The Mandalorian season 4 is the next chapter in Din Djarin and Grogu's journey. 

The Mandalorian season 3 ended with a climactic battle with Moff Gideon and his guards. With him apparently dying in an explosion at his base on Mandalore, the disparate Mandalorians got to reignite the Great Forge.

What's more, Din Djarin got to accept Grogu as his son; in doing so, "Baby Yoda" was allowed to be sworn in as a Mandalorian apprentice, before Djarin flew off to take up as a contractor under Captain Carson Teva and settled in a cozy new home on Nevarro. Will their newfound domestic bliss last? We'll have to wait for the series to return to Disney Plus to find out!

Here's everything we know about The Mandalorian season 4 right now...

The Mandalorian season 4 release date

We don't yet have a release date for The Mandalorian season 4, but from the sounds of things, filming is about to get underway soon. 

That comes from Brendan Wayne, one of the actors who wears the titular Mandalorian's armor on set. On Instagram, Waynes teased that filming on the fourth season was "getting ramped up", suggesting that they'll be back on set before long. 

Hopefully, this means we'll get a clearer picture of when the show will return soon!

The Mandalorian season 4 plot

We don't have a clear idea of what's to come in The Mandalorian season 4, precisely because season 3 seemed to wrap many of the conflicts up already; Din Djarin had cleansed himself in the Living Waters and reconnected with his clan, and he'd finally formally sworn to care for Grogu.

Showrunner Jon Favreau teased that the fourth season was already written back in February 2023. In an interview with BFM TV, he said at the time: "Season 4, yeah, I've written it already. We have to know where we're going to tell a fully formed story. We had mapped it out, Dave [Filoni] and I, and slowly you start to write each episode. 

"I was writing it during post-production. All of it has to feel like a continuation and one full story. [Dave's] doing Ahsoka, which I'm producing with him. He's the writer and showrunner on that. To understand what's happening on other shows... Skeleton Crew all take place within the same Star Wars time period. There's a lot more things that we've got to keep in mind and also stuff that we've built up to from previous seasons of The Mandalorian as well", he added.

The Mandalorian season 4 cast

As well as not knowing where The Mandalorian season 4 will take Din Djarin and Grogu, we also don't know who else will be cropping up on their latest adventure. 

The only sure bets at this moment in time have to be Pedro Pascal, even if he's only the voice behind the character, rather than the man in the suit. 

And because of where the series ended last time around, we'd guess that Katee Sackhoff's going to be making a comeback as Bo-Katan, the heir to Mandalore, after uniting the disparate Mandalorians at the end of the season. Presumably, we'll also be seeing characters like the Armorer (Emily Swallow) and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), too.

As and when we get more concrete casting info, we'll include it here. 

Is there a trailer? 

With filming still to take place, we won't be seeing a The Mandalorian season 4 trailer for some time yet. As and when one arrives, we'll be sure to include it here. 

Popular Star Wars show The Mandalorian is in its third season, and if you're wanting to catch up on this sci-fi action neo-Western, this is the way.

Aside from their appearance in The Book of Boba Fett, we haven't seen more from The Mandalorian and Grogu in more than two years, so it's safe to say that excitement for The Mandalorian season 3 is high.

From what we've seen of the third series, the next installment in Din Djarin and Baby Yoda's saga will be just as action-packed as the last. Whilst plot details have been kept under wraps so far, we do know that Din is planning on returning to Mandalore to seek forgiveness for his past transgressions, and Disney has teased that the duo will be crossing paths with old allies and new enemies alike in the new season. Here's where you can stream it.

How to stream The Mandalorian season 3

As a Disney Plus original, it's fairly easy to work out where you'll need to go in order to watch The Mandalorian season 3: as with other new Star Wars projects, you'll find The Mandalorian on Disney Plus. The series premieres on Wednesday, March 1, with new episodes dropping every week.

If you're not already a Disney Plus subscriber, the best option (in the US) is to sign up for the Disney Bundle. 

• Sign up to the Disney Bundle here

Available since the service launched in the States, the Disney Bundle allows customers to get all the benefits of a Disney Plus subscription—including new and exclusive shows and movies from the House of Mouse, classics from the Disney Vault, everything from the worlds of Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars and more—plus all the great shows on Hulu and, depending on your tier, the live and on-demand sports content available on ESPN Plus at a discounted rate.

Prices for the bundle range from $9.99 to $19.99, depending on which services you want. The cheapest option comes with ad-supported versions of Hulu and Disney Plus, the middle tier ($12.99/month) adds in ESPN Plus, and the Premium tier offers all three streaming services with ad-free viewing on Hulu and Disney Plus. 

Whichever option you choose, you're saving money by choosing the Bundle; Disney Plus and Hulu both cost $7.99 for their ad-enabled plan and $10.99 and $14.99 respectively for the ad-free tier, while ESPN Plus comes in at $9.99 (all monthly).

Outside of the States, you can still find watch The Mandalorian season 3 and plenty more great shows and movies with a Disney Plus subscription. in the UK, the service costs £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year, though an ad-supported plan is expected to launch later this year: UK readers can sign up for a Disney Plus subscription here.

The Mandalorian season 3 release dates

• Episode 1: The Apostate — March 1
• Episode 2: The Mines of Mandalore — March 8
• Episode 3: The Convert — March 15
• Episode 4: The Foundling — March 22
• Episode 5: The Pirate — March 29
• Episode 6 — April 5
• Episode 7 — April 12
• Episode 8 — April 19

The Mandalorian season 3 cast features "old allies" and "new enemies"; here's who we know is set to appear right now.

The Mandalorian season 3 will finally reveal the next step in Din Djarin and Grogu's adventures throughout the galaxy far far away, and there are big things at the forefront. He's happily been reunited with young, green charge and is the current wielder of the Darksaber, though he's been cast out of his Mandalorian clan after revealing he's removed his helmet and can only be welcomed back by making a pilgrimage to his homeworld, Mandalore.

• How to watch The Mandalorian Season 3

The plot synopsis for the new series promises "The Mandalorian will cross paths with old allies and make new enemies as he and Grogu continue their journey together", and we already know some of the familiar faces he'll be seeing this time around; read on to find out a little bit more about them.

The Mandalorian season 3 cast: Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin

You can't have The Mandalorian without, well, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin is the wandering bounty hunter-turned-guardian of Grogu, and he's since crossed paths with Jedi, members of the Empire, bounty hunters and beasts in his journeys so far. As per the trailer, we know he's looking for forgiveness from his clan and will be heading to Mandalore in order to do so.  

Where else have you seen Pedro Pascal? The Mandalorian is arguably one of Pedro Pascal's most notable roles from recent years, though he's also currently co-starring in The Last Of Us as Joel Miller. Elsewhere, he's appeared in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Game of Thrones, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Bubble and Wonder Woman 1984.

Grogu (aka Baby Yoda)

Grogu (that's "The Child", or "Baby Yoda", to his fans) is arguably the biggest star of the show, so it's good to see that's back on hand for adventures in the new series. Having been taken under the tutelage of Luke Skywalker last season, he's grown even more at one with the Force (as we can see in the trailer). There's no doubt that he'll show off his newfound powers and likely be the source of more mischief in season 3.

Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon

Giancarlo Esposito will return as the thorn in Mando's side, Moff Gideon. A leader from the fallen Galactic Empire, he was one of the officers who took part in the Siege  of Mandalore and was bent on recovering Grogu and the Darksaber. Last we saw him, his forces were foiled by Luke Skywalker and he was arrested at the end of season 2 by Cara Dune to be tried for his crimes; will he escape the clutches of the New Republic? 

Where else have you seen Giancarlo Esposito? Esposito is likely best known for playing the villainous Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad and its prequel, Better Call Saul, though he's also featured in Revolution, Once Upon a Time, The Boys, Godfather of Harlem and, most recently, Kaleidoscope, among many other roles.

Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze

Katee Sackhoff voiced Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars before reprising the role in live-action last season. There, she and her fellow Mandalorians ended up assisting Din Djarin in his rescue mission at the end of the season as she wished to recover the Darksaber from Moff Gideon so she could take up the throne on Mandalore... and wasn't totally happy with the fact that The Mandalorian ended up claiming it for himself after defeating Gideon in combat.

Where else have you seen Katee Sackhoff? Sackhoff is best known for starring in Battlestar Galactica, though she's appeared in Oculus, Riddick, CSI and 24 and voiced a variety of characters into animation and video games, too.

Carl Weathers as Greef Karga

The Mandalorian's former foe Greef Karga is back. Whilst he was at odds with Din at first over his recovery of Grogu, Greef later had a change of heart when Grogu used his Force powers to save Greef's life, prompting the official to help The Mandalorian and Grogu escape Moff Gideon's forces. From then on, Greef took on more of a leadership role on Navarro and reinvested his credits to improve the place, and even offered to let The Mandalorian rejoin the Bounty Hunter's Guild.

Where else have you seen Carl Weathers? Weathers is likely best known for playing Apollo Creed in the Rocky franchise or for his role in Predator. More recently, he's appeared in Chicago Justice, Arrested Development and Brothers. He's also taken on more directorial duties for The Mandalorian season 3. 

Amy Sedaris as Peli Motto

Amy Sedaris is back as Peli Motto, a brilliant technician from Tatooine who fixed Din up with his new Naboo Starfighter and has been helping him raise Grogu along the way. From what we've seen, The Mandalorian will be paying another visit to her hangar before long... what could she be helping him out with next?

Where else have you seen Amy Sedaris? Sedaris has featured in Somebody I Used to Know, Dicktown, No Activity, Elf and Sex and the City, and has voiced characters in BoJack Horseman, Shrek the Third, Star vs. The Forces of Evil and Harley Quinn.

Emily Swallow as The Armorer

The Armorer is the leader of Din's former Mandalorian clan, The Children of the Watch. Most notably, she built various pieces of equipment for her followers out of Beskar steel and was responsible for kicking Din out of their clan after he revealed he'd broken their core tenets and removed his helmet. She's also responsible for giving him his next quest of sorts, as The Armorerevealed he could win back his spot by journeying to Mandalore and bathing in the waters in the planet's mines.

Where else have you seen Emily Swallow? Emily Swallow has also appeared in Supernatural, SEAL Team, The Mentalist, Monday Mornings and voice Lisa in Castlevania.

Christopher Lloyd as ???

Lloyd's involvement in The Mandalorian is official, but his role in the Star Wars universe has not been revealed just yet, so we'll just have to wait and see who he might be portraying!

Where else have you seen Christopher Lloyd? Lloyd is best known for portraying Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, though he's lent his voice to all manner of animated shows and video games over the years and has featured in Clue, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Addams Family (1991).

Who else will appear in the Mandalorian season 3 cast?

There are even more faces that we are expecting to see show up at some point during Mando's third outing. There are: 

• Paul Sun-hyung Lee (Kim's Convenience) as Carson Teva
• Tim Meadows (Saturday Night Live) - role unknown
• Omid Abtahi (American Gods) as Dr. Pershing

The Mandalorian season 3 begins airing on Disney Plus from Wednesday, March 1.

Spring TV doesn't always get the fanfare it deserves. Historically, fall marks the start of the new TV season, while winter usually sees the second wave of new shows. But with the traditional broadcast TV structure giving way to the more year-round joy of streaming, new TV shows are starting to pop up like flowers in the spring season.

With that in mind, the US team of What to Watch has picked the 15 shows that we are most excited to watch this spring TV season (anything premiering between March 1 and May 31). From another adventure in a galaxy far, far away to TV adaptations of a classic '80s movie, here's what we can't wait to watch.

Shows are listed in order of their premiere date.

WTW's spring TV picks

The Mandalorian season 3

March 1 on Disney Plus  
If we're being honest, Disney's stewardship of Star Wars hasn't been the smoothest of rides. We all know how divisive the sequel trilogy is, Solo was a flop and Rogue One, though the best new movie since the original trilogy, was fraught with difficulties. Things have looked better as of late with Andor, but this spring we're getting a new season of what has been Disney's biggest Star Wars hit to date: The Mandalorian season 3.

Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu (aka Baby Yoda) are back for more space adventures with a new mission: a return to Mandalore to not only have Mando forgiven his transgressions, but possibly restore the Mandalroians' home to its former glory. — Michael Balderston

Grand Crew season 2

March 3 on NBC

Grand Crew coming back for a second season is an amazing thing. In its first season, the show proved to be a hidden gem that showed the comedic side of being Black, in your 30s and still very much confused about this thing called life. The friend group at the heart of the series, which features funny woman Nicole Byer, has a way of helping each other navigate their love lives and careers that not only resonates with viewers, but keeps fans entertained. — Terrell Smith 

9-1-1 season 6 returns

March 6 on Fox

After six seasons we know that when it comes to midseason premieres, 9-1-1 knows how to turn up the heat. After a thrilling first half of the season that saw Athena (Angela Bassett) and Bobby (Peter Krause) take a journey into Athena's past while Hen (Aisha Hinds) found out just how much she can handle, the second half of the season promises some big action and high stakes. 

In a sea of first responder procedurals, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk love taking fans to the edge of their seats. These characters have all been through a lot over the years and the second half of season 6 is a good time to shake things up.  — Sarabeth Pollock 

History of the World Part II

March 6 on Hulu

Forty-two years ago Mel Brooks promised us a History of the World Part II and now he is delivering, with the help of some of the best comedy writers and performers of today. Nick Kroll, Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, Quinta Brunson, Josh Gad, Kumail Nanjian, D'Arcy Carden, Sarah Silverman, Taika Waititi, Seth Rogen, Jillian Bell and Hannah Einbinder are just some of the cast that are going to parody historical events, which by the look of things include the invention of the telephone, Harriet Tubman, Sigmund Freud and more. It's a four-part series airing on consecutive nights, so go ahead and clear your schedule. — Michael Balderston

Gotham Knights

March 14 on The CW

When it comes to DC shows and movies, Batman and the characters attached to him have always been popular. So we anticipate Gotham Knights will also strike a chord with many people this spring. 

What makes Gotham Knights different from the usual Batman-driven shows is that in this new CW drama, Bruce Wayne aka Batman is dead, and it's up to a new crop of heroes to fill in the void as chaos unfolds in the city of Gotham. 

For those wondering how this show plays into James Gunn's DC universe, simply put, it doesn’t. Gotham Knights is a standalone project. — Terrell Smith 

Ted Lasso season 3

March 15 on Apple TV Plus

It's finally time to head back to AFC Richmond. About a year-and-a-half from the conclusion of season 2, Ted Lasso returns this spring, and as the teaser trailer showed us, we're all ready to believe in this underdog story once again. Ted Lasso season 3 could be the final episodes of the comedy series (though that has not been confirmed), but at the very least we know that Ted (Jason Sudeikis) and his former protege Nate (Nick Mohammed) are set up for a collision course. 

Renew, sign up or do whatever you need to to get Apple TV Plus back again so you don't miss an episode of Ted Lasso. — Michael Balderston

Swarm

March 17 on Prime Video

Swarm is an all-around exciting project for a few different reasons. For starters, the dark dramedy marks co-creator Donald Glover's return to the small screen after wrapping his Emmy-winning series Atlanta (to be clear, he helped create the new series but is not set to star in it). Then there's the fact that Swarm draws its inspiration from the legion of Beyoncé fans affectionately known as the Beyhive. Oh and we can't forget to mention, that the new Prime Video series stars Snowfall's Damson Idris and Beyoncé’s very own protege, Chloë Bailey.  — Terrell Smith 

Lucky Hank

March 19 on AMC

After the incredible ending to Better Call Saul, Bob Odenkirk could read a terms and conditions agreement and it would probably make for some entertaining TV. We won't have to put that theory to the test though as his latest series, Lucky Hank, is a dark comedy based on a book from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo. 

While Better Call Saul could also be described as a dark comedy, everything we've seen of Lucky Hank seems to indicate that the comedy is going to play a heavier factor than in Saul. Anyone who knows how funny Odenkirk can be should be celebrating that. — Michael Balderston

Waco: American Apocalypse

March 22 on Netflix

This three-part documentary continues to feed into our current fascination with true crime stories. Waco: American Apocalypse takes would-be viewers back to 1993, when a 51-day standoff between the US government and the Branch Davidian religious sect led by David Koresh resulted in 86 people losing their lives. According to Netflix, the new docuseries features "never-before-seen material as well as realistic CGI visualizations." 

For those not as familiar with what happened, we recommend you prepare yourself to gasp in disbelief and pure shock. — Terrell Smith 

Succession season 4

March 26 on HBO

A divided house cannot stand... or can it? Logan Roy (Brian Cox), patriarch of the Roy family and head of Waystar Royco, learned that his three kids — Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) — were planning to use their veto to block the sale of the company and take control themselves. Logan was tipped off by Shiv's husband, Tom (Matthew MacFayden), who was hoping to curry favor with the patriarch even though Logan was ready to sacrifice Tom to the wolves earlier in the season. 

In Succession season 4, the dust will settle and the family will be put to the ultimate test: what matters more, family or power?  — Sarabeth Pollock 

Yellowjackets season 2

March 26 on Showtime

Yellowjackets season 2 promises to deliver more answers to our burning questions about what really happened after a group of young women found themselves stranded in the middle of the harsh Ontario wilderness following a plane crash. We've seen pieces of the puzzle about how the group spiraled out of control in their quest to stay alive, both in the aftermath of the plane crash as young girls and later on in life as adults still trying to cope with what happened all those years ago. Now in season 2 we'll learn more about that harrowing experience and how it changed their lives forever.  — Sarabeth Pollock 

RapCaviar Presents

March 30 on Hulu

RapCaviar Presents is a show literally based on a Spotify playlist. The seven-episode docuseries sees some of today's top-charting hip-hop artists discuss big moments in their careers and tackle some of the most provocative issues impacting the genre. In the series' first season, musicians like Tyler the Creator, Jack Harlow, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Saweetie and Roddy Ricch are set to appear. 

At this time we aren't sure when the episodes were recorded, so we can't say whether or not Megan Thee Stallion in particular addresses the Tory Lanez trial. — Terrell Smith 

Schmigadoon! season 2

April 7 on Apple TV Plus

Spring often puts a pep in people's step, and Schmigadoon season 2 is on its way to provide some background music too. The Apple TV Plus series returns ready to pay humorous homage to musicals once again. Following the 1950s-era style of season 1, the new season ratchets things up with musical numbers that harken back to Chicago and other '60s and '70s era musicals. What songs are in store for Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) this time around? — Michael Balderston

Fatal Attraction

April 30 on Paramount Plus

The classic movie starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close is getting a modern update with Fatal Attraction the series. Joshua Jackson plays Dan Gallagher and Amanda Peet plays his wife, Beth. When Alex (Lizzy Caplan) comes into Dan's life, everything is turned upside down. The new series explores themes of strong women, coercion and the nature of marriage and infidelity, examining them under the gaze of ever-changing modern lenses.  — Sarabeth Pollock 

Fear the Walking Dead season 8

May 14 on AMC

It's the beginning of the end for Fear the Walking Dead. With season 8 confirmed to be the final season, the May 14 premiere sets up the final journey for the survivors. They've braved everything from nuclear winters to doomsday preppers, but the worst is yet to come as we learn more about the mysterious community known as PADRE and what their true motivations are. 

Since the end of season 7, Morgan (Lennie James), Madison (Kim Dickens) and the other survivors have found themselves living in unfamiliar territory. It's not what they originally expected, so now the big question is whether they accept their new lives at PADRE or work to get back to living on their own terms. — Sarabeth Pollock

US Spring TV schedule

Here is the complete premiere schedule for spring TV in the US:

March 1

• The Mandalorian season 3 (Disney Plus)
• True Lies (CBS)
• Survivor season 44 (CBS)
• Wreck (Hulu)

March 2

• Sex/Life (Netflix)

March 3

• Daisy Jones and the Six (Prime Video)
• The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist (MTV)
• Grand Crew season 3 (NBC)
• Next in Fashion season 2 (Netflix)

March 4

• Say Yes to  the Dress season 22 (TLC)
• Secret Sauce With Todd Graves (A&E)

March 5

• Be My Guest With Ina Garten season 3 (Food Network)
• How the Universe Works (The Science Channel)
• SWV and XSCAPE: The Queens of R&B (Bravo)

March 6

• History of the World Part II (Hulu)
• Omega: Gift and Curse (ALLBLK)
• Perry Mason season 2 (HBO)
• Rain Dogs (HBO)
• Rock the Block season 4 (HGTV)
• Spring Baking Championship season 9 (Food Network)
• Spring Baking Championship: Easter season 3 (Food Network)
• The Voice season 23 (NBC)

March 7

• Blood & Money (CNBC)
• That's My Jam season 2 (NBC)
• Who Killed Robert Wone? (Peacock)

March 8

• The Challenge: World Championship (Paramount Plus)
• Farmer Wants a Wife (Fox)
• MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (Netflix)

March 9

• School Spirits (Paramount Plus)
• Top Chef season 20 (Bravo)

March 10

• Outlast (Netflix)
• Real Madrid: Until the End (Apple TV Plus)
• Sin Eater (FX)
• Unprisoned (Hulu)

March 12

• The Oscars (ABC)
• A Spy Among Friends (MGM Plus)
• Naked and Afraid: Solo (Discovery)

March 13

• Street Outlaws: Fastest in America (Discovery)

March 14

• Gotham Knights (The CW)
• Return to Amish season 7 (TLC)

March 15

• Ted Lasso season 3 (Apple TV Plus)

March 16

• Grown & Gospel (WE TV)
• Queens Court (Peacock)
• Shadow and Bone season 2 (Netflix)

March 17

• Agent Elvis (Netflix)
• Dance 100 (Netflix)
• Extrapolations (Apple TV Plus)
• Monster Factory (Apple TV Plus)
• Power Book II: Ghost season 3 (Starz)
• Put a Ring on It season 4 (OWN)

March 19

• Call the Midwife season 12 (all PBS Platforms, including PBS Masterpiece Prime Video)
• Lucky Hank (AMC)
• Marie Antoinette (all PBS Platforms, including PBS Masterpiece Prime Video)
• Sanditon season 3 (all PBS Platforms, including PBS Masterpiece Prime Video)

March 21

• Restaurants at the End of the World (Nat Geo)

March 22

• Digman! (Comedy Central)
• Waco: American Apocalypse (Netflix)

March 23

• The Night Agent (Netflix)
• The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip season 3 (Peacock)

March 24

• Love Is Blind season 4 (Netflix)
• My Kind of Country (Apple TV Plus)
• Up Here (Hulu)

March 26

• Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico (CNN)
• Great Expectations (Hulu)
• Rabbit Hole (Paramount Plus)
• Ride (Hallmark Channel)
• Seeking Brother Husband (TLC)
• Succession season 4 (HBO)
• Yellowjackets season 2 (Showtime)

March 27

• 
  
•  (FUSE)

March 29

• The Big Door Prize (Apple TV Plus)
• Emergency New York (Netflix)

March 30

• RapCaviar Presents (Hulu)
• Unstable (Netflix)

March 31

• Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. season 2 (Disney Plus)
• The Power (Prime Video)

April 2

• CMT Awards (CBS)
• Royal Crackers (Adult Swim)

April 3

• Martha Cooks season 2 (The Roku Channel)
• Race to Survive Alaska (USA)

April 5

• Dave season 3 (FXX)
• Dr. Pimple Popper (TLC)

April 6

• Beef (Netflix)
• Celebrity Game Face (E!)
• Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount Plus)
• Slasher: Ripper (Shudder)

April 7

• The Legacy of J Dilla (FX)
• Schmigadoon! season 2 (Apple TV Plus)

April 11

• Am I Being Unreasonable? (Hulu)
• The Wall (NBC)

April 14

• Blindspotting season 2 (Starz)
• Jane (Apple TV Plus)
• The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple TV Plus)

April 16

• Waco: The Aftermath (Showtime)

April 17

• 90 Day Fiance: Love in Paradise season 3 (TLC)
• You, Me & My Ex season 2 (TLC)
• Weakest Link season 2 (NBC)

April 18

• 7 Little Johnsons (TLC)

April 20

• Mrs. Davis (Peacock)

April 21

• Dead Ringers (Prime Video)
• Dear Mama (FX)

April 22

• Chasing the Rains (BBC America)

April 23

• From season 2 (MGM Plus)
• Somebody Somewhere season 2 (HBO)

April 26

• Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein (PBS)
• Saint X (Hulu)

April 27

• Love & Death (HBO Max)

April 28

• The Afterparty season 2 (Apple TV Plus)

April 30

• Fatal Attraction (Paramount Plus)
• Tom Jones (PBS)
• Stone Cold Takes on America (A&E)
• WWE's Most Wanted Treasures season 2 (A&E)

May 1

• A Small Light (Nat Geo)

May 4

• Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix)

May 5

• Mama June: Family Crisis (WE TV)
• Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi season 3 (Hulu)

May 7

• 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards (MTV)

May 12

• City on Fire (Apple TV Plus)
• The Great season 3 (Hulu)

May 14

• Fear the Walking Dead season 8 (AMC)

May 22

• Prehistoric Planet season 2 (Apple TV Plus)

May 25

• FUBAR (Netflix)

May 26

• Run the World season 2 (Starz)

May 30

• Doubling Down with the Derricos (TLC)

The Mandalorian season 3 is here, meaning fans finally have more of Mando, Grogu (baby Yoda) and the galaxy far, far away to enjoy in the next installment of Disney Plus' popular Star Wars TV show.

While season 2 left things on a heartwarming conclusion, there's evidently more to the story, with another Disney show, The Book of Boba Fett, being pivotal to your understanding of The Mandalorian's season 3.

Here is everything we know about The Mandalorian season 3.

When is the next The Mandalorian season 3 episode?

The Mandalorian season 3 finale is now streaming on Disney Plus. Chapter 24 in the TV series, here is the synopsis:

"The Mandalorian and his allies confront their enemies."

The Mandalorian season 3 trailer

In the build up to The Mandalorian season 3, series star Pedro Pascal was quoted at the Star Wars Celebration event saying the new season would be, "Action. Spectacle. Surprises." While we can't yet know what surprises lie in store, the trailer sure delivers on the first two. Check it out below. 

Before the full trailer was released, we were provided with a teaser trailer hinting at what was to come:

The Mandalorian season 3 plot

At the end of season 2, Mando, with the help of Boba Fett and Bo-Katan, rescues Grogu and defeats Moff Gideon, earning him the dark saber, a symbol of leadership among the Mandalore. Then, Luke Skywalker arrives having heard Grogu’s call through the force and offers to train him as a Jedi, leading to an emotional goodbye between Mando and Grogu, where Mando removes his helmet so his adopted son can see his face.

The story actually picks up in The Book of Boba Fett, as Mando gets a whole episode dedicated to his story after the events of season 2 (some have called it The Mandalorian season 2.5). In it, Mando meets with the Armorer, who tells him because he removed his helmet he can no longer be a part of the sect of Mandalorians he previously belonged to. But it’s not all bad news, as Grogu decides to give up his Jedi training and return to Mando.

You can get a bit of the plot from the trailers, but here is the official (albeit a bit brief) synopsis for The Mandalorian season 3 from Disney Plus:

"The journeys of the Mandalorian through the Star Wars galaxy continue. Once a lone bounty hunter, Din Djarin has reunited with Grogu. Meanwhile, the New Republic struggles to lead the galaxy away from its dark history. The Mandalorian will cross paths with old allies and make new enemies as he and Grogu continue their journey together."

The Mandalorian season 3 episodes

Here are the synopses for the released episodes of The Mandalorian season 3:

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 1, "Chapter 17: The Apostate"
"The Mandalorian begins an important journey."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 2, "Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore"
"The Mandalorian and Grogu explore the ruins of a destroyed planet."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 3, "Chapter 19: The Convert"
"On Coruscant, former Imperials find amnesty in the New Republic."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 4, "Chapter 20: The Foundling"
"Din Djarin returns to the hidden Mandalorian convert."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 5, "Chapter 21: The Pirate"
"The people of Nevarro need protection from rampant pirate attacks."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 6, "Chapter 22: Guns for Hire"
"The Mandalorian visits and opulent world."

The Mandalorian season 3 episode 7, "Chapter 23: The Spies"
"Survivors come out of hiding."

The Mandalorian season 3 cast

Pedro Pascal once again leads The Mandalorian as Mando, aka Din Djarin. Though we barely see his face behind the mask, this has become the defining role of Pascal's career to date. Though he is of course also known for his time on Game of Thrones, a fun supporting turn in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and the video game adaptation The Last of Us.

Other confirmed members of the cast for season 3 include Katee Sackhoff, who plays Bo-Katan, Carl Weathers as Greef Karga, Amy Sedaris as Peli Motto, Emily Swallow as the Armorer and Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon.

Other familiar faces, like Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett, Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand or Bill Burr as Mayfeld are unconfirmed for this season, as are any new guest stars.

One name we can be sure that is not going to appear is Gina Carano, as Disney opted to stop working with the actress on The Mandalorian and a potential Cara Dune spinoff series.

Get more info on The Mandalorian season 3 cast right here.

How to watch The Mandalorian season 3?

To be sure you can watch The Mandalorian season 3, you need to be a subscriber to Disney Plus. The streaming service is available to US and UK subscribers as a standalone service, but US consumers can also opt to pair it with ESPN Plus and Hulu as part of the Disney Bundle or to have it as a standard feature on Hulu with Live TV.

The first two seasons of The Mandalorian are exclusively on Disney Plus if you want to catch up with or rewatch the series.

Bryce Dallas Howard is staying busy these days. Howard, the talented multi-hyphenate actor and director, is gearing up for the release of Jurassic World: Dominion, coming June 10. She’s also returning to the Star Wars universe, according to The Hollywood Reporter, to direct a season 3 episode of the wildly popular Disney Plus series The Mandalorian. 

Howard is well versed in Star Wars lore; this will mark the third time she’s directed an episode of The Mandalorian and her fourth overall directing gig in the Star Wars universe; she also directed the "Return of the Mandalorian" episode in The Book of Boba Fett. 

Working in the Star Wars universe runs in the family. Howard’s famous father, Ron Howard, directed 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. 

There’s no mistaking the camaraderie between Star Wars creatives behind the scenes. Directing across different series seems to be par for the course with Star Wars directors and the shows are so much better as a result. 

Deborah Chow directed an episode of The Mandalorian, joining the likes of Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, Peyton Reed and Robert Rodriguez. Chow is the director for the entirety of Obi-Wan Kenobi season 1. You almost need a flow chart to keep track of all the different directors who have worked on multiple Star Wars series.

Meanwhile, Dave Filoni, who serves as a showrunner and writer on The Mandalorian with Jon Favreau, is making the hyperspeed jump over to Ahsoka to direct a "handful" of episodes, per The Hollywood Reporter. It’s worth noting that Filoni and Favreau have both directed several episodes of The Mandalorian as well. 

Filoni’s background, of course, is with the animated Star Wars series that made Ahsoka the shining star that she is in the galaxy far, far away. Filoni directed 2008’s animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where Ahsoka Tano first debuted. It makes perfect sense that he’d step behind the camera for an episode of the upcoming series that will see Rosario Dawson in the titular role. 

Ahsoka started production in May according to the folks at Nerdist. Though no specific release date is presently available, a 2023 premiere was confirmed on the first day of Star Wars Celebration 2022 in Anaheim.

The Mandalorian season 3 is going to stream exclusively on Disney Plus in February 2023. All previous episodes of The Mandalorian, as well as the other Star Wars original TV series, are also exclusively on Disney Plus, for which you'll need a standalone or Disney Bundle subscription.

Star Wars fans gathered en masse at the Star Wars Celebration 2022 event to celebrate everything from a galaxy far, far away. The fan convention returned to Anaheim for the first time in five years, putting fans within a stone’s throw of Disneyland and Galaxy’s Edge. 

The four-day event kicked off with Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase, where creators from across the Star Wars galaxy gathered to announce what’s coming up in the much-loved universe. 

Let’s take a look at all the big announcements coming out of this year's Star Wars Celebration event.

Andor

Andor is set in the years prior to the events of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is on the move, helping to further the goals of the Rebellion forces early on in their mission by serving as a rebel spy. The highly anticipated series debuts on August 31 on Disney Plus. There is also a brand new teaser that offers a tantalizing glimpse of what’s to come.

Also, it seems that Andor has already been renewed for season 2. That's some faith.

The Mandalorian season 3

Mando and Grogu are on the move once again. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni announced that The Mandalorian will return for its third season in February 2023. Pedro Pascal is returning to the role of Din Djarin — more popularly known as Mando — as the team continues their adventures. Katee Sackhoff, who plays Bo-Katan Kryze, is returning for the new season in what is being described as a "pivotal role."

The beloved dynamic duo of Mando and Grogu were last seen at the end of The Book of Boba Fett, where their surprise appearance delighted fans and had everyone begging for more.

Fans in attendance were treated to a special first-look of Mando dealing with the consequences of removing his helmet in season 2 and a fight between him and Bo-Katan (teasing the possibility that she's an enemy for Mando this season).

Ahsoka

Also announced during the panel is news that Rosario Dawson’s spinoff series Ahsoka will premiere in 2023. Ahsoka follows the story of Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan and her adventures. 

Ahsoka became a beloved character after debuting in 2008’s animated feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Since then, she has appeared in several animated series and Dawson’s Disney Plus series will give her a chance to come to life in a whole new way. 

Jude Law to star in Skeleton Crew

After rumors and speculation abounded ahead of the Celebration event, director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home) confirmed that Jude Law will star in the latest Star Wars series, Skeleton Crew. The series will be set in the same universe as The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

According to Watts, Skeleton Crew follows "a group of kids who are about 10 years old who [get] lost in the Star Wars universe and need to find their way home." As further clarification, he added, "It stars four kids but it’s not a kid’s show." 

Indiana Jones 5

Also announced at Star Wars Celebration (though part of a distinctly different galaxy) Indiana Jones 5 has landed a June 2023 release date. Harrison Ford was on hand to reveal that the newest installment of the franchise will hit theaters on June 30, 2023.

Ford, who has straddled both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises for more than three decades, also revealed that John Williams returned to provide the score for the new film. 

Willow

Another announcement that is not Star Wars related was about Willow, a new live-action fantasy adventures series based on the 1988 movie. It was also revealed that the movie — which brings back Warwick Davis in the lead role — will debut exclusively on Disney Plus on November 30.

