'The Mandalorian' Season 2 Premiere Brings Back a Major Character

In the final shot of The MandalorianSeason 2 premiere, a man, shrouded in shadow, watches from a distance as the Mandalorian rides in the desert under the twin suns of Tatooine. Mando had just helped local villagers, led by new pal Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant), and some Tusken Raiders defeat a Krayt dragon in exchange for Vanth's acquired Mandalorian armor, which resembled that of a certain beloved bounty hunter who seemingly perished unceremoniously back in Return of the Jedi by falling into a Sarlacc pit.

It's hard to discern who this character is initially, but we know it's Boba Fett, given that the actor playing him is Temeura Morrison, a post-original trilogy Star Wars staple who notably played Jango Fett, the clone daddy of Boba Fett and others in Attack of the Clones, and voiced Boba Fett himself in subsequent video games and original trilogy re-releases. Morrison's participation this season is no mystery, as his role was reported by The Hollywood Reporter back in May, so his appearance shouldn't be a huge surprise. The legacy of Boba Fett hangs over the entirety of The Mandalorian, but hadn't been overtly addressed until this episode.

Mando, on his quest to help The Child aka Baby Yoda (who is super-cute yet again in this episode), returns to Tatooine hoping to find another of his own kind, after the Mandalorians went into hiding following the events of the Season 1 finale. There, he encounters a man outfitted in Boba Fett's busted armor, only this isn't Boba Fett but Cobb Vanth, the swaggering marshal of a small mining town.

So how did Cobb get the armor, which Mando says must be handed over to him? Well, it turns out that Tatooine was attacked immediately after the destruction of the second Death Star by a mining collective and, in his escape, Cobb grabbed a random container that turned out to be full of valuable silicax crystals, which he eventually traded to the Jawas for the armor, which they must have recovered shortly after the events in Return of the Jedi.

Cobb bargains with Mando. If Mando helps him defeat the dragon terrorizing his town, he'll hand over his garb. Well, they do get rid of that pesky sand worm, thanks to a bantha adorned in explosives. (Poor bantha being used as bait. I feel bad about the bantha.) Thus, by the end of the episode, Mando is in possession of Boba Fett's old suit, and the watching Boba Fett knows it.

The biggest unanswered question here is obviously: How could Boba Fett have survived being devoured by the sarlacc in Return of the Jedi, which C-3PO grimly said would happen over the next thousand years? The Star Wars expanded universe has offered an explanation for how Boba Fett got out, but The Mandalorian will likely ignore that and come up with its own reasoning.

There are clues in the dragon-slaying plot. The Krayt dragon is said to be holed up in an abandoned sarlacc tunnel. When Cobb suggests sarlacc pits are never abandoned, Mando says that they can be if the sarlacc gets eaten. Could a Krayt dragon have eaten the sarlacc? Later, Mando gets devoured by the Krayt dragon along with the sacrificial bantha, much to the dismay and worry of little Baby Yoda. But then he manages to induce the dragon to belch him out by blasting him with an electric charge. Could Boba Fett have done the same to the sarlacc after being swallowed?

Regardless, what does this mean for the rest of The Mandalorian Season 2? Presumably Boba Fett wants his armor back, and hopefully we'll hear his story in the weeks to come. But this premiere proved that the show is sticking to its adventure-of-the-week format, as Mando and The Child hop around the universe getting into scrapes. It just looks like now they'll have an old friend following them.

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