Mandalorian EP: I Had to Stop Myself From Writing a 'Baby Yoda' Shoutout — Plus, Will Ahsoka Tano Return?

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If you half-expected The Mandalorian‘s Ahsoka Tano to remark that the Child looks like a “Baby Yoda,” you are far from alone in wanting the meta moment.

Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni — who wrote and directed the fifth episode of Season 2, which marked Rosario Dawson’s TVLine Performer of the Week-worthy debut as the aforementioned live-action Jedi — quipped in this excellent Vanity Fair Q&A that he himself was tempted to pay the “Baby Yoda” moniker some on-screen lip service.

“[O]ne of the most compelling things about introducing Ahsoka is that she is one of the few, few people that we could encounter in a story and she would say, ‘All right. I met someone like [the Child]. I’ve only ever seen one other being like this,'” Filoni acknowledged. “I had to stop myself from doing something ridiculous like have her say, ‘Is that a Yoda baby?’ It almost demands to be said.”

And yet it wasn’t. Instead, Ahsoka simply told her new Mandalorian friend, aka Grogu’s diligent caretaker, “I’ve only known one other being like this — a wise Jedi master named Yoda” (at which moment the score sampled Star Wars composer John Williams’ “Yoda’s Theme”).

At episode’s end, Ahsoka maintained that she would not be able to resume the training Grogu started years ago at a Jedi temple on Coruscant, sensing that the wee one’s attachment to Mando would make him too vulnerable to fear, anger, suffering yada yada (yoda yoda?). Though she did suggest that if the Child were brought to a seeing stone at the ruins of a Jedi temple on the planet Tython, he might, just might, summon another Jedi up for the task.

As for Ahsoka herself, might she be seen again? A screenshot of some Instagram action between her and fellow Mandalorian guest star Simon Kassianides, who earlier this season appeared alongside Katie Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan as Axe Woves, suggests they did share scenes together. In which case, an Ahsoka encore — and a live-action “reunion” with Bo-Katan — in fact awaits us.

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