Here is the synopsis for Willow:

"The story began with an aspiring magician from a Nelwyn village and an infant girl destined to unite the realms, who together helped destroy an evil queen and banish the forces of darkness. Now, in a magical world where brownies, sorcerers, trolls, and other mystical creatures flourish, the adventure continues, as an unlikely group of heroes set off on a dangerous quest to places far beyond their home, where they must face their inner demons and come together to save their world."

Check out the Willow teaser trailer directly below:

If you’d like to see what the event is all about, you can stream selected panels at Star Wars Celebration 2022 this weekend by visiting the Star Wars YouTube channel or the Star Wars website. Keep checking back for more updates for more news about the Star Wars universe coming out during the event.

Lucasfilm has made a very exciting announcement about Ahsoka, the latest live-action Disney Plus original Star Wars series.

Across Star Wars social channels, it was revealed that Ahsoka has officially entered production as of Monday, May 9, 2022. 

This news was revealed with a behind-the-scenes shot of a director's chair featuring the series logo printed on the back and a cowboy hat hanging from one side, but it doesn't appear to be giving us any further hints at what might be in store. 

See if you can spot anything in the image below:

We've known for quite some time that Anakin's former Padawan was getting her own Disney Plus series for quite some time now. Ahsoka was one of many Star Wars projects announced by Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy on Disney Investor Day 2020, alongside the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Star Wars: Visions.

Plot details about the series are thin on the ground, but we do know that the story has been penned by the character's co-creator, Dave Filoni. 

As you'd expect, Rosario Dawson is back after bringing Ahsoka Tano to life in live-action in The Mandalorian season 2 and The Book of Boba Fett.

Excitingly, Hayden Christensen is returning to play Anakin Skywalker, aka Ahsoka's former Jedi mentor. As the series is set within the timeline of The Mandalorian (and therefore, after Darth Vader's death), he will likely appear in some sort of flashback. 

The third major player we know about right now is Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who is on board as Sabine Wren, a young Mandalorian warrior and former bounty hunter. Additionally, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ivanna Sakhno have been cast in undisclosed roles, and Ray Stevenson is on hand as a villainous admiral (though not the villainous general, Grand Admiral Thrawn).

We don't have a release date for the new series just yet, but seeing as it has only just entered production, it's likely we won't be seeing it drop onto Disney Plus any time soon.  

Luckily, there's plenty more Star Wars content on the way to Disney Plus in the meantime, with Obi-Wan Kenobi premiering on Disney Plus from Friday, May 27 and Andor due to arrive later this year.

The best Star Wars quotes range from some of the most quotable lines in movies to some of the most meme-worthy dialogue. 

For good or bad, lines from the movies have been burned into the brains of every single Star Wars fan. Between tense confrontations, sly boasts and even inspirational quotes, George Lucas' characters have delivered plenty of zingers over the years.

With the Obi-Wan Kenobi series making its way to Disney Plus, we're likely to be treated to more wit and wisdom from the galaxy far, far away very soon.

Here are just some of the best Star Wars quotes from all three trilogies and from the live-action Disney Plus TV shows.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's best Star Wars quotes

"Use the Force, Luke." — A New Hope

"Hello there." — to General Grievous, Attack of the Clones

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must." — Revenge of the Sith

"You can't win, Vader. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." — A New Hope

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!" — Revenge of the Sith 

"These aren't the droids you’re looking for." — A New Hope

Luke Skywalker's best quotes

"I'll never turn to the Dark Side. I am a Jedi, like my father before me" — Return of the Jedi

"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you" — A New Hope

"No one's ever really gone." — The Last Jedi

"Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict." — Return of the Jedi

"I have a bad feeling about this." — A New Hope

"I've seen this raw strength only once before in Ben Solo. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now." — The Last Jedi

Master Yoda's wisest words

"The greatest teacher, failure is." — The Last Jedi

"Do or do not, there is no try." — The Empire Strikes Back

"Much to learn, you still have." — Attack of the Clones

"Fear is the path to the dark side...fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate... hate leads to suffering." — The Phantom Menace

"You must unlearn what you have learned." — The Empire Strikes Back 

"The Dark Side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is.” — Attack of the Clones

Princess Leia's best lines

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." — A New Hope

"You have your moments. Not many of them, but you do have them." — The Empire Strikes Back

"I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain." — The Empire Strikes Back

"Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night." — The Last Jedi

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" — A New Hope

Leia: "I love you."
Han Solo: "I know." — The Empire Strikes Back

Han Solo's best quotes

"Never tell me the odds." — The Empire Strikes Back

"Look, your worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me!" — A New Hope

“I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light? Crazy thing is, it’s true. The Force, the Jedi — all of it. It’s all true.” — The Force Awakens

“It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!" — boasting about the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life." — The Empire Strikes Back

"Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh? You know, sometimes I amaze even myself." — A New Hope

Darth Vader's most menacing moments

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." — A New Hope

"No, I am your father." — The Empire Strikes Back

"When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master." — A New Hope

"Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends.” — Return of the Jedi

"The Force is strong with this one." — A New Hope

"If only you knew the power of the Dark Side." — The Empire Strikes Back 

“Commander, tear this ship apart and bring me the passengers, I want them alive!” — A New Hope

Emperor Palpatine's most shocking lines

"Good, Anakin. Good. Kill him. Kill him now." / "Do it." — Revenge of the Sith

"Let the hate flow through you. Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side." — Return of the Jedi

"POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!" — Revenge of the Sith

"Let your death be the final word in the story of rebellion." — The Rise of Skywalker

"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side." — Return of the Jedi

"The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi." — The Empire Strikes Back

The best quotes from The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett

"This is the way." — Din Djarin, The Mandalorian

"Jabba ruled with fear. I intend to rule with respect." — Boba Fett, The Book of Boba Fett

"I can bring you in hot, or I can bring you in cold." — Din Djarin, The Mandalorian

"I would like to see the baby." — The Client, The Mandalorian

 “If you wish to continue breathing, I advise you to weigh your next words carefully.” — Fennec Shand, The Book of Boba Fett

"Get back up. Always get back up." —Luke Skywalker, The Book of Boba Fett

You can stream every single Star Wars movie and show exclusively on Disney Plus.

Star Wars fans have a baby Yoda (aka Grogu) sized hole in their hearts as they wait for the third season of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus. Though we still don’t know when we can expect the adventures of Din Djarin and company to continue, Disney Plus is offering a special episode that will take fans behind the scenes of The Mandalorian.

Fans were excited to see in the season two finale of The Mandalorian the appearance of Luke Skywalker, the younger version as the story takes place just a little while after Return of the Jedi. After watching the clip of him slicing through those Dark Troopers like swiss cheese a hundred times, fans posited how The Mandalorian was able to recreate a young Luke Skywalker (no, it wasn’t fan-favorite lookalike Sebastian Stan).

This will be the focus of the Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian special episode, which is set to debut on Disney Plus Aug. 25.

In addition to the announcement, Disney Plus has shared some images (see above) and a clip from the episode. The clip shows some footage from when they were shooting the Luke Skywalker scene, with Mark Hamill reprising his iconic role. Also, The Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni discusses what it was like for them to work with Hamill. Here’s the clip:

This is just one of many Star Wars related projects that Disney Plus has in its pipeline. Fans can also expect the new anime-inspired anthology series Star Wars: Visions and The Mandalorian spinoff The Book of Boba Fett releasing later this year. More Disney Plus originals are in the works on popular Star Wars characters including Obi-wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Cassian Andor and Lando Calrissian; there’s also going to be more of The Bad Batch and new series like Rangers of the New Republic, The Acolyte and A Droid Story. Another LEGO Star Wars holiday special, this time Halloween-themed, is also set for a Disney Plus debut.

Disney Plus is the streaming home for everything Star Wars, from these original series to the classic movies. A subscription to Disney Plus costs $7.99 per month ($79.99 for a year), or you can add Hulu and ESPN Plus as part of a $13.99 bundle.

We now know what TV shows are competing for the top prizes at the 2021 Emmy Awards, as the full list of Emmy nominations were announced on July 13. As a result, anybody interested can create their own personal must-see list for any of the shows nominated that they've missed.

Shows like The Crown, WandaVision, Ted Lasso and The Mandalorian dominated the nominations, but critically acclaimed titles like The Underground Railroad, Hacks, I May Destroy You and The Handmaid’s Tale also came away with a healthy number of nominations.

Nominees came from practically all the major streaming services, as well as cable and traditional broadcast networks. Here’s a breakdown of how (and where) to watch many of the 2021 Emmy nominees.

HBO/HBO Max Emmy nominees

HBO has always been an Emmy behemoth, and it flexed its muscles once again this year as it and its streaming service HBO Max combined for 130 total Emmy nominations, the most of any network or platform.

It’s big winner was Lovecraft Country, which was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series among the 20 nominations in total for its first — and only — season. 

The comedy category is where HBO Max made its mark. HBO Max originals Hacks and The Flight Attendant both were nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, as were their stars Jean Smart and Kaley Cuoco. 

The limited/anthology series category has also been an area of long HBO dominance, and it continued in 2021, with HBO’s I May Destroy You and Mare of Easttown going head to head. Mare of Easttown was one of the most nominated programs this year (16 in total).

Other HBO shows receiving Emmy nominations included Last Week Tonight, In Treatment, Oslo, A Black Lady Sketch Show and Welcome to Chechnya.

All of these shows, limited series and TV movies are available to watch via the HBO Max streaming service.

Netflix Emmy nominees

Netflix continues its push for streaming dominance with 129 total nominations this year.

The streamer’s biggest haul came for The Crown's fourth season introduced both Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana into the fold. The Crown earned 24 nominations, which includes Outstanding Drama Series and nominations for practically every principal actor from season four.

The Queen’s Gambit, the mini series that had the whole world contemplating learning chess during lockdown, also scored big with 18 of its own nominations, including for Outstanding Limited Series and for lead Anya Taylor-Joy.

Bridgerton and its heartthrob René-Jean Page also netted Emmy noms, as did another new Netflix series, Emily in Paris. Some old favorites also showed well, including The Kominsky Method and its star Michael Douglas, and the popular Cobra Kai, which earned its first nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series for its third season.

Other Netflix titles that were nominated include Halston, Ratched, Queer Eye, Nailed It!, Selling Sunset, Indian Matchmaking, Dick Johnson is Dead, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman and Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square.

All of these shows are available for free exclusively to Netflix subscribers.

Disney Plus Emmy nominees

Disney Plus broke through with the Emmy's last year, but this year it cemented its place in the awards circle with two of its most popular series.

The Mandalorian, the Star Wars series that gave us Grogu (nee Baby Yoda), and WandaVision, the first Marvel-based original series on Disney Plus, were two of the three most nominated shows at the Emmys this year (24 for The Mandalorian, 23 for WandaVision).

The other Marvel original series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, also got in on things with a Guest Actor nomination for Don Cheadle. Loki, in case you’re wondering, was not eligible for this Emmys because it’s June premiere date missed the cutoff.

Disney Plus also was able to continue Hamilton’s awards streak with nominations for the filmed version of the original cast that debuted on the streaming service for Fourth of July in 2020.

The Disney Plus reality series Becoming also earned a nomination.

Disney Plus is available for $7.99 per month, or can be bundled with ESPN Plus and Hulu for $13.99.

Amazon Prime Video Emmy nominees 

It was a bit of a quieter year for Amazon Prime Video, but it still netted Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Limited Series nominations for The Boys second season and The Underground Railroad, respectively. The service did happen to net a pair of nominations in the Outstanding TV Movie category for Sylvie’s Love and Uncle Frank.

Amazon Prime Video shows and movies are available for those who subscribe to Amazon Prime.

Hulu Emmy nominees

The Handmaid’s Tale has been an Emmy favorite for Hulu since it premiered, and it continued to be this year with its 21 total nominations including for Outstanding Drama Series, Elisabeth Moss as Lead Actress and stuffing the supporting categories. But that’s not all that Hulu scored — Aidy Bryant was nominated for her series Shrill, while Pen15 scored an Outstanding Comedy Series nomination.

Hulu is also the streaming home for the National Geographic series Genius: Aretha, which is a bio series of Aretha Franklin that Cynthia Erivo was nominated for; the FX series Pose, nominated for Outstanding Drama Series and made history with the first ever trans actors nominated for a lead acting category, with Mj Rodriguez earning it for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series; and black-ish, the lone broadcast series nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series. 

Shameless, with its Emmy nominee William H. Macy, can also be watched on Hulu (or on the Showtime premium channel YouTube TV and Fubo TV).

Hulu is available to subscribe to as a standalone service, but it can also be bundled with Disney Plus and ESPN Plus.

Apple TV Plus Emmy nominees

Ted Lasso scored 20 total Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series and acting nominations out the wazoo. Watch the entire first season of the nominated show on Apple TV Plus, just in time for the second season, coming to the streamer on July 23.

Apple TV Plus is available to sign up for at a monthly price of $4.99.

NBC Emmy nominees

NBC was the only traditional broadcast network to make it into the top four of nominated networks/platforms. It’s nominated fare included the always reliable This Is Us, Saturday Night Live and The Voice, as well as the new comedy series Kenan and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. 

While all of these shows air on your local NBC station, or an vMVPD platform like YouTube TV or Sling TV, they can also be streamed on Peacock. Peacock has a free subscription, a $4.99 package and a premium $9.99 package.

The 2021 Emmy nominations, for the 73rd Emmy Awards, have officially been announced. The nominations are recognition for many of the series that helped us all get through the pandemic, with shows like The Crown, WandaVision, The Mandalorian, Ted Lasso, The Queen's Gambit, Mare of Easttown and more scoring big with the TV Academy.

The Crown and The Mandalorian led the field with 24 nominations each, including both earning Outstanding Drama Series nods; The Crown's actors  — Olivia Colman, Gillian Anderson, Emma Corrin, Josh O'Connor and more  — dominated in the acting category, while The Mandalorian made its bones behind the camera, though Giancarlo Esposito was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama.

The other major players in the drama category included The Boys, Bridgerton, The Handmaid's Tale, Lovecraft Country, Pose and This Is Us.

On the comedy side, Saturday Night Live and Ted Lasso outpaced their fellow nominees. SNL earned 21 total nominations, with five members of its cast (Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang) earning Supporting Actress/Actor noms. 

Ted Lasso's cast also had a big day, in addition to an Outstanding Comedy Series and Lead Actor (Jason Sudeikis) noms, Ted Lasso dominated the supporting categories with nominations for Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed, Jeremy Swift, Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham. It's a nice feather in the Apple TV Plus series' cap before season two debuts July 23.

Beyond Ted Lasso, the full Outstanding Comedy Series field includes black-ish, Cobra Kai, Emily in Paris, The Flight Attendant, Hacks, The Kominsky Method and Pen15.

The most competitive category though may be for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, which features five shows that critics and fans gushed over the last year: I May Destroy You, Mare of Easttown, The Queen's Gambit, The Underground Railroad and WandaVision.

In case you were wondering, Loki just missed out on qualifying for this year's Emmys and its May 31 cutoff date. Perhaps the god of mischief will similar luck next year.

As clear by the nominations, streaming was also the dominant platform of this year's nominees. HBO/HBO Max led all networks with 130 nominations, while Netflix trailed by just one with 129 of its own. Disney Plus (71) and NBC (46) rounded out the top four. 

The 2021 Emmy Awards will take place on Sept. 19 with host Cedric the Entertainer. The awards show will be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount Plus.

Here is a rundown of some of the big 2021 Emmy nominations. For the complete list, visit Emmys.com.  

