Star Wars: Is the First Order Coming to The Mandalorian?

For the first season and a half on The Mandalorian, the Disney+ series remained rather self-contained. A neo-Western of sorts, fans of the franchise have followed Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) around the cosmos as he has done anything in his power to in order to keep The Child — a young member of the same race as Yoda and Yaddle — away from harm. Now, the Jon Favreau-led series is starting to lay the groundwork for the largest potential crossover between Star Wars film and television yet.

Spoiler warning: full spoilers are up ahead for the latest episode of The Mandalorian — "The Siege." Proceed with caution if you've yet to see the episode!

It's been suspected Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) has been dabbling in cloning, a plot device essentially confirmed on the latest episode of the Star Wars series. Though it's far from confirmation the Imperial officer is in cahoots with Supreme Leader Snoke himself — or the spirit of Sheev Palpatine by this point, for that matter — the experiments we saw he was working on had a striking similarity to the villain of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

Because of that, it's only reasonable to ask — is the First Order unfolding in front of our very eyes?

By current Star Wars canon, it's likely the First Order was formed by 21 ABY, some 13 years or so prior to the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Mandalorian, however, takes place just five years after Return of the Jedi, which would place it in the year 9 ABY.

Since it took at least a decade and a half for the First Order to gain enough firepower to become the star-killing juggernaut we saw in The Force Awakens, it's completely possible Palpatine has already started his plans on Exegol. In fact, it's entirely likely his work on the Final Order has already begun by the time The Mandalorian rolls around. After all, The Mandalorian takes place about a decade prior to the public formation of the Empire replacement.

As of now, we only know Gideon and his crew as Imperial sympathizers but with the tricks Favreau and Dave Filoni have pulled, it wouldn't be all too surprising to hear a First Order namedrop by the end of the season, if not next.

New episodes of The Mandalorian are added to Disney+ every Friday.

Do you think we'll end up seeing Snoke or any other First Order characters in The Mandalorian? Let us know who either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter!