In a similar fashion to the initial batch of Mandalorian episodes, Season 2 appears
equally as plentiful in the Easter egg department. Here are the secrets lurking in the background
that you probably missed.
Right off the bat, the season premiere kicks off Din Djarin's journey to find the remaining
Mandalorians hidden across the galaxy. He hopes that they can help him relocate The
Child, aka Baby Yoda, to wherever he came from, and, by extension, lead him to his family
as well. However, this won't be a one-and-done task, as the Mandalorian sects are notoriously
difficult to locate — meaning the titular bounty hunter has to ask around to locate
his people.
The first stop for Mando is to meet up with an Abyssin — a callback to a Cantina alien
from 1977's A New Hope – named Gor Koresh on a seedy, unnamed planet. There, the two
converse during some type of combat sport involving two Gamorreans squaring off with
Vibro-axes inside something resembling a boxing ring.
These pig-faced aliens made their Star Wars debut in 1983's Return of the Jedi, posing
as guards for the gangster Jabba the Hutt. With the underworld kingpin long gone by the
time of The Mandalorian, it appears his former palace rogues are doing their best to make
ends meet. Alongside them were a handful of Weequay, which just so happens to be the same
race as Mos Pelgo's resident bartender, who just so happens to be played by W. Earl Brown,
who played the bartender Dan Dority on HBO's Deadwood, opposite Timothy Olyphant, who happens
to play Marshal Cobb Vanth in this episode of The Mandalorian. But we're getting ahead
of ourselves!
After concluding his less-than-cordial meeting with Koresh, Mando and his foundling make
their way to Tatooine to look for the supposed Mandalorian wandering the planet's sandy dunes.
Of course, they can't get a good look around the planet from the Razor Crest, so they enlist
the hangar of Peli Motto, who first appeared on The Mandalorian's inaugural season alongside
her crew of pit droids. But they're not the only droids running amok, as a familiar face
pops up to help Mando navigate Tatooine's perilous terrain.
Motto stored the map of Tatooine inside an R5 astromech unit that fans of A New Hope
likely recognize immediately. In A New Hope, Luke Skywalker goes off to purchase from the
Jawas a new droid for the family moisture farm, and the red-and-white R5-D4 was his
first choice. Sadly, the little guy didn't get to go off and have galaxy-wide adventures
with the future Jedi, thanks to a bad motivator, so that spot went to the fan-favorite R2-D2.
It's good to see that Motto could fix him up, even if he's a bit sluggish for her liking.
"Take your time. Seriously. You just can't get good help anymore."
The vast majority of Season 2's first episode takes place on Tatooine, which is one of the
most important locations in the Star Wars universe. Koresh's lead sends Mando to the
off-the-grid town of Mos Pelgo, but bookworms would recognize it by another name: Freetown.
Chuck Wendig's 2015 novel Aftermath introduced the village, describing it as a dirty, sparsely
populated settlement that wasn't for the faint of heart. The Mandalorian Season 2 premiere,
however, marks the first appearance of the run-down community in any visual medium.
Additionally, during her discussion with the Mandalorian about Mos Pelgo, Peli Motto name-drops
some other recognizable Tatooine locales. First and foremost, she mentions Mos Eisley,
a wretched hive of scum and villainy that housed Chalmun's Cantina and played a pivotal
role in both A New Hope and The Mandalorian Season 1. Mos Espa, the home of Watto's junkyard
and the birthplace of Anakin Skywalker, received a nod too, thus rounding out Tatooine's few
major settlements.
Also on Tatooine: those adorable Womp Rats, finally getting the close-up they deserve.
"It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much
bigger than two meters."
Upon arriving at the largely unremarkable Mos Pelgo, Mando enters the local cantina
to speak with anyone who can provide him with information on the town's supposed Mandalorian
resident. For Mando, the result was pretty disappointing. He didn't find one of his people,
but rather Cobb Vanth, who was simply wearing the armor, with no ties to the creed. It doesn't
take a deep knowledge of Star Wars to recognize the gear as Boba Fett's — although, if you
only watch the movies and TV shows, you'll have to do some digging to learn about Cobb
Vanth.
Vanth made his debut in the Star Wars universe in the aforementioned Aftermath novel. The
book details his journey pretty vaguely, running over the broad strokes of him receiving the
armor from the Jawas and subsequently saving Freetown from marauders and Tusken Raiders,
thus earning the moniker "The Marshal" — which is why the Season 2 premiere bears that name.
The Mandalorian certainly picks up the slack, putting Vanth front and center with a series
of flashbacks to supply a bit more detail than the book could pull off.
Committed as ever to his beliefs, Mando refuses to allow Vanth to keep the Mandalorian armor,
since it technically doesn't belong to him. Since both of them are rational men, they
come to an agreement that will service both parties. Mando can have every last piece of
armor so long as he helps Vanth take down, once and for all, the carnivorous beast known
as the Krayt Dragon that's ravaged Mos Pelgo for years. They might not realize what they're
dealing with, but longtime Star Wars fans instantly recognized the danger the two were
in.
Krayt Dragons are as old as Star Wars itself, first appearing in the background of A New
Hope. After C-3PO and R2-D2 crash-land in the middle of the Dune Sea, a Krayt Dragon
skeleton sits in the sand way off in the distance. Obi-Wan Kenobi later even mimics what many
fans assume to be a Krayt Dragon's howl to scare away some Tusken Raiders.
Despite holding a constant, menacing presence across all forms of Star Wars media, Krayt
Dragons — live ones, anyway — are an incredibly rare sight throughout the canon. Most of the
time, the story relegates them to a fleeting mention or a set-piece used to fill in space,
even though they're massive beasts with highly valuable pearls in their bellies. In some
non-canonical Star Wars media, it's said these pearls can even be used to craft lightsabers.
After making their agreement, Cobb Vanth and the Mandalorian make their way across the
Dune Sea in pursuit of the Krayt Dragon. Such a long stretch of sand and scorching heat
is impossible to trek on foot, so the two found alternative transportation to reach
their destination. Mando rides off on the same speeder bike he borrowed from Peli Motto,
but Vanth pulls up in something quite out-of-the-ordinary.
His makeshift vehicle sported two large flaps on the front, covering a turbine set below
them, with a seating area attached to the rear. This hodgepodge of components calls
back to The Phantom Menace's pod racers, sporting a similar look to young Anakin's model. There's
no way to confirm if it came from his, specifically, but the pieces undeniably came from someone's
pod racer, which is a neat nod to the prequels.
With the Krayt Dragon defeated, Cobb Vanth keeps his word and returns the Mandalorian
armor set to Din Djarin. The episode concludes with the two parting ways as allies, and the
beskar-clad bounty hunter rides off into the sunset with The Child at his side, per usual.
The episode's story looked complete there, but there was one last surprise left for the
fans. By far the biggest Easter egg of The Mandalorian's Season 2 debut came in the form
of the most fearsome bounty hunter to ever live: the legendary Boba Fett, of course,
played by Temuera Morrison, who also played Boba's clone father Jango in two of the prequels.
From the moment of The Mandalorian's conception, audiences have clamored for Fett to make his
big comeback on the show at some capacity. After all, he and the series' main character
are incredibly similar, visually, and they're in the same profession, so a crossover felt
like a given. The previous season didn't do much to satiate this subset of fans, but thankfully
for them, Season 2 is going all-in. Now, at long last, Jango Fett's clone son is once
again making his way to the forefront of the Star Wars universe — and by the looks of
things, he's in no mood to make friends.
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