he fails at that, too.

Luke is going to take Grogu, so Mando has to say goodbye and for the second time this season, third overall, he takes his helmet off. This could be a sign of Mando accepting Bo-Katan’s Mandalorian beliefs, or just a sign that his relationship to Grogu is the biggest priority in his life now.

R2 rolls in and Luke and Grogu roll out and this puts Grogu in a position to eventually get killed by Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren at a later date but he wasn’t in the sequel trilogy so Mando could end up jetting off to Luke’s Jedi training camp and taking Grogu away from that story all together but if we rush into that it would certainly cheapen the emotional farewell we saw here.

And that’s it for Season 2… except for a post-credits scene! We land at Jabba’s palace where Bib Fortuna has assumed the throne and the alien chained to his throne area might be a nod to Slave Liea when Jabba was plopped up there. Bib’s run is short-lived as Boba Fett saved a blast for him and now this is Boba’s house baby. Is he going to become and underground crime lord? Is he going to clean up the streets? Tune into the Boba Fett series The Book of Boba, cleverly titled as each of these episodes have been a Chapter, coming to Disney+ in December of 2021. This could be taking the place of The Mandalorian Season 3 for 2021, giving Grogu time to train and all of us time to really miss him, just like Mando does.

What Easter eggs and references did you catch in the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian? Share them in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!