After we spent nearly a year pining for our pals Mando and Baby Yoda, The Mandalorian is back with season 2, which kicked off on Disney Plus Friday with …
After we spent nearly a year pining for our pals Mando and Baby Yoda, The Mandalorian is back with season 2, which kicked off on Disney Plus Friday with a pretty killer episode. Jon Favreau, the show’s creator (also the OG Marvel Cinematic Universe director) wrote and directed the first episode. Chapter 9 is titled The Marshal, a name that’s likely to make fans who’ve been following the Star Wars novels say « Oooooh, yes! » Please don’t read any further until you’ve reminded yourself what happened in season 1 and watched the episode on Disney’s streaming service. We good? Good, there is much to discuss. Let’s dive into SPOILERS. In his quest to reunite Baby Yoda with his own kind, Mando (Pedro Pascal) seeks out other Mandalorians to guide him. He learns of someone on Tatooine, which weirds him out since he and his little buddy were already there but heard nothing about it. It turns out the man in Mandalorian armor isn’t a Mandalorian at all — it’s Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant, who previously played gunslingers in Deadwood and Justified). He’s decked out in Boba Fett’s iconic armor, and his story played out in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy of novels, which are set between Return of the Jedi and The Mandalorian. This episode also presents it in a super cool flashback. I’m quite jealous of Vanth’s lovely Hollywood hair — in real life, it’d be a mess after taking off that helmet. Perhaps he uses product derived from Bantha juice to keep it oh so shapely? Read more: The Mandalorian season 2 entertainingly levels up with Star Wars teases When criminal goons rolled into Mos Pelgo following the destruction of the second Death Star (roughly five years prior to The Mandalorian), Vanth escaped and bought Fett’s armor from some Jawas. Since the infamous bounty hunter fell into the sarlacc in Return of the Jedi and is busy being digested for 1,000 years, he won’t need any armor… right? « I guess every once in a while, both suns shine on a womp rat’s tail, » Vanth says of his good fortune, in reference to Tatooine’s twin suns. I’m going to use this phrase in real life often.
