The Mandalorian Season 2 Has a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Easter Egg

After months of anticipation, The Mandalorian finally returned last weekend, bringing an exciting new chapter in the Star Wars universe. The show’s Season 2 premiere, “The Marshall”, exceeded fans’ expectations in a lot of ways, especially when it came to building on aspects of the franchise’s overall canon. In addition to the live-action debut of Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant), who previously only existed in the Aftermath trilogy of novels, “The Marshall” further weaved in elements of the larger Star Wars canon — including a major reference to the iconic Knights of the Old Republic video game. Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of The Mandalorian, “The Marshall”, below! Only look if you want to know!

The episode sees Din Djarin/The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) being led to the Tattooine village of Mos Pelgos, where he believes he is going to find a fellow Mandalorian that will help guide him to the Jedi. Instead, he finds Cobb Vanth, and is surprised to discover that he has appropriated Boba Fett’s suit of Mandalorian armor. Before Mando is able to get the armor back, he learns that a Krayt dragon has been terrorizing the people of Mos Pelgos, and Cobb agrees to return the armor of Mando helps him fight the beast.

As the episode goes along, Mando, Cobb, the citizens of Mos Pelgos, and a nearby group of Tusken Raiders engineer a way to defeat the Krayt dragon — one that will look similar to KOTOR fans. The plan involves drawing the dragon out of its cave so that it can unintentionally trip a series of explosives on its stomach, killing it. Eventually, the group succeeds, and they harvest the meat from the dragon’s carcass. A Tusken Raider then finds a large pearl, which its fellow raiders cheer about.

In the world of KOTOR, a Krayt dragon pearl is seen as an incredibly rare and valuable resource, one that can be used inside a lightsaber, exchanged for a lot of credits, or traded to Raiders. The object comes in a variety of colors, including blue, green, red, white, and black, and is regarded by the Raiders to be a significant sign of bravery. One standout level of KOTOR had Revan teaming up with Komad Fortuna to kill a Krayt dragon, in a sequence that shares a lot of visual similarities with The Mandalorian‘s fight against the beast.

For the most part, the Krayt dragon pearl has existed within the Legends canon, outside of some canonical mentions in some Star Wars tie-in books. So not only is the canonizing of the object in the world of The Mandalorian an epic Easter egg, but the mechanics of the show’s fight were sure to give KOTOR players a sense of deja vu.

New episodes of Season 2 of The Mandalorian debut every Friday exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t checked out Disney+ yet and you want to give it a go, you can do that here.

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