Following the finale of The Mandalorian season 2, fans are left with many big questions and plot threads heading into season 3.
Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 2.
Earlier this week, the finale of the second season of the live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian aired on Disney+, bringing the climax to the season-long adventure.
Over the past two years, the Mandalorian series has reinvigorated the Star Wars fanbase, bringing together old school fans and the new generation alike, and at the conclusion of the finale, titled “Chapter 16: The Rescue,” the landscape of Star Wars going forward has changed.
Just to recap, in the finale, Mando and his allies managed to track down Moff Gideon’s Imperial Cruiser and get on board, where after a lot of fighting and blaster fire, they managed to take over the bridge of the ship, and Din Djarin defeated Gideon in single combat, rescued the Child and took the Darksaber from him.
However, the biggest shock of all was seeing a digitally de-aged Luke Skywalker appear at the end to save them all from an army of Dark Troopers, which was an inclusion very few could have anticipated.
Once the day had been saved, Djarin removed his helmet and bid farewell to his companion and allowed Grogu to leave with Luke so he can be properly trained in the ways of the Force. And in the Post-Credit Scene, Boba Fett returned to Tatooine and took the throne of the Hutt Crime Family.
While the journey of Din Djarin and Grogu has come to an end with Star Wars fans are still left with many unanswered questions that will hopefully be answered in season 3 of the series.
Fans will have some time to wait before the release of the third season, as Disney already confirmed it will debut roughly one year from now around Christmas of 2021.
Until then, fans can only speculate what to expect in the third season and what questions will be answered. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of season 2, here are the three big questions that come to mind.
1. Will Din Djarin join Bo-Katan in her quest to reclaim Mandalore?
One of the unresolved plot threads stemming from the season 2 finale is the rightful owner of the Darksaber and the throne to Mandalore.
From both the Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels cartoon series’, where the Darksaber was previously featured, the saber was synonymous with the ruler of Mandalore, and whoever wields it can lay claim to the planet’s throne.
The issue that the show ran into is that Din Djarin was the one who disarmed Moff Gideon and therefore, is now the Darksaber’s rightful owner. He offered it to Bo-Katan and yielded himself to her. However, she refused to claim it from him — as in her eyes, it would be illegitimate.
With his quest to reunite Grogu with a Jedi to train him completed, with his ship, the Razor Crest, destroyed and his former Covert of Mandalorians on Nevarro disbanded, Din Djarin now lacks direction in the galaxy far, far away.
He could return to Nevarro with Cara Dune, either helping her as a Marshall of the New Republic or go back to a life of bounty hunting. However, as the owner of the Darksaber, Din could decide to help Bo retake what would be both of their ancestral homeworlds.
It may not have been his interest initially, and he seemed not to care for the Darksaber once receiving it, but after his adventures with Grogu, Din Djarin could desire a higher calling in the galaxy than life as a bounty hunter and could agree to help liberate Mandalore from the Empire’s influence, which in my opinion, makes for a much more interesting story.
2. What was Moff Gideon using Grogu’s blood for?
Earlier in season 2, in the episode titled “Chapter 12: The Siege,” Mando, Cara and Greef Karga infiltrate an Imperial base where they stumble upon several tanks filled with humanoid creatures and a holocron of the Doctor from Kamino explaining that they were part of experiments involving Grogu’s blood.
Later on in the Finale, Gideon notes that he does not have a specific interest in the Child but rather his blood and his particularly high “M-count”, which likely is an abbreviation for midi-chlorians, which was said in the prequel trilogy to measure a being’s connection to the Force.
While we know that the experiments in question involve Grogu’s blood, Star Wars fans are still left unsure what specifically was being done with it. One theory is that his blood is being used to grant Force abilities to the test subjects while others believe they are trying to clone Force-users all together.
Dr. Pershing was from Kamino, the planet that famously developed the clone army that served the Republic during the Clone Wars, giving credence to the idea Gideon was trying to clone an army of Force-users to help retake the Galaxy.
This is a practice seen in Star Wars Legends, notably in the Force Unleashed II video game, where the player uses a clone of Starkiller, the protagonist of the first game. However, various times in the game, it was thought to be impossible to clone a Jedi, and Vader mentioned several times that previous clones of Starkiller experienced defects.
Regardless of what the end result is, it will be an interesting plot thread to help unwind in season 3, as clearly, the showrunners left Gideon alive so he could answer some of these questions.
3. Will Grogu and Luke Skywalker reappear in season 3?
While the show is called The Mandalorian, Grogu, also known as “the Child” (or more popularly online as “Baby Yoda”) has been featured in almost every episode, along with the Mandalorian himself, Din Djarin.
While it appears, for now, their adventure together has come to a close, Din did promise the Child when he said goodbye that they would see each other again one day. And if he ends up working with Bo Katan to try and retake Mandalore, help from a Jedi such as Luke could be well warranted — and with it, the return of Grogu.
Additionally, I just find it highly unlikely that we have seen the last of Grogu, as the Child has become a fan-favorite character among Star Wars fans (and one of the top merchandise sellers for the brand).
While he could pop up with Luke in another series running during the same timeframe as The Mandalorian, such as in the Ahsoka series or in the Rogue Squadrons spinoff, I feel that is more than likely Grogu will make another appearance in the series he debuted in, but whether or not that is in season 3 remains to be seen.
But as mentioned, being that Grogu is the most popular character to come out of this new wave of Star Wars properties, even if he and Luke are not in the third season, I would not expect either of them to be off our screens for very long.
What other questions do you have about The Mandalorian seasons 2 and 3? Let us know in the comments!