Outstanding Comedy Series

black-ish, ABC  
Cobra Kai, Netflix
Emily in Paris, Netflix
The Flight Attendant, HBO Max
Hacks, HBO Max
The Kominsky Method, Netflix
Pen15, Hulu
Ted Lasso, Apple TV Plus

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy

Aidy Bryant, Shrill
Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant
Allison Janney, Mom
Tracee Ellis Ross, black-ish
Jean Smart, Hacks

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy

Anthony Anderson, black-ish
Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method
William H. Macy, Shameless
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Kenan Thompson, Kenan

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Aidy Bryant, SNL
Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
Kate McKinnon, SNL
Rosie Perez, The Flight Attendant
Cecily Strong, SNL
Juno Temple, Ted Lasso
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Hacks
Brett Goldstein, Ted Lasso
Brendan Hunt, Ted Lasso
Nick Mohammed, Ted Lasso
Paul Reiser, The Kominsky Method
Jeremy Swift, Ted Lasso
Kenan Thompson, SNL
Bowen Yang, SNL

Outstanding Drama Series

The Boys, Amazon Prime Originals
Bridgerton, Netflix
The Crown, Netflix
The Handmaid's Tale, Hulu
Lovecraft Country, HBO
The Mandalorian, Disney Plus
Pose, FX
This Is Us, NBC

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama

Uzo Aduba, In Treatment
Olivia Colman, The Crown
Emma Corrin, The Crown
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid's Tale
Mj Rodriguez, Pose
Jurnee Smollett, Lovecraft Country

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Jonathan Majors, Lovecraft Country
Josh O'Connor, The Crown
Regé -Jean Page, Bridgerton
Billy Porter, Pose
Matthew Rhys, Perry Mason

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Gillian Anderson, The Crown
Helena Bonham-Carter, The Crown
Madeline Brewer, The Handmaid's Tale
Ann Dowd, The Handmaid's Tale
Aunjanue Ellis, Lovecraft Country
Emerald Fennell, The Crown
Yvonne Strahovski, The Handmaid's Tale
Samira Wiley, The Handmaid's Tale

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama

Giancarlo Esposito, The Mandalorian
O-T Fagbenle, The Handmaid's Tale
John Lithgow, Perry Mason
Tobias Menzies, The Crown
Max Minghella, The Handmaid's Tale
Chris Sullivan, This Is Us
Bradley Whitford, The Handmaid's Tale
Michael K. Williams, Lovecraft Country

Outstanding Limited Series

I May Destroy You, HBO
Mare of Easttown, HBO
The Queen's Gambit Netflix
The Underground Railroad, Amazon Prime Originals
WandaVision, Disney Plus

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series/Movie

Michaela Cole, I May Destroy You
Cynthia Erivo, Genius: Aretha
Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen's Gambit
Kate Winslet, Mare of Easttown

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series/Movie

Paul Bettany, WandaVision
Hugh Grant, The Undoing
Ewan McGregor, Halston
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Leslie Odom Jr., Hamilton

Outstanding Supporting Actress in Limited Series/Movie

Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton
Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision
Moses Ingram, The Queen's Gambit
Julianne Nicholson, Mare of Easttown
Jean Smart, Mare of Easttown
Phillipa Soo, Hamilton

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series/Movie

Thomas Brodie-Sangster, The Queen's Gambit
Daveed Diggs, Hamilton
Paapa Essiedu, I May Destroy You
Jonathan Groff, Hamilton
Evan Peters, Mare of Easttown
Anthony Ramos, Hamilton

After a whole lot of unfortunate comments on social media Gina Carano is reportedly no longer employed by LucasFilm. The actress' statements have included hate towards the transgender community, anti-Semitic commentary, COVID denial, and passionate support for Donald Trump and his more fascist tendencies (up to and including supports of the Capitol riots). Carano had previously fled Twitter to more "supportive" platforms like Parler, likening the response to her hate to the plight of the Jews during the holocaust as recently as today. 

iO9 obtained the below statement from Lucasfilm earlier: 

“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

While that's pretty straight forward, this story is still developing. All the same, there's no mincing of words here. Seeing a major brand use the terms "abhorrent" and "unacceptable" against someone they formerly employed when said person screws up mightily is pretty refreshing. Here's to a new era when brands don't feel like they can simply sweep things under the rug any more. It would have been nice if the statement came a smidge sooner, but we're definitely calling this move progress! 

Carano previously starred in Disney+'s The Mandalorian and was heavily rumored to play a starring role in their upcoming New Republic series that was announced at the most recent Disney Investor Day. While it's likely that this upcoming season of The Mandalorian will be heavily focused on Boba Fett, it's nice to see something definitive from the powers that be confirming that Carano's hate will no longer be associated with the brand.

Update from February 16th: Today, reports surfaced that Carano was initially meant to join Kathleen Kennedy on stage during the Disney Investor Day to confirm that Cara Dune would star in the upcoming Rangers of the New Republic series. However, her commentary resulted in her being pulled from the presentation. This is meaningful for a few reasons, but none so much that Carano had started seeing consequences sooner than we'd initially thought — good on ya, Lucasfilm. 

The piece from The Hollywood Reporter also notes that insiders expect to see Cara Dune recast rather than killed off within the broader Star Wars universe. So expect to see more news on that in the future. 

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This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, and Rebels.

The Mandalorian has introduced a host of new heroes, villains, and characters that fall somewhere in between to the Star Wars cannon, but it’s also provided a way to reintroduce one of the franchise’s standout stars. Ahsoka Tano, former student of the Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker, was introduced in the 2008 computer-animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and quickly became a fan favorite. She appeared again as a regular guest star in the 2014 animated series Star Wars Rebels and helped pave the way for a female Jedi to become the series lead in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Originally voiced by Ashley Eckstein, the character received her live-action debut in season two of The Mandalorian. Her appearance in the episode “The Jedi” also served as the backdoor pilot for her own show, Ahsoka, which was announced last month at Disney Investor Day. There’s no timeline for when the new series will premiere, but there’s plenty of room for speculation about what it will be about.

First let’s talk a bit about who Ahsoka is since you’d certainly be forgiven for not having seen the animated shows — though they are well worth watching if you’re eager for more Star Wars content. The Clone Wars covered the span between the prequel films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and provided significant development for Anakin by putting the brash young Jedi master in charge of an eager, talented teenage Ahsoka. Fighting alongside him against Sith Lords and droid armies, she grew in strength and confidence throughout the show, earning the respect of both other Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda and the Clone Troopers serving under her.

Ahsoka avoided being killed alongside most of the Jedi at the end of Revenge of the Sith because she’d already been pushed out of the Jedi Order after being framed for murder. While she proved her innocence after fleeing custody, she lost her faith in the Jedi and went her own way. While she still came under attack as part of Order 66, when all the Clone Troopers attempted to kill their Jedi generals, she survived and went on to work with the fledgling Rebellion, as seen in Rebels.

That series, which spanned the time between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope ended with Ahsoka trying to find her young Jedi ally Ezra Bridger, who had disappeared into hyperspace on the ship of the Imperial mastermind Grand Admiral Thrawn. A key villain in Rebels and the Expanded Universe novels, Thrawn also is being positioned as an enemy for the new show, with Ahsoka mentioning that she’s hunting for him on The Mandalorian.

Ahsoka will be set during the same period as another newly announced show, Rangers of the New Republic, and the shows will be crossing over with each other, and presumably with The Mandalorian as well. That means it will be taking place well after the events of Rebels and provide the opportunity to bring in some of that show’s cast of characters and resolve plots that Rebels co-creator and regular The Mandalorian writer Dave Filioni left open. There’s already a lot of speculation that Ahsoka will include appearances by Ezra along with his crewmate Sabine, a Mandalorian with a penchant for graffiti and explosives who was seen teaming up with Ahsoka at the end of Rebels.

Along with tracking down an old enemy, Ahsoka could give the former Jedi a chance to reconcile with the fate of her former master. Ahsoka’s hesitance to train Grogu because he’s so attached to Din Djarin stems directly from watching Anakin fall to the Dark Side at least in part because he couldn’t put aside his feelings for either his mother or secret wife Padme Amidala. Ahsoka confronted Darth Vader and expressed some of the pain and guilt she felt over his path in the season two finale of Rebels, a particularly dramatic scene showing the depth of their relationship that felt like a direct homage to the emotional battle between Luke and Vader in The Empire Strikes Back.

The Mandalorian creator and writer Jon Favreau has demonstrated that he’s not opposed to de-aging actors with the surprise appearance of Luke Skywalker in that show’s season two finale. Mark Hamill thanked Favreau and Filioni on Twitter for giving him another chance to play the character that made him famous, showing he’d likely be open to making more appearances in their projects. While some fans didn’t like keeping Luke in the spotlight or found the special effects used to make him look younger distracting, it could be extremely touching to see Ahsoka interacting with Anakin’s son.

Ahsoka also provides the chance to bring on-screen resolution to another fan favorite character from The Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress. Ventress was the apprentice of Count Dooku, the Sith Lord working under Chancellor Palpatine. While the Sith like to talk a lot about the Rule of Two, where there can only be one master and one apprentice at a time, a major plot point of The Clone Wars was that the apprentices were constantly plotting against their masters by training their own apprentices.

Ventress was a dark mirror for Ahsoka, right down to both characters having a combat style that used two lightsabers. She was eventually betrayed by Dooku and found her own apprentice, the ludicrously named Savage Opress, who would go on to abandon Ventress and team up with his brother Darth Maul. By the end of The Clone Wars, Ventress was less of a clear villain, abandoning the Sith way in favor of becoming a bounty hunter. She even helped Ahsoka avoid capture while she was trying to clear her name.

An arc was written for The Clone Wars that would have continued Ventress’ path to redemption, ending with her death at the hands of Dooku. However, the show was cancelled before those episodes were made, with the story instead being published in the Star Wars novel Dark Disciple. When The Clone Wars came back for a seventh season last year, Ventress was conspicuously absent. That could mean that Filioni is holding her in reserve and considering how to continue her story. Because of the parallels between Ahsoka and Ventress drawn throughout The Clone Wars, there is a huge amount of potential to have them work together in Ahsoka as powerful, independent Force users with their own agendas trying to avoid being pulled back into their respective factions.

Aksoka’s ultimate fate has never been stated, but her voice is among the many dead Jedi offering Rey assurances in The Rise of Skywalker, indicating she may have died by then. Filioni and Favreau have repeatedly proven their skill at producing extremely compelling Star Wars stories, so whatever they have in store for Ahsoka and her show is sure to build on the powerful foundations they’ve laid with their previous works and bring the character the attention she deserves.

Star Wars: A New Hope opens with a bang. Princess Leia Organa’s ship is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer and the soldiers onboard nervously position themselves in the narrow hallway, armed and ready to face what comes. When the doors open, stormtroopers come out firing. They’re an imposing force, heavily armed and fully armored compared to the rebels who just have helmets, and while they do take some casualties, they quickly force the rebels to retreat.

By the time Darth Vader enters the scene, the stormtroopers already have things well in hand. They’ve got most of the rebel forces captured, and while Leia manages to take down one of her pursuers, it’s a stormtrooper who stuns her and delivers her to Vader.

That first scene is arguably the most effective the stormtroopers ever are in the Star Wars franchise. While George Lucas envisioned them as the Galactic Empire’s elite shock troopers and the core of its military might, later in that movie they’re largely used as generic bad guys that let the heroes show off, whether it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi sending them away with a Jedi mind trick or Luke Skywalker and Han Solo jumping them to steal disguises.

Yet the stormtroopers remain among the most iconic villains of all time. As faceless villains that come in large numbers and can be outfitted for a wide variety of terrains and jobs, they can find a home in any fight in the Star Wars universe. And as the franchise moved beyond Lucas’ control, other writers and fans found ways to use them as comic relief, reluctant heroes, and a force for good.

Lucas named the Stormtroopers for the German troops of the same name deployed in World War I but gave them a role more like Nazis, soldiers carrying out the will of one of the evilest forces the world had ever seen. The fact that they’re so often defeated by smaller and less technologically sophisticated forces from the Rebel Alliance to the Ewoks of Endor is part of the anti-Vietnam War political message Lucas weaved throughout his first trilogy.

The mythology of the stormtroopers grew over time as Lucas and other creators explored what the galaxy was like before and after the rise of the Empire. The prequels focused on the rise of the stormtroopers as a clone army, perfect soldiers grown in vats and meant to serve as docile agents of the Jedi and Galactic Republic. While based off the genetic of the human bounty hunter Jango Fett, the clones age at twice the rate so that they’re battle ready faster.

It’s a pretty horrifying manifestation of the military industrial complex that Lucas spent much of his carrier railing against. The clone troopers are largely seen as disposable cannon fodder with just as little humanity as the droids they primarily fight against. They’re also shown to have no true loyalty to the generals they serve under in Revenge of the Sith, when they execute Order 66 and murder the Jedi. A trooper might be no match for a Jedi normally, but they prove deadly through a mix of numbers and treachery.

Yet the troopers were redeemed through the brilliant animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was created by Lucas and primarily written and directed by Dave Filoni. Set in the period between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the series added depth and nuance to all of the plots and characters featured in the maligned prequel films while introducing new characters like Saw Gerrera and Ahsoka Tano that have since become parts of the Star Wars cannon. Yet it was the clone troopers that were always the stars of the show.

Voice actor Dee Bradley Baker brought individuality to a huge number of clones ranging from the stalwart Captain Rex, who served alongside the brash but talented General Anakin Skywalker, to 99, a malformed clone who spent his life as a janitor in the cloning facility on Kamino but always offered support and reassurances to his brothers. While the clones were only given numbers, like 99, each found a name for themselves and the animators did fantastic work coming up with ways to distinguish them through their haircuts, tattoos, and stylized armor.

The result was that The Clone Wars often felt like a Star Wars version of Band of Brothers, a story of soldiers fighting and dying together for a cause they believed was righteous. The show was filled with noble sacrifices, touching stories, and moral conflicts, like when Rex encounters a clone who has deserted and has to decide whether or not to report him or let him continue his quiet life away from the war that he was literally born for.

Order 66 is reframed as an act of betrayal against the clones rather than by the clones through a plot by Sheev Palpatine to plant chips in the clones’ heads that would force them to turn against the Jedis they were devoted to. In a particularly chilling arc in the Clone Wars, one of the chips starts activating early and leads the afflicted clone to kill a Jedi while murmuring “Good soldiers follow orders.”

The clone troopers were largely retired after Order 66, with the Empire turning to using a mix of volunteers and heavily indoctrinated conscripts to fill out the ranks. That transition is also used to explain why the clone troopers were such impressive fighters and the stormtroopers are lackluster by comparison.

Rex joins the Rebellion in Star Wars Rebels, which was co-created by Filoni, Simon Kinberg, and Carrie Beck, and he’s constantly making fun of the stormtroopers for having bad aim and insisting that their armor is worthless compared to what he wore in the Clone Wars. The difference in quality seems to be accepted on both sides, as an Imperial officer who encounters Rex offers him the chance to join the Empire and train their recruits.

The dichotomy between recruits and conscripts allows for two very different ways of viewing stormtroopers, whether they’re serving the Empire, the First Order, or the Imperial remnants that were active in between. In The Mandalorian they largely serve the same effect as they did in the original trilogy, generic bad guys there to show the power of more significant enemies like Moff Gideon who are mostly dangerous in big numbers. Their bad aim is ammo for jokes by the Mandalorian and also evidenced in bike scout troopers played by Adam Pally and Jason Sudeikis who miserably fail to shoot a stationary object in Chapter 8 of The Mandalorian.

That scene shows both that Gideon views the stormtroopers as so disposable he’ll kill them just to prove his authority, but shows them as individuals with their own fears and desires – in this case mostly not being murdered by Gideon and getting to see Baby Yoda. But just in case you might have some sympathy for them, they keep punching the kid to prove they’re bad guys.

Disney has announced an enormous amount of new Star Wars projects releasing in the next few years, and it’s likely that the creative teams behind them will find new ways to use the stormtroopers as threats and even potential allies for their characters. While Sith Lords and bounty hunters might be the most notorious villains in the galaxy, stormtroopers are the most versatile.

On the other side of the spectrum is FN-2187 aka Finn, who was trained since birth as a stormtrooper by defects because he can’t bear to be part of the First Order’s horrific violence. While he’s initially reluctant to join the Resistance, Finn becomes a true hero capable of wielding a lightsaber and the Force. In The Rise of Skywalker, he discovers that he’s far from the only stormtrooper to desert.

While Finn and the clone troopers put a face on the stormtroopers, it’s the facelessness of them that makes them so appealing to fans. Anyone can don the signature armor and look like they’ve stepped off a movie set. They’re among the most cosplayed characters for that reason and gave rise to the 501st Legion. Founded in 1997, the group of volunteers with the moto “Bad Guys Doing Good” delight people at Star Wars fan events and have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Make a Wish Foundation.

Disney has announced an enormous amount of new Star Wars projects releasing in the next few years, and it’s likely that the creative teams behind them will find new ways to use the stormtroopers as threats and even potential allies for their characters. While Sith Lords and bounty hunters might be the most notorious villains in the galaxy, stormtroopers are the most versatile.

So, you watched Season 1 of The Mandalorian and have some questions about Moff Giddeon's fancy weapon that everyone freaked out about. You've come to the right place. That fancy little number is known as the Darksaber, and it plays a huge part in Mandalorian lore and culture. Whole wars were fought over the weapon. Factions divided, peace threatened, the whole nine. The Mandalorians were a warrior culture, making their weaponry some of their most prized possessions, and no weapon was as treasured as this one.

The legendary blade will go on to play an extremely important role in Season 2 of The Mandalorian as well. With Bo-Katan's (Katee Sackhoff) introduction to the live-action side of Star Wars, so continues her quest to get back what's rightfully hers. Mando (Pedro Pascal) might not have any interest in its blade or its connection to the lore of his people, but the future Queen of Mandalore wants her Darksaber back. 

What is the Darksaber?

The short answer? We don't really know. Obviously, it's a lightsaber, but it doesn't appear to be created of kyber crystals like the standard issue Jedi Knight weapon. This raises even more questions, because the kyber crystals are what make lightsabers the Jedi weapon of choice. The crystals are attuned to the Force, making their connection to the Jedi - and the Sith - more powerful.

The best description we've gotten was from StarWars.com, noting that the blade is made of a "swirling dark energy." Ok, Star Wars, we still have questions! What kind of energy? How is it powered? You know what kind of nerds you're dealing with here! 

All the same, perhaps The Mandalorian will shed more light on the mysterious weapon.

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What's the blade's history?

Though the Mandalorians fought a near-constant war with the Jedi Knights, a native from Mandalore eventually became one of the most honored warriors in the galaxy. Tarre Vizsla became one of the younglings when he was, well, young, and eventually grew to create the one-of-a-kind blade. Fenn Rau taught us more about the blade's connection to Mandalorian lore in an old Star Wars Rebels episode.

“Legend tells that it was created over 1,000 years ago by Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian ever inducted into the Jedi Order. After his passing, the Jedi kept the saber in their temple. That was, until members of House Vizsla snuck in and liberated it.”

