Lucasfilm managed to capture Force lightning and put in a bottle when they let Jon Favreau write and produce the first season of the Mandalorian.
It's arguably the most perfect form of Star Wars since George Lucas handed over the creative reins to Disney.
Can they do it again?
It takes a village to raise a Baby Yoda and players like David Filoni, Taika Waiaiti and Rick Famuyiwa and Deborah Chow are in the mix and the question is have they been able to deliver a second magical season, one which fanboy expectations are through the roof?
Given what we've seen this week, we think the Mandalorian is in fine hands.
The finale of season one ended with the Mandalorian undertaking to find Baby Yoda's tribe and with the big bad guy still out there Moff Gideon, wielding the Dark Sabre. This had many speculate that the series would lean into the history of Mandalore and perhaps introduce some characters from Rebels, such as Sabine.
Not to mention whispers of Tem Morrison turning up as Boba Fett and the debut of Cobb Vanth.
So what happened?
You wanted fan service? You got fan service!
The rumour mill proved very correct. This episode was titled: The Marshall and featured Timothy Olyphant (doing his best Jeff Fahey impersonation) as Cobb Vanth who is the Marshal of Mos Pelgo.
Cob Vanth is shown to be wearing the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett's Mandalorian armour which Mando claims as his right. That Vanth had the armour was established in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath novel.
We know it is Boba Fett's armour as the show makes a pretty unsubtle nod to the helmet which features the famous dimple.
Imagine how excited the fanboys and girls were at that point.
You could be forgiven for thinking that you're actually watching a sequel to Tremors but deal is struck and a back story shows how Vanth traded for it with Jawa.
A story quickly develops that the Marshall and The Mandalorian need to team up to defeat a Krayt Dragon on Tatooine that has been disturbing the mining town the Marshal protects.
This all involves a team-up of the people of the Mining Town, local Sand People and a nice dynamic duo team up of the Mandalorian and Cobb Vanth.
It's a great set piece which results in some classic Mando action.
But that's not what people will be talking about for years. As the Mandalorian leaves the carcass of the great beast, a shadowy figure watches and then turns around.
It's Temeura Morrison, and thus Boba Fett lives!
Highlights and trivia:
- Puglistic Gamoerreans last seen in Return of the Jedi battling it out mano et mano
- The return of Amy Sedaris as the Mechanic - Motto, who points Mando in the right direction
- Cob Vanth quote: "Tell your people I wasn't the one that damaged it"
- The Marshal's speeder was an old podracer, in the style of Anakin's from The Phantom Menace (perhaps it even was the very same one?)
- The pearl found in the Krayt Dragons body is a massive easter egg shout out to the Knights of the old Republic video game.
- When Mando hits the jet pack sending Vanth high into the air, this is probably a reference to what Han Solo managed to do to Fett in Return of the Jedi which caused Fett to fall into the Sarlacc put (from which we know definitely now know he survived).
- The R5 Mechdroid in Motto's Bay appears to be the very same one from ANH - it's the one that blows out which leads to Luke Skywalker selecting R2D2.
- The sound of the Krayt was the same used in by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the special edition of ANH.
- They appear to have missed the term parsec...
- The big battle took place in the Dune Sea - The Dune novel was a massive inspiration for Star Wars
- The Jawas appear to offer Cobb Vanth the head of CZ-3.
- We finally saw a close up of a Womp Rat.
- Pretty sure this is the first Star Wars media to have an aspect ratio change ...
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