'The Mandalorian' Season Two Trailer Shows the Star Wars Story Fans Have Been Waiting For

From Esquire

We're in the dark times now.

The Skywalker Saga is kaput and The Clone Wars animated series has wrapped up for good. If you're looking for a Star Wars fix nowadays, all you can really do is try to make sense of The Rise of Skywalker's cloning situation (good luck!), or watch The Mandalorian making-of series on Disney Plus, where you'll be hard-pressed to find that dopamine hit that rushes upon the mere sight of Baby Yoda.

Thankfully, we're not far away from The Mandalorian's return for Season Two. On Sept. 15 Disney dropped the first trailer for the next chapter of its hit Star Wars TV series. Now, we have a fairly clear idea of what Mando and his green friend will be up to this fall—and it sounds even more exciting than their Season One hijinks. Here’s everything we know about The Mandalorian Season Two so far.

What Did We See in the First Trailer?

The first trailer for Season Two of The Mandalorian, thankfully provided a much-needed outline for what's to come. It seems that Mando is being tasked with linking up Baby Yoda with what's left of the Jedi. And Mando sounds skeptical, as he should be considering how bad relations with the Mandalorian and Jedi have been historically. And, at one point, we see a mysterious robed figure watching Mando and Baby Yoda as a voiceover explains how the Jedi will play into this adventure. Could that be the long awaited return of the beloved animated character Ahsoka?

When is The Mandalorian coming back for Season Two?

This one’s easy. You really think Disney was going to wait too long before dropping more episodes of its flagship show? (Aside from High School Musical: The Musical, of course.) Jon Favreau, the executive producer of The Mandalorian, first announced via Twitter and Instagram that Season Two will debut Fall 2020. And in early February, former Disney CEO Bob Iger pinned the release date to October 2020. Of course, once March hit, fans wondered whether or not the coronavirus pandemic has affected the production of The Mandalorian. Thankfully, Disney announced via Twitter that new episodes will start streaming on October 30th.

We’ll get to that World of Warcraft-looking alien in a bit here.

What is The Mandalorian Season Two going to be about?

In the least Disney-era Star Wars fashion possible, The Mandalorian staved off the urge to cameo or tease, instead giving us a straight-up plot description of Season Two during the finale.

About three-fourths of the way through Episode 8, Mando and his crew run into the Armorer—who we learn is working to save the remains of the Mandalorian clan, which was just recently wiped out by Stormtroopers. When she catches up with Mando, the Armorer engraves a symbol on the bounty hunter’s armor—one that symbolizes his next mission, showing that Mando and Baby Yoda are a two-person clan now. The Armorer says, “Until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father. This is the way.”

The Armorer tasks Mando with what’ll likely be a galaxy-spanning quest: Return Baby Yoda to the Yoda people, even if the Jedi are “sorcerers” and enemies of the Mandalorians, as she tells him. Pedro Pascal, who plays Mando in the show, told EW that his parenting skills will be tried and tested along the way.

“We start very directly after the first [season] and he's going into very dangerous territory," Pascal said. "He is very much a passenger to the experience in unexpected ways—not knowing what’s to come, not knowing how much or how best to protect the Child. We don’t know how far he will go to do that, and they’re finding new ways to push the envelope.”

There’s your A plot for Season Two. B plot? You don’t cast Giancarlo Esposito as a big bad and give him two episodes of action. In the closing moments of the finale, Moff Gideon, (the Imperial officer hellbent on taking Baby Yoda away from Space Dad) crashes his fighter into the desert—and cuts his way out with a freaking Darksaber.

Considering the Darksaber was first created by a Mandalorian, you can expect The Mandalorian’s next batch of episodes to unpack the motivations and background of Gideon—who, considering the sweet weapon, is a force-sensitive Mandalorian. EW's first look found confirmation of Gideon's increased role from none other than Esposito himself. Season Two will see Gideon chasing Mando and Baby Yoda while the duo is on their quest.

“I’ll be going toe-to-toe with Mando,” Esposito said. “It’s an iconic battle. I want to disarm him mentally as well. Who knows? Maybe there’s an opportunity to get him to fight some battles for me. You may think I’m a villain, but I’m trying to harness some energy and some powers for a path that could be best for all. You'll get to see him be somewhat diplomatic and more of a manipulator."

If that's not enough of a tease for you (Mando on the dark side?!) Esposito added that he'll find some coveted alone time with Baby Yoda, as well as pilot “a larger vehicle, hint-hint” in Season Two.

Will Season Two return to any established Star Wars locations, or reintroduce any original trilogy or animated series characters?

In late March, we received our first bit of major Mandalorian news in months: Rosario Dawson is set to play the live-action version of Ahsoka Tano, a fan-favorite character from the Star Wars: Rebels and Clone Wars series. Days before the casting, we wrote that her return to Clone Wars meant that she would likely become a player in the Star Wars Disney+ shows—and that turned out to be exactly the case. So you can look forward to Anakin Skywalker’s padawan likely showing up to give Mando and his crew a much-needed, Force-using hand against Moff Gideon.

Ahsoka Tano likely won't be the only Rebels/Clone Wars animated seriescharacter making a live-action debut, either—there are reports that Katee Sackhoff will reprise Bo-Katan in the next season. The uptick in old Star Wars friends seems to match what Favreau teased to EW—a Season Two that goes beyond the world of Mando and Baby Yoda.

“The new season is about introducing a larger story in the world,” Favreau said. “The stories become less isolated, yet each episode has its own flavor, and hopefully we’re bringing a lot more scope to the show.”

Now, let's revisit that bruiser of a Star Wars creature Favreau showed in his Season Two announcement posts. I know there’s been a lot of Star Wars in the world recently, but think back to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The alien in Favreau’s photos is a Gamorrean—AKA the same species as the guards in Jabba the Hutt’s palace.

Considering the big ol’ slug was killed in Return of the Jedi, there are only a couple ways The Mandalorian could revisit Jabba’s corner of the galaxy for Season Two. Most likely, considering The Mandalorian takes place five years after Return of the Jedi, Favreau could be looking to explore what happened to Jabba’s criminal empire after his death. Considering Mando’s already deep in the same shady underworld, it’s not hard to imagine him running into the Michael Corleone of the Hutt family.

And if that’s not enough of a tease, Deadline reported that “Insiders have hinted that several established characters from the Skywalker saga’s feature films mythology will make appearances” in Season Two. In May, that proved true when we learned that we’ll finally see the return (or to be more accurate, resurrection) of Star Wars’ OG Mandalorian, Boba Fett. His role, which will be filled by Temuera Morrsion, who previously played Jango Fett in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, will reportedly be a small one.

We’ll see when Raising Baby Yoda, um, The Mandalorian returns in October.

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