House Vizsla ties back to the Galactic Civil War. After Mandalore was destroyed by the Mandalorian's own thirst for conquest, factions were formed. Satine Kryze became the Duchess of Mandalore, bringing with her a new pacifist rule. That didn't sit well with House Vizsla, then led by Pre Vizsla. The Old Mandalorians thought pacifism equated to weakness, and they were willing to stop at nothing to get their (ravaged) planet back.

In the end, Pre Vizsla would not be able to defeat Duchess Satine. That victory would go to another villain taking refuge on Mandalore. (Check out The Clone Wars if you want more on this little story.)

The Darksaber's role in Season 2 of 'The Mandalorian'

Spoilers for Season 2 of The Mandalorian below. 

As mentioned, the Darksaber is of little concern to Din Djarin himself. It's Bo-Katan who wants the blade. We'll avoid major spoilers here, but the Season 2 finale does see the saber change hands. The winner of the blade wants nothing more than to simply hand it off to Bo-Katan and be done with it, but that's not quite how it works. In the most interesting (and what will be largely overlooked) moment of the finale, Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito) looks to the winner of the Darksaber and says simply: 

 “The Darksaber doesn’t have power. The story does.”

The Moff knows exactly what he's done when he hands off the weapon. The Mandalorian's insistence on adherence to antiquated codes is well documented. This blade is so entrenched in history and myth that the remaining Mandalorians see whoever holds it as their rightful leader, Mandalorian or no. Bo-Katan's rightful path to Queen gets more complicated the longer it remains out of her hands. 

Who's wielded the Darksaber in the past?

Some minor spoilers for The Clone Wars and Rebels below. 

The Darksaber has been wielded by quite a few members of the Star Wars mythos, at least by lightsaber standards. Obviously, you're aware of Moff Giddeon if you're reading this, Tarre Vizsla is the blade's creator, so he got to play with it for a while as well, but several more have been tempted by the weapon's power. Some stole it, others killed for it, and few were given the blade willingly. Here's who's possessed the weapon throughout history.

• Tarre Vizsla (creator)
• Pre Vizsla
• (Former Darth) Maul
• Sabine Wren
• Kanan Jarrus
• Bo-Katan Kryze
• Moff Giddeon

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This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

The Mandalorian’s Season 2 finale takes a little bit of suspension of disbelief, given “The Believer” closed out with Mando (Pedro Pascal) issuing a threat to Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito) that he was coming for him. All the same, we still kick things off with a fun enough rallying of the troops and a good ol’ fashioned space battle. Accompanying all of that is one hell of a score worthy of a finale in the Star Wars universe. 

On the way to rescue The Child, Mando finds himself face to face with one of the Dark Troopers. Boy howdy, those tanks might look a little silly, but they will ruin your day. We’re given appropriate reason to be stressed out by their presence early on when Mando finds himself in a one-on-one. Things will get more dicey with the droids later on, but first Mando has to take on Moff Giddeon in a Beskar vs. Darksaber duel to save the kid.

Their fight is solid enough, albeit a little short. But the brevity is to lead to one of the most profound points of the finale: “The Darksaber doesn’t have power. The story does.” By besting Moff Giddeon, Mando is now the rightful owner of the Darksaber. All he wants to do is hand things off to Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), but she refuses to accept it on the grounds that it would make her the false Queen of Mandalore. Strange totem-worship from a woman who has shifted past her belief in the old ways, but I guess we needed something to tie Mando back to Mandalore after the last moments of the episode.

After believing they have the day won, the Dark Troopers who were recently sucked out of the airlock return to the ship for a party. Mando got whooped around the hallway by one. He and his friends have no chance against a small army. Thankfully, the kid called for backup right before he got kidnapped by the very Troopers looking to end their lives.

The buildup is solid enough: an X-Wing docks the ship, with no answer to attempts at communicate. As it lands, Grogu’s ears perk up and we have our confirmation that we’re about to see a Jedi. The question of whether or not it’s Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) is answered the moment we see that the mystery Jedi is wielding only one lightsaber. We can’t see what color it is on the monitor, but a few minutes later will reveal that it’s green. And thus we have our confirmation:

The Skywalker Saga refuses to let Star Wars out of its shadow.

Let’s be clear: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) vs an army of Dark Troopers is a sweet sequence to watch. The battle rocked. The score rocked. Seeing Luke even rocked! But for the love of god why is it you. Why are you the one that has to be here? The introduction of The Mandalorian (and all of these other highly exciting new shows) felt like we were finally seeing the cinematic universe expand past the saga of the Skywalkers. Seeing Luke might have been neat, but it also feels like a tremendous step back for the series.

It’s not surprising that they’re actually following through with Grogu going off to Jedi school, but in this specific case it feels like the fanservice ignores actual benefit to the series. Luke Skywalker will dominate the conversation over the weekend as people see the episode rather than conversations about the series itself. That attention hog! As for how he looked? Well… it was actually pretty solid from far away! Those close-ups were yikesville, but that’s what you get when you futz around with de-aging technology.

As they part ways, a de-helmeted Mando insists that the two will see each other again. Will they? Seems like it would be difficult to connect those dots in a way that keeps Grogu part of The Mandalorian. Which is the breaks for the series, because this is the Baby Yoda show. Like it or not, a decent number of fans aren’t going to be enthusiastic about continuing this narrative without the Space Dad and Baby Yoda pairing. And we’re most certainly not going to see frequent use of whoever was walking around wearing Luke Skywalker’s face 

“The Rescue” is filled to the brim with cool moments. Regrettably, some of those cool moments kind of pull away from why The Mandalorian is a neat show. We see some strong set-ups for Season 3 (coming your way next December, maybe) with Bo-Katan and Mando having to suss out whatever’s going on with the Darksaber, but it’s kind of difficult to look past the Luke Skywalker of it all.

There is, however, a lil end credits scene you'll want to stick around for. (Stick around for the credits anyway lots of people worked really hard!) You really don't want to irk Fennec (Ming Na Wen). And Boba Fett, I guess. But mostly Fennec. The final scene presents the idea that the next chapter we see in December may not be of The Mandalorian at all. Instead, we may be seeing more of Boba Fett by... way? Of The Mandalorian? We're not sure! Look for more confirmation on that later, but we most certainly won't be seeing a Mando series and a Boba Fett series run in competition with one another. 

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The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau has proven he has a keen understanding of the franchise by digging into George Lucas’ influences, crafting episodes inspired by Westerns and the films of Akira Kurosawa while not shying away from the inherent silliness of having a puppet as a main character. Along with capturing the tone and style that helped make the original Star Wars trilogy some of the most beloved films of all time, The Mandalorian has also embraced one of the less appreciated aspects of Lucas’ work: his revolutionary politics.

Calling the series’ generic bad guys Stormtroopers might at first glance make the Galactic Empire a clear stand-in for Nazi Germany and give the series the same easy black and white morality found in fighting actual Nazis in the Indiana Jones franchise, which Lucas also created. But in multiple interviews, Lucas made it clear that the Empire was actually an amalgamation of Nazi Germany and the United States.

The Vietnam War had ended just two years before the first Star Wars film released in 1977, and it still loomed large in America’s cultural consciousness. Lucas had been signed on to direct Apocalypse Now before he left the project for Star Wars, with Francis Ford Coppola taking on the film about the horrors of the Vietnam War instead. But Lucas found ways to integrate his feelings about the American military industrial complex into his space opera.

The horrifying, planet-killing power of the Death Star represents America’s nuclear arsenal. Ironically, the space-based missile defense system President Ronald Reagan proposed a few years later came to be dubbed Star Wars, and Lucas sued to stop the association. Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale compared his re-election effort to the Death Star, with a seeming lack of awareness of who the bad guys in Star Wars are or what happened to their weapon of mass destruction used to destroy the planet Alderaan.

The scrappy underdogs of the Rebel Alliance were a tribute to historical resistances, including the American revolutionaries who were able to throw off British rule. But they were also a reference to the Viet Cong fighters, something made particularly clear in Return of the Jedi. While the Ewoks have been mocked for their ability to defeat the vastly technologically superior Empire forces, Lucas meant for them to be a metaphor for the way that the Viet Cong used their mastery of their home terrain to defeat American soldiers with much more firepower.

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Relegating Vietnamese people to vicious teddy bears who worship C-3PO is pretty demeaning, but Lucas certainly deserves credit for inserting radical politics into a family-friendly film. Writer and director Rick Famuyiwa picked up on those themes and modernized them with more nuance through Chapter 15 of The Mandalorian, “The Believer.”

In the wake of Grogu’s capture by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), The Mandalorian turns to former Imperial sharpshooter Migs Mayfield (Bill Burr) for help. After the fall of the Empire, Mayfield became a mercenary and was arrested and imprisoned for breaking into a New Republic ship in the season one episode “The Prisoner,” which bears a lot of similarities to the World War II film The Dirty Dozen.

Mayfield embodies the hybrid of both Nazi Germany and Vietnam-era America that is the Empire. When New Republic Marshal Cara Dune (Gina Carano) says with visual contempt that he’s needed because he’s Imperial, Mayfield is quick to respond “That was a long time ago,” showing he really doesn’t want to be connected to the atrocities the Empire was associated with. But the knowledge he has about Imperial protocols provide him with a chance for redemption.

While Mayfield showed no compunction about killing in “The Prisoner,” we see a softer, more human side in “The Believer” when he agrees to help The Mandalorian take on the notorious Moff Gideon in order to protect his adopted child. Yet Mayfield is still shown as a nihilist, his portrayal building on tropes about Vietnam War veterans.

Like Endor in Return of the Jedi, the planet Morak in "The Believer" is obviously a stand-in for Vietnam with its lush palm tree forests that the Imperial remnants occupying the area traverse with armored personnel carriers. When he drives through a local village, where they people view him with quiet suspicion, Mayfield comments “Empire or New Republic, it’s all the same to these people. Invaders on their land is all we are. I’m just saying somewhere, someone in this Galaxy is ruling and others are being ruled.”

He dismisses the idea that there is a real difference in morality between the Empire and the New Republic and that wars can be just, portraying soldiers throughout the history of the galaxy as lacking agency. Even if they did fight willingly, he argues they were just swayed by nationalistic propaganda.

“Do you really think that all those people in wars fought by Mandalorians have a choice?” he asks The Mandalorian. “So how are they any different from the Empire? If you were born on Mandalore, you believe one thing. If you were born on Alderaan, you believe something else. But guess what? Neither one of them exist anymore.”

It’s an extremely dismissive way of viewing two societies that were victims of Imperial genocide, and The Mandalorian rebuffs Mayfield’s attempts to draw any equivalency. Yet Mayfield makes his criticisms even more personal by pointing out The Mandalorian’s moral flexibility. Does his moral code require that he always wear his signature helmet to show his cultural identity or is it about concealing his face and thus swapping into a Stormtrooper’s armor is acceptable?

Either way, The Mandalorian violates that taboo later in the episode because it seems to be the only way he can get the information needed to save Grogu. Mayfield argues that if he can compromise his beliefs to do what he feels is necessary, then they are the same in that they both are willing to shuck off conventions of honor if it doesn’t suit their circumstances.

Yet later in the episode, Famuyiwa and Mayfield wind up repudiating that very moral relativism through Mayfield’s former Imperial commanding officer, Valin Hess, who is named for the Nazi Party leader Rudolf Hess. Mayfield proposes a toast to Operation Cinder, a mission he served in that left a city annihilated and thousands or Imperial soldiers dead. They way he speaks about it evokes the feeling of a man recounting the atrocities of Vietnam and the terrible toll it took on civilians, opposition forces, and the American troops left dead or traumatized by their service. Yet Hess argues it was all worth it and promises more horrors to come.

“Everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want it order. And when they realize that, they’re going to welcome us back with open arms,” he says, raising a toast to the Empire. Then Mayfield shoots him, surprising himself as much as The Mandalorian.

Hess' speech is a chillingly topical commentary on the rise of fascism in the United States, a topic explored in Lucas' prequel trilogy. The scene makes it clear that evil is real, but also that people can always make the choice to fight it. After the ensuing gunfight, everyone who saw The Mandalorian’s face except Mayfield is dead, and Mayfield promises he’ll never tell anyone that the Mandalorian broke his code. In the end, they are both more similar than they’d like to admit. They have made compromises to survive, but they’ve also put themselves at great risk to do the right thing.

“The Believer” makes it terribly clear that the victory of Return of the Jedi was not complete any more than the end of the Vietnam War ushered in a new era of peace and accountability for America. By embracing Lucas’ politics, Famuyiwa and Favreau have produced a worthy successor to his original trilogy, acknowledging the horrors of war but understanding that true heroes still need to fight for hope and justice to survive.

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Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian was a behind-the-scenes companion piece to the first season of The Mandalorian. And today Disney has announced they will bring the show back... sort of.

The first season might have been eight episodes long, but Disney has shrunk this documentary series down into just one hour-long episode of Disney Gallery. This special episode will arrive on Disney+ on Dec. 25. 

In this new installment of the documentary series, cast and crew alike will provide exclusive access to all sorts of innovations and storytelling decisions across the second season of The Mandalorian to Disney+ subscribers.

It is a bit disappointing that Disney Gallery won't return as a full companion series. However, this will no doubt mean the special will dive into only the biggest and best creative decisions from across the second season.

Here’s what the house of mouse has to say about Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian:

Featuring immersive on-set footage that places viewers right in the middle of the filmmaking process, and rare insights from the cast and crew, this special documentary explores the production of all 8 episodes in season two – from early concept art through the groundbreaking technology introduced in the series.

The Mandalorian’s second season has consistently excited fans with all sorts of twists and turns like the triumphant return of legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett, Baby Yoda’s real name and the live-action debut of fan-favorite Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan. The final episode of Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on Friday, Dec. 18.

If one single episode of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian won't satisfy your inner fan, you shouldn't have too long to wait for more Star Wars content. Disney announced a slew of Star Wars content on Disney Investor Day last week. 

This included news that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series will enter production in March 2021, and that the third season of the Mandalorian will arrive on Disney+ on Christmas Day 2021.

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Everything about The Mandalorian is beautiful. Every scene seems as if it was born from some sort of oil painting, transformed onto your screen. (And in a way, it likely was.) It has a rich history and canon in which to explore, and it has not shied away from doing so. (At time to its own detriment, perhaps.) And it has the sort of slow swagger that you don't get much these days.

And you can't mention Disney+ without the word "Mandalorian" following quickly behind.

But here's the thing: The Mandalorian isn't even the second-best sci-fi series streaming right now.

Search your feelings you know it to be true.

1. The Expanse (Amazon Prime Video)

The Expanse — which just kicked off its fifth and penultimate season — is the best sci-fi series on TV right now.

The story of The Expanse, which premiered in 2015, almost is as thrilling as the series itself. It was a sleeper hit on cable's SYFY for its first three seasons before it was unceremoniously killed off, right at a critical juncture for future episodes. Then, in the sort of sequence of events only science-fiction fans could pull off, a fervent grassroots campaign led to Amazon scooping up the series and announcing two new seasons. (A sixth and final season was announced in November 2020.)

The Expanse is based on a series of novels by James S.A. Corey, and it's quite the ride. To recap it makes you sound perhaps a little crazy. But the short version is the solar system has been colonized many years into the future, and divided into three main groups. Earth and Luna (that's the moon) make up one. Mars, which was colonized and then won its independence, is another. And everyone else working out in the asteroids and moons and space stations beyond — particularly in the asteroid belt — are the third.

A series of secret experiments on an extra-solar material called "protomolecule" brings the three divisions together at times, and against each other at others, before finally opening up hundreds of new galaxies for humanity to explore.

The Expanse is fast and brutal. (Not unlike space.) There are multiple stories — all interlinked — at work, which keeps things moving along at a pretty good clip. And perhaps my favorite part is how gravity itself is a character in the entire series and not just one of those annoying laws of physics that gets explained away (or not).

And with Season 5 now streaming, it's proved once again that it belongs in the conversation of the best sci-fi series around. And in my book, atop that list.

2. Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access)

CBS All Access is the new home for all things Star Trek, and it has quickly proven that it's making the most of this next generation. (Sorry not sorry.) Its first new exclusive series, Star Trek: Discovery, also is the best in a long, long time.

Discovery has the best production of any Trek series we've ever seen. That's not a huge shock given the improvements in the entertainment industry and in computer graphics. It also has seasoned actors mixed among newcomers in a way that's not unlike the veterans and cadets you'd find in any quasi-military structure.

And it's maybe a small thing, but Discovery (and CBS All Access) opened a door for a new, more realistic Trek. One in which people have emotions and feelings and act accordingly, with the occasional outburst and colorful language. (Wesley Crusher was just before his time, folks, and let's not forget Data's "Oh, shit" moment in Star Trek Generations.) To hear an f-bomb from someone in uniform — it's refreshing, if not particularly safe for the kids in the room.

The Discovery series began in 2017 with a pretty dark tone in its first two seasons, with death and war and captains willing to do anything to win. A few major characters were quickly killed off, with no way of knowing whether it was a great cameo, or if they'd somehow return later on.

The cast is brilliant. Sonequa Martin-Green is Michael Burnham, an orphan raised as Spock's sister, and all the hangups that come with that. Jason Isaacs (as in Lucious Malfoy) gives her new purpose as Captain Gabriel Lorca. Anson Mount follows as Captain Christopher Pike and was so good that he's getting his own show, Strange New Worlds. The likes of Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp and MIchelle Yeoh and Mary Wiseman and Wilson Cruz — and the list goes on — only make the ensemble cast that much stronger. And that's before we get anywhere near Season 3, which brings a wonderful David Ajala into the fold. (Plus: David Cronenberg!)

Star Trek: Discovery has been on its own journey over the course of three seasons. And it's will worth the ride.

3. The Mandalorian (Disney+)

It almost feels weird calling The Mandalorian science-fiction. Star Wars really is a genre unto itself now. And with all the new series and films that are coming up over the next couple of years, it's only getting bigger.

But The Mandalorian was the tentpole series when Disney+ launched in November 2019, and it's remained so ever since. That's both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, The Mandalorian is good. Really good. It's got a huge world from which to draw, and it's done a great job of bringing in characters who have lived just below the level of mainstream Star Wars popular culture but have been introduced in books and other series like The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.

But for as exciting as that is — and I'm thrilled to see Katee Sackhoff as Bo Katan and for Ashoka Tano get a dedicated series — it doesn't change the fact The Mandalorian has been a slow grind. Almost impossibly so. It has individual moments and episodes that warm the nerd soul, for sure. Kicking off Season 2 with Timothy Olyphant was just plain fun, and the return of Boba Fett is great, even if there's definitely some forced retconning going on.

But each week also comes with a sense of dread. Is the story going to advance mere inches once more? Or are we actually going to make some progress?

And that's before I even start in on the dialog, which gives the term "stilted" a bad name. I recently caught Solo on TV for the first time in a while and the difference talking like a normal human being and what's going on in The Mandalorian couldn't be more striking. That's not to say that Mando shouldn't have a different tone and cadence and that the series shouldn't have a different feel to it — it absolutely is unlike anything in the Star Wars universe, and that's great.

But bad dialog combined with bad pacing too often makes The Mandalorian a tough watch.

This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

Bill Burr makes his triumphant return as Mayfield as a last-ditch effort to try and rescue Grogu from Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito). The plan is “simple,” the team of Mando (Pedro Pascal), Cara Dune (Gina Carano), Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec (Ming-Na Wen) have to infiltrate an old Imperial location in attempt to find the coordinates for Moff Giddeon’s ship. They only have a few measly things standing in their way like some space pirates, a whole lot of Rhydonium – an extremely volatile resource used to power star ships – and the lives of the innocent indigenous people to the planet.

Thanks to old Imperial biometric scanners, anyone wanted by the Empire or with ties to the rebellion will immediately out them on their mission. This forces Mando to make a costume change to ensure Mayfield doesn’t go in alone and blow any chances as finding The Child. When they’re chased by pirates after the precious fuel, there’s a weird sort of relief when the two (and their cargo) find themselves rescued by a couple of TIE fighters and a small army of Storm Troopers. 

Once inside the base, all they have to do is find a terminal to gather the information they need. “All they have to do” goes just as well as it always does, of course. Mayfield can’t go to the terminal while it’s being watched by an old commander, meaning Mando has to be the one to gather the information. And the terminal must scan your face in order access its information.

Mando removes his helmet, compromising his entire creed in an attempt to save his surrogate son. What should be a quick in-and-out is interrupted, resulting in Mayfield and half the Imperial base seeing his face. All the accolades to Pedro Pascal for these scenes – you can feel is visceral discomfort as he sits bare-faced in front of the enemy. Then Mayfield goes rogue!

The proverbial con with a newly realized heart of gold looks his ex-commander in the face and asks him how he could sacrifice so many soldiers. What follows is an all-out brawl in the mess hall followed by a hasty escape in what manages to be a pretty fun heist/escape scene solidifying Mayfield's odd antihero status in The Mandalorian mythos. Seeing his true colors, Dune and Mando agree to say he died on the mission, freeing him from his sentence and sending him off to make a new life. 

So far as penultimate episodes go, “The Believer” is a little weak. It’s a fun enough story with plenty of meat on its bones, and if it were a couple chapters earlier it would be a different story. However, the only thing it does to set up its finale is show an ominous hologram of Mando threatening Moff Giddeon. Seems like a strange tactical move, given the fact that the element of surprise would have been ideal. Because of that, the moment feels more forced than ominous. That said, Season 2 of The Mandalorian has completely ignored how a season of television to be structured to begin with (not to its favor), so this is at least a continuation of a trend.

There are several solid moments before the final credits roll. Mayfield pointing out that The Mandalorians of old were really no different from the Empire is extremely true. Din Djarin’s loyalty to that creed is a loyalty to a planet full of murderers whose only focus was to conquer whatever planets they could. That’s part of what makes the future Bo-Katan is after so important, and what makes Mando’s baby steps toward realizing what he’s loyal to interesting.

“Everyone thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order,” is as obvious a line as they come. But it’s still jarringly nefarious every time it’s uttered by some totalitarian creep who thinks they’re the ones to grant that order to the people they would oppress. If there’s one thing The Mandalorian has done right this season, it’s truly driving home what kind of monsters the Empire is filled with. We’ve watched Vader mow down a school full of children, sure. The Star Wars saga is filled with huge acts of horrifying behavior. But those little moments of truly disgusting motives do a lot to further a villainous narrative.

One more episode left, boys and girls! 

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• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 
• Why Bo-Katan's presence in The Mandalorian is a big deal

I have a Star Wars confession to make: I have never really gotten Boba Fett. The character has always had such an impressive cult following and while I support fan enthusiasm it’s never really made much sense to me in regard to the infamous bounty hunter. 

Most of the extended canon stuff I’ve read or watched has never done much to feature the character so, as far as I was concerned, the only reason the character was ever intimidating was because Star Wars told us he was supposed to be. Good job, dude. You captured Han Solo. You were booted into a Sarlaac Pit not thirty minutes later! The Mandalorian episode “The Tragedy” helped change that perspective.

🚨Note: spoilers below for Season 2 of The Mandalorian🚨

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After the first episode of the season kind of botched the glimpse of Boba Fett’s return, I still found myself pretty disenchanted with the idea of his involvement in this season. We knew were getting Bo-Katan and Ahsoka. With such a short season (with several episodes not even cracking forty minutes), I felt Season 2 would have spent its time better focusing on them. “The Tragedy” kind of made me eat those words.

Not only did we get the legendary Boba Fett back on screen, we saw him in a way that the franchise as a whole has — as far as I’ve seen — failed to illustrate previously. Even without his Beskar, Boba Fett was laying out Storm Troopers left and right. It was like watching artistry meet brute force as he fought his way through the small army trying to get through him, the Mandalorian and Fennec to get to Grogu. That certainly didn’t change after he got his armor back. “I was aiming for the other one,” was the funniest line of the episode.

In thirty-four minutes The Mandalorian took Boba Fett from a character who just didn’t make any sense to me and turned him into a loyal, funny badass? Boba Fett and Fennec could have left Mando on Trask for eternity, but they made a deal: Boba Fett’s armor for the safety of The Child. That child is the farthest thing from safe right now, so suffice to say the Mandalorian duo (and Fennec and Cara Dune) have their work cut out for them in the last two chapters of the season.

This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

Boba Fett? Where?! 

For the longest time, we were simply told that Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) was meant to be feared with very little illustration in the saga itself. This week's episode of The Mandalorian finally showed off just how formidable the bounty hunter can be. Particularly when he's paired with one Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). This ends up pretty beneficial for Mando (Pedro Pascal), who finds himself pretty useless for the first half of the episode. (If at first you don't succeed, maybe stop running directly at the literal Force field surrounding your space baby.)

What begins as a Mandalorian, um… Beskar staff measuring contest… on the surface of Trask ultimately results in an Imperial ambush featuring two ship loads worth of Storm Troopers. The fight that unfolds is as solid as any Storm Trooper battle, featuring some incredible moves from all parties on the right side of the fight. Regrettably, the battle ultimately ends with a Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito) and the unfortunate capture of one Baby Yoda.

So far as action goes, “The Tragedy” is a pretty great episode. However, the situation that leads up to Grogu’s inevitable kidnapping is a sequence of completely avoidable and utterly silly events that were simply set in motion to ensure that Mando was separated from the Child. First there was Boba Fett insisting he takes his jet pack off in addition to holstering his blasters, then the silly repeated attempts to break through the field, capped off with him abandoning Grogu on the stone instead of continuing to fight from the higher vantage point. It’s sloppy, is all.

While Grogu and Space Dad’s separation is devastating – the episode is aptly titled – there are some silver linings that are as conveniently put into place as Mando’s questionable absence from the Child’s side at the time of kidnapping. Grogu spent all that time on the rock calling out to other Jedi. Inevitably, someone heard that call. Which someone is a question we may not find out this season, but there’s undoubtedly another Jedi in our future. In addition to that fire power, Mando now has Boba Fett and Fennec in his debt. The return of Fett’s armor was stipulatory upon Grogu’s safety. Grogu is decidedly unsafe.

Mando will need more than a Bounty Hunter and a sharpshooter on his side, though. He returns – with a lift from Boba Fett, as Mando’s ship is no more - to ask Cara Dune (Gina Carano) for help in breaking out a prisoner to help them rescue the kid. There’s some resistance, as Dune sees herself as legit now, but the look on her face makes it clear that she’ll ultimately be helping out with the jail break.

It felt like both a lot and very little happened in The Mandalorian’s shortest episode yet. Though it only clocked in at thirty-four minutes, we did get to close things out with Grogu absolutely walloping on some Storm Troopers. You took the baby away from Space Dad, and he is very, very angie.

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• Why Bo-Katan's presence in The Mandalorian is a big deal

Baby Yoda fans have officially come through for Disney+. The Mandalorian makes the first series for the streamer to crack the Nielsen Ratings top 10 list for streamers. Fans have been given plenty of reasons to tune into the Star Wars series outside of the cute little puppet - though some have struggled with the amount of overall Star Wars knowledge needed to understand who some of the new characters are.

All the same, that reasonable frustration doesn't seem to be stopping folks from tuning in. Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels were both highly successful animated series' for the franchise, so it makes sense that folks have flocked to The Mandalorian now that some of their faves are making their way into live-action storytelling. 

The full list for the current Nielsen Top 10 is as follows:

• The Queen's Gambit (Netflix) 1,850 minutes (millions) streamed
• The Office (Netflix) 1,046 minutes (millions) streamed
• The Mandalorian (Disney+) 1,032 minutes (millions) streamed
• Schitt's Creek (Netflix) 963 minutes (millions) streamed 
• Holidate (Netflix) 654 minutes (millions) streamed 
• Grey's Anatomy (Netflix) 624 minutes (millions) streamed 
• Criminal Minds (Netflix) 620 minutes (millions) streamed
• NCIS (Netflix) 552 minutes (millions) streamed 
• The Haunting of Bly Manor (Netflix) 535 minutes (millions) streamed 
• The Great British Baking Show (Netflix) 530 minutes (millions) streamed

As a note, Nielsen does not factor in all streaming services into their numbers. (Though it's unlikely the smaller services would crack their top 10 to begin with.) Streamers that are factored into the top 10 are: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+.

• Who are the Mandalorians? 
• What is the Darksaber?
• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 
• Why Bo-Katan's presence in The Mandalorian is a big deal

This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

“The Jedi” wastes absolutely no time, and it’s the exact kind of episode The Mandalorian needed at this point in its season. There’s been some fatigue over the series’ formula – and by and large this chapter still follows that – but the entance of Ahsoka Tano is the exact kind of shakeup the season needed.

Our introduction to the Togrutan is pitch perfect. An exceptional display of complete badassery with just a dash of mystery. Bonus: Rosario Dawson could not look more perfect as the Jedi. It’s cool that she looks exactly as she should but, more importantly, it feels like she marched right out of The Clone Wars. This iteration of the character feels precisely as it should. 

When they find the Jedi, Mando (Pedro Pascal) believes his quest has come to an end. While he does learn a lot about his tiny green friend, there’s still plenty of journey left between him and the Child. Ahsoka can feel fear in the youngling. Considering the fact that her former master was driven by fear and turned into literal Darth Vader, it makes sense that one of the last remaining Jedi is not leaping at the chance to train the kid.

Speaking of the kid, his name is Grogu! No one is ever going to call him that, he’s destined to be Baby Yoda for forever in the same way that Din Djarin will forever be called Mando. All the same, it’s a nice bit of trivia to store in the ol’ logic banks. Grogu was raised in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant – meaning he survived Anakin’s slaughter. He was rescued from the Temple (by who we do not know) and after the Clone Wars he was hidden. His memories are fuzzy after he was taken from the Jedi Temple, and he has hidden his powers in order to survive. The youngling is unresponsive to Ahsoka’s attempts to get him to use said powers, but he plays along when Mando reveals the ball.

“The Jedi” features another side-quest, this time so Ahsoka will train the child. While we know she won’t do that from the jump given all of her Anakin-related PTSD, Mando doesn’t have those details. The two free the city, the Jedi tells the Mandalorian once again that she will not train the child, and then he’s given another destination: take Baby Yoda to a super-charged Jedi rock and sit him on it. If he calls out via The Force, someone will be along to train him. Might sound silly, but this is Star Wars. We’ve basically just learned to roll with these things at this point.

Oh, and Ahsoka’s battle with the Magistrate who had been terrorizing the town results in a casual name drop of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Suffice to say, things are heating up on The Mandalorian.

While this week’s episode was a top-tier story, especially given series standards, it is also just downright stunning. Ahsoka’s entrance alone is an all-timer. A colorful Jedi with two bright-white lightsabers shrouded in darkness and mist and backlit by one hell of a moon as she wipes out enemy forces? Inject that into my veins. “The Jedi” is overflowing with gorgeous shots, whether it’s simply scenery or the final battle between the Jedi and the Magistrate.

We theorized last week that this would be Ahsoka’s entrance because it was Dave Filoni’s episode. Not a groundbreaking theory, given he created the character, but the reason I mention it now is because this episode is the perfect example of what happens when you let a creator take care of a character they love. Filoni’s reverence for Ahsoka is evident in every second of the episode. She’s exactly as she should be, and Dawson and Pascal have already illustrated great chemistry together after a single episode. I desperately hope this isn’t the last we see of her this season.

• Who are the Mandalorians? 
• What is the Darksaber?
• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 
• Why Bo-Katan's presence in The Mandalorian is a big deal

This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

The Mandalorian returns this week with its most action-packed episode yet. When Mando (Pedro Pascal) realizes that his ship isn’t going to be able to limp to find Ahsoka Tano, he and Baby Yoda head back to Navarro for some repairs and a rendezvous with old friends. In classic The Mandalorian fashion, that’s not all he finds upon his visit to the once destitute planet.

Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and Cara Dune (Gina Carano) have successfully cleaned up the majority of the riff raff on Navarro, but the planet is still plagued by one last Empire base on the outskirts of their safe zone. While Mando waits for repairs on his ship, he agrees to help them destroy the base and any remaining Imperial troops that might be occupying it. But they end up finding much more than an abandoned base.

In addition to far more Storm Troopers than they bargained for, the small team discovers that the base was used for some kind of experiment that involved blood from Baby Yoda. While on board, we also discover that Mando had thought that Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito) had died after their last altercation? All the same, we’ve finally got some stakes as the bounty hunter and his child head off to find their unlikely Jedi ally.

Before things come to a close, we discover that the Empire had a spy on Navarro who plants a tracking device on Mando’s ship before he departs. This tracker doesn’t just mean that Giddeon will be catching up with Mando much sooner than he previous thought but that there’s a chance that we might get to see Ahsoka vs. the Empire in live action. There’s a lot of hope surrounding this particular Jedi.

Outside of the main plot, we get the chance to see plenty of cute Baby Yoda moments. The mean boy in the classroom won’t share his cookies, so the youngling simply takes them. Probably not the most appropriate course of action, but the kid was a butt so he kinda deserved it. There’s also a little bit of instant karma in the form of an upset tummy after their battle with the mini Imperial fleet. Oh, plus there’s some child electrocution early on.

“The Siege” is a good blast-em-up episode that will likely sit better in a binge setting than as a standalone, but it does a fair amount to progress The Mandalorian’s story all the same. The last two episodes have dragged the Empire out from the shadows, making them a bigger player in this season than they were in the last. Giddeon is still our primary threat, but he’s no longer the only one. We’re now getting a look at just how far his resources stretch, and how much of a presence the Empire was before they “re-appeared” in The Force Awakens.

Meanwhile, Season 2 of The Mandalorian seems intent on depicting the Rebellion as space cops and dweebs. Given that the show’s context takes place mostly on outer-rim planets and its characters are mostly of the vigilante type, I suppose the characterization makes sense. If the Empire weren’t so prevalent, this depiction wouldn’t be as jarring as it is. But they are very clearly still around and with plenty of fire power to boot, so the choice remains a little odd.

For those who are going insane wondering when in the heck we’re finally going to run into Ahsoka Tano, the official answer is “we’re not sure.” As for the unofficial answer – next week’s episode is directed by Dave Filoni who may or may not have one or two ties to the character, so you can probably expect the Togrutan to make her live-action debut in the next chapter.

• Who are the Mandalorians? 
• What is the Darksaber?
• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 
• Why Bo-Katan's presence in The Mandalorian is a big deal

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, and mild spoilers for "The Heiress" episode of The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian Season 2 has struggled in two primary areas. The first is that the premiere didn’t do its job (despite giving us a delightful performance from Timothy Olyphant) in setting up the season, and “The Passenger” elected not to provide a further narrative either. The next issue snowballs from their refusal to set up a narrative until “The Heiress,” in that they were stuck with a bit of an exposition dump and gave casual fans no information as to why they were supposed to care about the suddenly introduced Bo-Katan Kryze.

Before we hop in, it’s important to understand that there are multiple stories involving Bo-Katan that exist in the overall Star Wars mythos. Think of it in the same way we think about superheroes and their multiple comic book narratives. After the original Star Wars trilogy, a whole host of novels were created. The franchise declared that these stories were no longer canon (whatever canon means to a space epic), so we’ll be sticking to her story in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.

The Timeline

Let's break down the order of everything that’s going down – and has gone down – in LucasFilm approved Star Wars canon before we hop in. Your little friends with * are directly relevant to what we’re talking about today, while the rest of the canon is tangentially important but not actively pertinent in the current context.

• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars*
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
• Solo: A Star Wars Story
• Star Wars Rebels*
• Rogue One
• Star Wars: A New Hope
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
• The Mandalorian*
• Star Wars Resistance
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The Origin of Bo-Katan Kryze

Bo-Katan has a bit of a troubled origin story. In her early years, the human lived on Mandalore and fought as a member of the Death Watch. The Death Watch’s story is a long one, but the gist of their crusade is the fact that they believed Mandalorians should return to their status as the most feared warriors in the galaxy rather than remaining under the pacifist rule of Duchess Satine Kryze. Those with a keen eye will note the same last name there. The Duchess and Bo-Katan are sisters. 

The rebellious Mandalorian was a trusted lieutenant of Pre Vizsla, the leader of the Death Watch. When he was murdered by Darth Maul — who very much survived being sliced in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi — Bo-Katan continued to lead a group of Death Watch loyalists against Maul and his planned rule of Mandalore.

A Complicated Allegiance with the Jedi

Though their ideas for the future of Mandalore were fundamentally different, Bo-Katan still loved her sister. The Duchess had a bit of a “It’s Complicated” relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, which made her a prime target for Darth Maul. The very same Darth Maul who had aspirations to rule Mandalore and had recently murdered Pre Vizsla and taken possession of a good number of his troops as well has the Darksaber.

When Darth Maul murdered Satine, Bo-Katan formed a tenuous allyship with Obi-Wan in order to take the Sith Lord down. The Mandalorian believed that the Jedi and the Sith were equally evil, but she knew that the Jedi would be able to intervene in the problem now that it was an issue that included the Sith. Though Obi-Wan warned that the Republic would invade the planet in order to eradicate the Sith, Bo-Katan showed little concern. "Mandalore will survive. We always survive."

While her opinions of the Jedi were not swayed by Obi-Wan, her complicated relationship with the Order would continue when she asked Ahsoka Tano to assist against Maul as well.

Mandalore Occupation and the Passing of the Darksaber

With the assistance of the Jedi Order and the Republic, Darth Maul was eventually bested and taken into custody. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the end of the Mandalorians’ trouble with the Empire. With Mandalore ultimately leaderless and left with a people trying to restore order after countless hardships, the Empire swooped in and occupied the planet.

During the Empire’s occupation of the planet, Bo-Katan would partner with notable Mandalorian rebel Sabine Wren. At the time, Sabine was the wielder of the fabled Darksaber. After the two (and their allies) managed to take down a Imperial weapon built to target Mandalorian armor, Sabine gifted Bo-Katan the Darksaber, thus uniting Mandalore for the first time since their conqueror roots.

The current present

We’ve got some blanks here! Now, it seems most likely that the Darksaber transitioned directly from Bo-Katan to Moff Giddeon based on what we know from the timeline and how directly irked the Mandalorian leader is by his possession of it. What we don’t know is how. Rebels didn’t necessarily “solve” the Empire’s occupation of Mandalore, and Bo-Katan and her Watch were after the weapons to take back their planet.

The issue The Mandalorian runs into now is that this particular story is infinitely more interesting than finding Baby Yoda’s people. Of course, the reason this piece needed to be written is because the series felt no need to actually explain to casual fans why they should care about Bo-Katan’s presence in the first place. So … give and take?

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If you haven't seen the latest episode of The Mandalorian, reading this might spoil a couple things for you. Proceed with caution.

There's a lot for hardcore Star Wars fans to love in The Mandalorian. All the callbacks to the original series. All the Easter eggs pointing toward the books and storylines that fill the gaps between the nine movies. (And, yes, even Rogue One and Solo.) All the teasers of things to come.

But as Chapter 11 (that's Episode 3 of Season 2) reminds us, some of the real fun in The Mandalorian doesn't come from Pedro Pascal's strong-but-slient type. It comes in the form of cameos.

The season opener was strong with the arrival (and, I assume, the departure) of Cobb Vanth, played by Timothy Olyphant. That character was very much in the same vein in which we've seen Olyphant in recent years, first as Seth Bullock in Deadwood, then as Raylan Givens in Justified.

And there's more fun to be had this week in "The Heiress." I'm not deeply immersed in the Star Wars lore — check out our full review of the episode for more on that. But you can't help but smile more than a little at the sight of Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan, who previously voiced the character in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Sackhoff is the quintessential space pirate. It's been almost two decades since she resurrected (in more ways than one) the character of Starbuck as Kara Thrace in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. She was a space-based badass in Riddick. There's also the less memorable 2036 Origin Unknown and Another Life on Netflix. (The latter of which just started filming Season 2.)

Red hair and all, she's great.

But there's another appearance of note this week, too. 

Titus Welliver has been "that guy!" in movies and series for the past 30 years. From Matlock (yes, really) and The Commish to the Man in Black on Lost, a cop in The Town, an Irish gangster in Sons of Anarchy, and most recently in Showtime's Bosch.

He shows up this week in The Mandalorian as a stoic Imperial captain trying to get guns off the planet. That's not going to go well when Mando & Co. decide to put a stop to that.

Presumably this is another one-off appearance. It's doubtful a no-named ship captain — who did his darnedest to make sure the character can't show up again — will be a recurring character somehow. And on one hand that's a shame, because Welliver is great in whatever he's in. (And the character's dialog was way less painful than what we've gotten from Amy Sedaris.)

On the other hand? It just makes space for more fun cameos in the future.

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• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 

This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here. 

It took a few episodes, but The Mandalorian finally gave us some real direction this week. After Mando (Pedro Pascal) successfully transports Frog Lady to Trask, he is able to meet up with other Mandalorians. Things don’t go exactly the way he’d hoped though.

With Frog Lady and… Frog Husband’s(?) successful (and surprisingly cute) reunion, Mando gets straight to work on his mission to find his people. After accepting help from a pirate he met in a bar, our trusty protagonist quickly finds himself – and his charge – trapped in an underwater cage and in a real spot of danger. Luckily, Trask really is home to several other of his kind who happened to have been watching him since he stepped off his dilapidated ship.

Mando’s thanks to his mysterious rescuers are cut short when they take off their helmets. Those who may not have followed outside of the Skywalker saga may be just as surprised as he is after such a grave ignorance of the Mandalorian code from those donning their armor. After all, we did just meet Cobb Vanth. Thing is, Mando’s getting cranky with someone who knows a lot more about being a Mandalorian than he does.

Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) isn’t just some mercenary who fought in the Galactic Civil War – known on The Mandalorian as The Purge – she’s sister to Duchess Sabine Kryze. An offhanded comment from Bo-Katan confirms her sister’s death in this canon, but that’s not the only interesting tidbit dropped by the Heiress. After their initial spat, Bo-Katan gets Mando to help the other Mandalorians take down an Empire controlled cargo ship. To get him to agree, she tells him that it’s to use the resources they’ve pirated from the Trask to help rebuild a crumbling Mandalore. But it’s not long before we learn that rebuilding their planet isn’t Bo-Katan’s only motivation.

You see, Bo-Katan is one of the several wielders of the Darksaber. The very Darksaber that’s currently in the possession of one Moff Giddeon. Kryze wants it back, and she’ll lie and cheat her way to it if that’s what it takes. The Darksaber holds special meaning to the their civilization, and having it back in her possession could help ease the union between the Old and New Mandalorians. But she’s got to find Giddeon first, and this version of the Empire has skipped right past alluding to Nazism and have gone right into their iteration of cyanide pills. Her one lead is dead, and Moff Giddeon knows she’s coming for him, but they have the ship. Bo-Katan is used to taking small victories where she can get them.

In exchange for his help, Bo-Katan tells Mando where he can find a member of the Jedi Order. That Jedi is one Ahsoka Tano, so we can probably confirm that rumor now. With that, the two factions split ways. Bo-Katan and her sergeants return to Mandalore in hope of rebuilding a better tomorrow for their people while Mando returns to The Frog Family to pick up Baby Yoda so they can skip off to find some Jedi in his still very busted ship.

“The Heiress” is exactly what I’ve been waiting for from the second season of The Mandalorian. We finally caught up with some major players from last season, while still introducing new ones and giving just enough details to make the future of the Mandalorians interesting! The episode also marks our first real acknowledgement of the state of Mandalore, and gave us insight into the war that took place there. Mando is now faced with stakes for his people in addition to his mission to get Baby Yoda home. That’s how you build a series!

This chapter revealed Sasha Banks’ mysterious character, though it didn’t seem that her sergeant was named, and gave us some real hope for a live-action Ahsoka meeting. Her involvement has been expected - with Rosario Dawson likely to play the Togrutan - but now the question has shifted from “if” to “what kind of role can we expect her to play as the series unfolds?” All of this feels like the very beginning of a story and shouldn’t be episode 3/8 material, but we can’t change what we didn’t get earlier! Hopefully we see the series continue to chug along after this point. In the meantime we should have plenty of fun moments of Baby Yoda munchin’ on things he shouldn’t be!

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If we're being honest, The Mandalorian is struggling at the beginning of Season 2. There are plenty of fascinating (and sometimes terrifying) creatures, and we've had some solid Baby Yoda content, but there's still no underlying narrative into the season. However, this wasn't the root of fan complaints over last week's episode "The Passenger." Instead, viewer focus was directed to one egg-slurping Child who would not stop eating the last potential offspring of an endangered species. 

The gist of the episode was simple: Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Baby Yoda were to give Frog Lady (no really that's what we call her) a ride to Trask so she could meet up with her husband who could then fertilize her eggs so that their species may live on. Mando's ship runs afoul of a krykna nest, and the three of them must survive against a bunch of enraged space spiders. (It's worth noting that these space spiders are ticked off because Baby Yoda eats several of them, too.) 

Does Mando not feed this kid? 

All the same, the disgust (and in some odd cases, actual offense) of fans was so wide-spread that Phil Szostak, Lucasfilm’s creative art manager, took to Twitter to clear things up: 

“For the record, Chapter 10 of #TheMandalorian makes it clear that the Frog Lady’s eggs are unfertilized, like the chicken eggs many of us enjoy. But obviously, chickens aren’t sentient beings and the Child eating the eggs is intentionally disturbing, for comedic effect. Fans of horror know that disturbing things make some of us laugh and some of us squirm, or both. Your mileage may vary.”

There you have it! Baby's just hungry, and we're meant to be grossed out. Besides, it feels weird to go off against one of the few interesting moments of the episode outside of the krykna. Hopefully things will pick up with the season. In the meantime, we still have Baby Yoda slurpin' on eggs. 

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This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.
Check out our last review here.

The low stakes of The Mandalorian are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s neat to be a part of the universe on missions that seem to have no urgency or ultimately matter at all to the overall canon. On the other, it does make for some kind of slow viewing when you’re trapped on an ice planet watching Mando (Pedro Pascal) fix a busted ship.

This week’s theme is a hungry baby! It’s all fun and games until Baby Yoda munches on a spider egg in the middle of a giant space spider nest (they're called krykna, but "space spider" is more fun). Their dramatic encounter with the horrifying creatures somehow smacks of both Alien and Arachnaphobia, but in the best of ways. “The Passenger” also begs the question of just what happens when a Mandalorian has to rely on the Rebellion for a little help. The scene is fleeting, but it takes its time to illustrate the tenuous allegiance between the bounty hunter and rebel pilots despite their relationship getting off to a rocky start.

Mando and his passenger – a very nice frog lady whose species doesn’t seem to be named – find themselves stranded on the ice planet after they run afoul of the Rebels who are really just doing their jobs. The two can’t communicate with each other, adding to the sort of meh nature of “The Passenger,” but you do feel for her. Her eggs are the last of her species, and her husband immigrated to Trask so the two could ensure they stave off their species’ extinction. However, if Mando doesn’t get her there soon, her eggs may not be viable anymore. There’s also a very real chance that they all get eaten. Spider eggs aren’t the only thing Baby Yoda’s munching on this week.

While “The Passenger” is fun, we’re now two chapters into the season with no real course set for where the story’s trying to go. Last week gave us a fleeting glance at Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), but some fans missed the reference without the trademark armor. Even if the cameo had hit the way the series intended, it wouldn’t be enough to carry two directionless episodes. “On a quest to find more Mandalorians” simply doesn’t have enough intrigue to be the sole mission at the beginning of your season.

One thing that is curious is that, while there are plenty of people named Trask in Star Wars canon, we’ve never been to a planet of that name before. There could be the potential for a nice Knights of the Old Republic nod. Or, given how things have set up so far, the planet name could be that nod in and of itself.

The good news is that though the first two episodes don’t tell us much about where we’re going, that means there will come a point where the season has to kick it into hyperdrive. We already know Boba Fett will play some kind of role, with both Ahsoka Tano and Maul both heavily rumored for appearances in the season. Meanwhile, Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) both received character posters for the season, so we know they’ll need to play a decent role at one point or another. And there’s still the question of that whole Darksaber situation.

So, though “The Marshal” and “The Passenger” didn’t do much to set up future excitement, we know there’s a lot on the horizon. Keep the faith, fans!

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This post contains mild spoilers regarding Olyphant's character in The Mandalorian.

Timothy Olyphant is one of those underrated gems of acting. Deadwood never got its due, even with the HBO movie. Justified was one of the best-written five years of TV we've had in a long time, thanks in no small part to its source, the late Elmore Leonard.

And while he has more than his share of forgettables — as any long-working actor will have (Rock Star, anyone?) — there was just something about Cobb Vanth in the first episode of Season 2 of The Mandalorian. (We'll avoid other spoilers here, but be sure to check out our full review for more.)

The gist is this: Mando has to get Baby Yoda back to his peeps, and he needs the help of some fellow Mandalorians to do so. And supposedly there's one hiding out on Tatooine. (Yes, as in Luke Skywalker's home planet, which we also revisited in Season 1, as well as in the Star Wars sequels.)

That's where we meet "The Marshal."

You can't help but smile a little — in that perfect sort of way Olyphant can manage — upon hearing that name. It's undoubtedly a nod to his Justified character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Even the character seems to have been cribbed ever so slightly, with a good person doing what has to be done to get things done. (Givens' penchant for shooting first, and sometimes second, then letting someone else worry about the questions, is just part of what made Justified so much fun.) That was Ralan Givens, and that's Cobb Vanth. We certainly don't get the same sort of depth of character in an hour-long episode that you do in multiple seasons, but you can tell it's there.

There's also the physical appearance of Olyphant. It's been no secret that he'd appear in Season 2, we just didn't know how, or when. And when his face first appeared on screen, I'll admit to a momentary confusion. Is this a skinnier, pre-Thanos Josh Brolin? Did I stumble into the Dune remake? Or, wait, is it the gracefully aging Pierce Brosnan? Some of that was the haircut, perhaps — especially stylish for dessert life, but whatever — or maybe it's mostly in the eyes. Or maybe it's the beard. But once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Regardless, Olyphant was a great addition to what's mostly been a fun series. The storytelling is there. The nostalgia is there. (Sometimes a bit too much, but that's going to happen.) My question now?

Who's next.

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This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian. 

Those who long speculated who Timothy Olyphant was playing in The Mandalorian deserve a well-earned pat on the back. The rumors of the legendary Boba Fett armor were true and he is, indeed, playing slave-turned-space-sheriff Cobb Vanth. Of course, his narrative shifts a little bit from his character in the novelization. Rather than survive the Galactic Civil War, this Vanth survived Tatooine’s Empire occupation. After buying Boba Fett’s armor off of some Jawas, he’s able to defend his desert town from the invaders who sought to fill the void that the Empire left behind.

Mando (Pedro Pascal) happens across Cobb while on a quest to piece together how to get The Child (henceforth known as Baby Yoda) back to its kind. Though Mando is less than pleased to discover that there was no Mandalorian on Tatooine, he agrees to help Cobb take on a leviathan in exchange for the armor to help chart his course. The two will need the help of the town, and an unexpected partnership from the Tusken Raiders to take the monsters down. Things don’t go exactly as planned, but what kind of episode would it be if they did.

So far as returns go, the kick off to The Mandalorian’s second season was surprisingly standard. It’s certainly an adequate episode, but with how secretive Disney+ has been around the property I had honestly expected a little bit more oomph. That quibble aside, “The Marshal” does more right than it does wrong. Olyphant is a great addition to the series’ cast, and he and Pascal have buckets of charisma together as Mando and Cobb. Here’s hoping they didn’t spend the cash to get him on board for him to only be a part of one episode this season.

A nice surprise for “The Marshal” is how creature-heavy it is without there necessarily being a need for it. Star Wars is well known for its exciting aliens, but the most recent trilogy diverted from them a bit (at least when it came to the more memorable title characters). Aside from the giant leviathan the townspeople and the Raiders must face, we see plenty of banthas, as well as a whole host of different creatures in the fight club in the first moments of the episode. Staying creature-heavy throughout the season might be expensive, but it’s also a great way to remind viewers that they’re not simply standing in a sand dune.

The recap that they played in the very beginning of the episode might have been mostly superficial, but the fight club sequence goes a long way to remind us who Mando is. He might have decided to take care of Baby Yoda, and he adheres to a strict honor code, but if you cross him you are very certainly going to die. Giving him dimension was critical to fans’ enjoyment of the series — it’s good that he has a softer side and will never lie — but reminding us now and then that he is also a member of an elite force of some of the most feared warriors in the galaxy is a wise move.

“The Marshal” struggles most when it relies on nostalgia (and I say that as someone who is often pretty pro nostalgia vehicles). There’s some intrigue to this first episode of the season, but it does a lackluster job at setting up where we’re going next outside of “Mando needs this armor to chart a course.” Rather than focus on that, it’s time with the Jawas, then the Raiders, and a “ooh, ahh” glimpse at Boba Fett (Tamuera Morrison) at the very end. That said, it also makes the smart decision of sharing Cobb’s history (though it could have been more brief) and showcasing a little bit of Mando’s empathy when his new partner was unwilling to reach across the aisle with the Raiders.

Buckle up, because the girl who just took a little bit of a pot shot at the time spent on nostalgia is about to be a tiny bit of a hypocrite: getting a chance to see how the general population responded to the fall of the Death Star was super, super cool. It’s a fleeting moment, but those few seconds illustrate why Rogue One ended up hitting so hard for some fans. It’s not all about the Skywalkers. There’s a whole galaxy that was affected by the Empire’s tyranny, and getting to see how folks reacted in the middle of a desert planet was pretty neat.

And that’s that! “The Marshal” ain’t perfect, but there’s a whole lot to love in its quick forty-six minutes. Hopefully next week’s episode will do more to tell us what’s going on with Mando’s plans and the rest of the universe that Season 1 built up.

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In the first season of The Mandalorian, Mando famously corrects that "Mandalorian isn't a race. It's a creed." Ok, cool, Mando. But that doesn't really answer a lot of our questions. Season 2 of the series will undoubtedly dive into this concept more as we meet the likes of Boba Fett and dive deeper into Mandalorian history, but here's a quick primer for anyone who needs to know now. 

The history of the Mandalorians

The Mandalorians hail from a planet called Mandalore on the outer rim of the galaxy. In the early days, they were the some of the most feared warriors in the system, making themselves a name as both mercenaries and bounty hunters. As with all warrior species, their goals eventually shifted to that of expansion and conquering. Forming a group called the Crusaders, the gathering of Mandalorians would devastate several planets, eventually expanding so far as the Inner Rim where they would wipe out entire cultures (such as the natives of Ubduria). 

This desire to conquer would eventually bring the Crusaders into conflict with the Jedi Order and the rest of the Republic. It was their clash with the Jedi Knights that led to the biggest advancement in their technologies. The Mandalorians weren't prepared for the likes of the force, and were not a culture to merely accept disadvantages. (Magical, unseen "Force" or no.)

Their conflict with the Jedi was nearly constant and spanned for quite some time, but they did have the occasional ally. Tarre Vizsla was Mandalore-born, but was inducted into the Jedi Order as a child. It was Vizsla who would eventually create the infamous Darksaber (that fancy dark blade you saw Moff Giddeon whip out at the end of Season 1).

The culture of the most feared warriors in the galaxy

As you'd expect from the little history lesson above, combat was a critical cornerstone of Mandalorian culture. With that comes the Mandalorian Code, of whose verbiage we remain unsure of outside of "this is the way." Despite a lack of knowledge on what rules come along with the Code, we know that it can be invoked to settle one-on-one disputes, and to acknowledge battles with opponents of great honor (such as a Jedi Knight). Some Mandalorians insist that their Code does not apply to those who were not born on Mandalore (such as Darth Maul, who would at one point flirt with the culture). 

Another key aspect of their culture is the aforementioned Darksaber. It almost becomes a point of worship for some of the Mandalorians, which makes its existence (and the person who is currently in possession of it) in The Mandalorian very, very interesting. 

A Jedi Killer Is Only As Good As His Tools

When you're the tough guy on campus, you don't respond well to visiting a new quadrant and meeting someone who can simply flick you into the atmosphere. Cut to the Crusaders realizing that their raw combat ability couldn't hold a candle to the Jedi Order, and the biggest boom in Mandalorian innovation in history. 

To deal with their new (self appointed) foes, the Mandalorians created armor out of beskar (resistant to damage but malleable enough to be forged). Not the type to allow themselves to remain on the defensive, they also created a whole arsenal of anti-Jedi tools that would include items like their signature jetpacks, tactical displays, armed gauntlets, magnetized boots, and even sonic repulsers that could mimic a Force push. They favored blasters such as the WESTAR-35, and those fancy jetpacks can shoot missiles. 

The fall of the Mandalorians

Ever fight so hard you make your planet uninhabitable? (Not a challenge, Earthlings.) 'Cause that's exactly what The Mandalorians did, and not just because of their ever-constant war with the Jedi. Their issues with the Jedi Knights were many, but there was also a never-ending war between clans on Mandalore. When your sole focus is war, you're gonna bring that war home sooner rather than later. 

After a cataclysmic event caused between a gruesome battle between the Jedi and the Mandalorians wiped out the surface of Mandalore and made the planet uninhabitable, the war between the two factions finally came to a close. The Mandalorians were forced to adapt, containing their civilization in what they called dome cities in an abject refusal to abandon the home they had decimated. Some Mandalorians did choose to flee, deciding to occupy on outer-worlds of the Mandalorian sector. 

Civil War

After you literally fight your own civilization into oblivion, it's inevitable that a new order will come to pass. Out of the devastation of the cataclysmic event came a call for pacifism from some Mandalorians. The New Mandalorians battled with those who would choose to continue in their warrior ways, and eventually came out victorious to create a more peaceful Mandalore. The Death Watch - worshippers of the Darksaber and protectors of the old ways - formed in response to this victory, refusing to let go of the conquering past that nearly wiped out their civilization. Meanwhile, some Mandalorians who wanted to maintain the old ways simply left, choosing to live out their lives as mercenaries out in the universe on their own.

Hopefully, as The Mandalorian continues, we'll learn more about the New Mandalorians, The Death Watch, and the Old Mandalorians. Mostly because you very much need to meet Satine Kryze - leader of the New Mandalorians and Duchess of Mandalore. 

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Fans have been waiting for The Mandalorian Season 2 from the moment they stopped binging its first. Now that we're getting close to the season hitting streaming, we figured it was time to do a quick breakdown of everything you need to know for the upcoming season. Before we kick things off, rest assured that the teams at Disney+ and LucasFilm know how obsessed you are with the series, and have already gotten to work on Season 3. 

Now, how about we kick things off with the most recent sneak peak at the series? 

Where Can I Stream It?

Both seasons (and the future third season) are exclusively available for all of your binge-watch pleasure on Disney+. The Mouse won't be sharing rights for this anytime soon, so now might be the right time to hop on Disney's streaming train. 

What's Season 2 About?

The official synopsis doesn't reveal much about the upcoming season - not unexpected given Disney's history of secrecy - but here it is: 

"The Mandalorian and the Child continue their journey, facing enemies and rallying allies as they make their way through a dangerous galaxy in the tumultuous era after the collapse of the Galactic Empire."

Now, though they're keeping official details close to the vest, there are plenty of details that can be gleaned from the show's first season. Moff Giddeon (Giancarlo Esposito) revealed his possession of the darksaber at the end of Season 1, which sparked a whole host of speculation from fans. Esposito confirmed that we'll learn more about the lore surrounding the saber in an interview with Deadline, so expect more of that in the coming seasons. 

Disney has also confirmed that the infamous Boba Fett will be making an appearance in Season 2, hopefully giving us the opportunity to explore some of the rich lore surrounding the Mandalorians. One can also expect that we'll be learning more about The Child (aka Baby Yoda) before it's all said and done.

• Who are the Mandalorians? 
• What is the Darksaber?
• 'The Mandalorian' Reviews
• Let's talk about Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth 

Who's the Cast?

We'll see a mix of familiar and fresh faces in Season 2, including several exciting additions from canons past. The main cast will feature the following (with minor spoilers for 2.01 below):

• Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) 
• Carl Weathers (Greef Karga) 
• Gina Carano (Cara Dune)
• Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon)

While the above will be our primary focus this season, there's still the aforementioned Boba Fett. The bounty hunter will be played by Temuera Morrison, who has also played Jango Fett in the past. Joining him will be Katee Sackhoff, who will reprise her Clone Wars character Bo-Katan Krynze, and Timothy Olyphant and Cobb Vanth (learned in 2.01). We also know that professional wrestler Sasha Banks, Terminator star Michael Biehn, and Rosario Dawson will have currently unknown parts in the series. (Though, it is currently heavily rumored that Dawson will be playing fan-favorite Ahsoka Tano.)

When Will It Premiere?

The Mandalorian Season 2 is coming in hot on October 30th 2020 for the US and the UK. This season will follow the weekly release schedule again, with the first episode clocking a little longer than the previous season at about 56 minutes. 

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Season 2 of The Mandalorian is headed our way Oct. 30 on Disney+. And we got another sneak peak during Monday Night Football — good thing, too, since the game is mostly about how bad the Cowboys can be.

We know Season 2 is going to be about Mando getting The Child — aka Baby Yoda — back to his kind. Where that is, however, remains something of a mystery. But we do know that the journey won't be easy.

Mando recognizes that he's going to need to find some fellow Mandalorians to help, though. The question is how easy that will be given that they're likely on the run following the events of Season 1.

For those who somehow missed the first round of episodes, The Mandalorian very much was the tentpole feature of Disney+ when the service launched in November 2019. Sure, it had all the legacy Star Wars, and Marvel, and Pixar, and National Geographic. But The Mandalorian was the first new exclusive. And it set the bar extremely high, pretty much guaranteeing a second season out of the gate.

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We're inching ever closer to the second season of Disney+'s smash hit The Mandalorian. Season 1 wowed fans in ways they hadn't come to expect in stories outside of the Skywalker Saga. Now, we're just half a month away from learning more about Mando (Pedro Pascal) and his complicated child. 

In honor of the approaching release, Disney+ has released four new character posters.

We're not sure why the beach filter's turned up so high either. But, outside of being over-warm, they're your pretty standard character fare. These are all characters we know, so these aren't revealing anything surprising. Though can we all take a moment to acknowledge Gina Carano's bicep? Flex, girl. 

As mentioned on the posters, (as well as everywhere else on the internet because Disney has those marketing dollars) you'll be able to watch Season 2 of The Mandalorian October 30th 2020 on Disney+. 

Yeah, we still want to know who Sasha Banks is playing, too! 

The Mandalorian Season 2 trailer is here! And Baby Yoda is going home. Maybe. Having escaped from everyone who wanted them dead in Season 1, Mando and The Child are now in search of the long lost home for our little green friend. 

"You must reunite it with its own kind," we hear the armorer say. "The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi."

Of course, young not-Yoda himself is Force-sensitive and has proven to be able to take care of himself decently enough, but Mando isn't going anywhere. "Where I go, he goes," he says.

Season 2 of The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and Giancarlo Esposito. Like the first season, Season 2 will feature a bevy of directors, including Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rick Famuyiwa, Weathers, Peyton Reed and Robert Rodriguez. Season 2 of The Mandalorian lands on Disney+ on Oct. 30.

Disney+ is the streaming service that houses all things Disney, of course, as well as the entire Star Wars universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pixar and NatGeo. It costs $6.99 a month (or $69.99 a year). And if you're really serious about things, definitely check out the epic Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu bundle that gets you those three services for just $12.99 a month.

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The Mandalorian Season 2 will debut on Disney+ on Oct. 30, the streaming service has announced.

"This is the day," quipped the tweet, playing off the "This is the way" catchphrase used by the Mandalorian bounty hunters.

Not a whole lot is known about the second season, but we have gotten a heads up on a few new characters Rosario Dawson will appear as Ahsoka Tano, a former Jedi Padawan of Anakin Skywalker who became a spy for the Rebel Alliance. Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Riddick, Another Life) will play Bo-Katan Kryze, a former leader of Mandalore and a leader of the Nite Owls group. (You'll know that character if you're a fan of The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.) Timothy Olyphant (Justified, Fargo, Go) serves as Cobb Vanth, an ex-slave who acquired the armor of the one and only Boba Fett, Michael Biehn  (Aliens, The Terminator) shows up as a bounty hunter, and Temuera Morrison (Aquaman, Star Wars: Episode II, Episode III) plays Boba Fett himself.

The Mandalorian premiered in November 2019 as the tentpole exclusive on Disney+, and its second season has been eagerly awaited. The story follows Din Djarin — known simply as "The Mandalorian" between the time after the Empire fell at the end of Return of the Jedi, and the emergence of the First Order in The Force Awakens.

Mando, as he's called, is a lone bounty hunter on the outskirts of the new republic who just wants to do his job. But he's found himself with precious cargo that is a lot more than he bargained for, and which has tested his Mandalorian traditions.

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May the 4th be with you, and also with this new docu-series from Disney+.

May the 4th is a precious day for Star Wars fans, a day that's evolved from a pithy pun into a full-blown Star Wars holiday. This year, it'll be a bittersweet day for fans as that's when Star Wars: The Clone Wars comes to an end with its last episode ever. To help soften that blow, Disney+ is premiering a new docu-series all about everyone's favorite bounty hunter, The Mandalorian, on May the 4th.

The documentary series looks to explore the making of the show that took die-hard Star Wars fans and casual viewers alike by storm, with interviews, never-before-seen footage, and roundtable conversations hosted by the show's executive producer, Jon Favreau:

"'Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian' is an opportunity for fans of the show to take a look inside and get to see a different perspective, and perhaps a greater understanding, of how The Mandalorian came together and some of the incredibly talented contributors throughout Season 1," said Favreau. "We had a great experience making the show and we're looking forward to sharing it with you."

While we Americans have long-since finished the first season, this new series has fortuitous timing for the European markets that got Disney+ last month, as May the 4th will be the three days after the season one finale debuts in Europe. After the first episode on May 4, following episodes will be available each Friday, the standard release day for Disney+.

One thing Star Wars is known for, and the Mandolorian is not, is its epic lightsaber battles. From the dance-like moves of the Prequels, the modern action of the Sequels, the violent explosive action of the games, nothing gets Star Wars fan more revved up than a good old lightsaber duel.

The Mandalorian Season One had a dearth of those kinds of battles, and Season 2 seems to be making up for it.

As reported by Comicbook.com :

Mando star Giancarlo Esposito was on hand at FAN EXPO Vancouver earlier this month, where he revealed to an eager crowd he's gotten plenty of time using the Darksaber during the course of Season Two production.

"The prop guys are wondering about me because I was in a bit of a commotion and a bit of a struggle with someone else, which I'm hoping you will enjoy when you see it," Esposito said during his spotlight panel. "Major, major, epic, epic lightsaber action happening on this show, and I should mention that I'm the only character in this first season who was able to be honored with having that lightsaber. So it feels wonderful."

Naturally, they were quick to ask whether or not Moff Gideon would be going toe-to-toe with a lightsaber-wielding Din Djarin or Baby Yoda, a notion the actor quickly shut down.

"Well, no way. [Laughs]," the Mando star added. "It ain't gonna happen, baby! Anything is possible, and you keep watching. Because although the baby has some incredible power, without having to wield the Darksaber, I think the baby is so curious about what this is. So you will be enthused and inspired when you see the scene I'm referring to in Season 2, which is to come in October. Keep watching."

The Mandalorian is coming to Disney+ in the UK next month when it launches, but users on all regions will have to wait till October for the next installment of this Star Wars story.

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Despite the Mandalorian already being completely finished in the U.S., Disney may stagger its release in the UK to mirror the U.S. release. Instead of an all in one drop as Netflix has trained its users to expect, Disney is apparently aiming more for a drip-feed of content. The inference came from a tweet made by Disney Plus's UK account, stating that the show would begin rolling out from the 24th.

The tweet, spotted by TechRadar :

It seems odd for Disney to artificially limit the release of a show that has already been disseminated, especially when the said show is probably feely available for curious internet users. On the other hand, there's a kind of logic to this. Releasing shows week by week leads to a shared cultural conversational domination that isn't quite there for a binge-able show.

Take Game of Thrones for instance. For a little over two months, the show dominated conversation both online and offline around the watercooler. In the meantime, the better received Stranger Things could barely drive discourse for a single month.

Or as The Ringer puts it:

Binging tends to erode the episode as an art form, compress conversation around a show into days rather than months, and otherwise encourage the siloing of what was once a collective experience into millions of personalized ecosystems."

Disney Plus and the Mandalorian launches on March 24th in the UK and other Western European regions.

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