Fans of The Mandalorian are counting down the days till February 2023. That’s when Season 3 of the hit Disney+ show makes its debut. So what’s in store for Mando and his surrogate son, Baby Yoda? While teaser footage and a trailer released earlier this year showed us that the pair were heading to Mandalore, their visit to Din Djarin’s home planet won’t be a peaceful one, with at least two people gunning for the duo.
The new season of The Mandalorian will arrive on Disney+ February 2023. Filming began in October 2021, following a COVID delay, and wrapped in March 2022. As the first two seasons of the show both had eight episodes, it’s likely Season 3 will have the same.
When we last saw Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Baby Yoda (aka Grogu), they had reunited in The Book of Boba Fett. That’s after Grogu chose not to continue training in the ways of the Force with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Our “clan of two” were seen leaving Tatooine in the Mandalorian’s souped-up N-1 Starfighter.
Mando is in possession of the Darksaber after defeating Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) in combat. That technically makes him the ruler of Mandalore. But there’s a hitch—he was told by the Armorer (Emily Swallow) that he broke a cardinal rule of his sect. Because he took off his helmet, he’s no longer a Mandalorian. She tells him that “according to creed, one may only be redeemed in the living waters beneath the mines of Mandalore.” Footage seen so far from Season 3 appears to show that that’s where Din and Grogu are headed.
Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) returns in Season 3, looking to reclaim the Darksaber and, with it, the title of ruler of Mandalore. (According to lore, Mando can’t just give her the Darksaber, she has to defeat him in battle to get it.) Bo-Katan is seen in the trailer sitting on a throne in a broken-down palace and she doesn’t appear to be too pleased to spot Din: “Your cult fractured our people—where were you then?” she tells him, referring to the Children of the Watch. Fans will remember that Din also owes her a debt—in Season 2, she agreed to help rescue Grogu from Moff Gideon as long as Din would help her and her Nite Owls take back Mandalore. “She’s not necessarily happy,” Sackhoff told ScreenRant at the D23 Expo in September 2022, adding that she spends a lot of time with Grogu this season.
The last time we saw Moff Gideon, he had been turned over to the New Republic to be tried for his crimes. But he’s back in Season 3, and badder than ever.
“[Gideon] has an agenda all of his own,” Esposito told Steele Wars at Star Wars Celebration in June 2022. “He’s been a warden of a certain part of the galaxy. He wants to bring all the other wardens together for what reason? Why can’t he just live in peace in his own little piece of paradise? There’s gotta be a reason that he’s bringing all of them together because he must have an agenda of his own.”
4. What did the new trailer reveal—and what about those fan theories?
So. Many. Mandalorians. Bo-Katan can be heard in the trailer asking Grogu, “Did you think your dad was the only Mandalorian?” And footage from Season 3 showed several of the helmeted warriors, mercenaries, and bounty hunters seen engaging in battle (does this mean that Bo-Katan’s Nite Owls and Din’s Children of the Watch are teaming up?). We also see the ruins of the Mandalore capital of Sundari. In addition, we see Mando and Baby Yoda in a dark underground cavern that looks to be the Mandalore mines.
It also looks like the Death Watch is back, with Mandalorians spotted wearing the group’s icon in a fight on a city street. Bo-Katan once served among Darth Maul’s Death Watch and it was this group that rescued Din as a child.
Another shot also hints that Maul’s legacy may play a part in Season 3. Maul lost Mandalore and the Death Watch when he was defeated by Ahsoka Tano in the animated Clone Wars series. However, the trailer shows Mandalorians wearing red and black armor associated with Maul. The Armorer also wears a helmet that features horns that harken back to Maul’s horns. (Ray Park, the actor who played the red and black warrior, has not been shy about his desire to return as the Sith lord.)
We also get a glimpse of Dr. Pershing (Omid Abtahi), the Imperial scientist and cloning engineer who we saw previously conducting experiments with Grogu’s blood (rich in midi-chlorians, which Force-sensitive beings use to communicate). A popular fan theory is that the focus of Pershing’s midi-chlorian experiments is bringing Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious back to life. After all, he made a reappearance in the 2019 Star Wars film The Rise of Skywalker.
Season 3 also sees the reappearance of a droid from Star Wars lore. You can spot R5-D4, the droid with the bad motivator from 1977’s A New Hope, in Peli Motto’s (Amy Sedaris) workshop in earlier episodes of The Mandalorian. In the trailer for Season 3, the droid is serving as Din’s astromech on his ship.
Speaking of returns, the trailer also offered a glimpse of Babu Frik, the little Anzellan who toiled in a workshop on Kijimi in The Rise of Skywalker.
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5. Who’s returning?
In addition to Pascal, Baby Yoda, Sackhoff, Esposito, Abtahi and Swallow, Carl Weathers returns as Nevarro magistrate Greef Karga. Temuera Morrison, who plays Boba Fett, also made an appearance at the Mandalorian panel at Star Wars Celebration. There is speculation that he and Fett’s cohort Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) will make an appearance in Season 3. Rosario Dawson, who plays Ahsoka Tano and has been busy filming her own spinoff series, also took to the stage. Maybe we will see her in The Mandalorian again before Ahsoka debuts later in 2023. The teaser released in June offered glimpses of Sedaris and Paul Sun-Huyng Lee (who plays Captain Carson Teva). Meanwhile, photos from the set also showed Simon Kassianides filming a scene for the new season. Kassianides previously played a member of the Night Owls.
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6. New cast members
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news in March that Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd stars in an undisclosed role. In addition, Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows is also joining the cast.
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7. A dream cameo
Mandalorian creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have cast famous faces in cameo roles. Those cameos include Horatio Sanz, Jason Sudeikis, and Danny Trejo. But there is one person who remains at the top of their list: Star Wars creator George Lucas. The writer, director, and producer previously played blue-skinned politician Baron Papanoida in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, with Filoni telling Entertainment Weekly that if Lucas popped up on The Mandalorian, “He’d have to be the son of Baron Papanoida or something like that.”
The former MMA fighter, who played Cara Dune in Seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian was fired by Disney in February 2021 for controversial posts on social media. She also ridiculed the wearing of masks to protect against COVID-19. In a statement at the time, Lucasfilm said, “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.”
In an interview with Tucker Carlson in September 2022, Carano said, “I became a fan favorite in The Mandalorian, but they didn’t even let me do any interviews once I started becoming controversial, and I wasn’t beating to their drum.” She insisted that she was a victim of cancel culture mentality: “They came after me so hard, they tried to make an example out of me.”
Weathers and Jurassic World actress Bryce Dallas Howard directed previous episodes of The Mandalorian. They’re both back behind the camera for Season 3. Weathers told fans at Star Wars Celebration that he got really lucky with a “really good script and good actors” for his episode, adding, “It’s a wonderful sandbox to play in.”
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10. Will Samuel L. Jackson make an appearance?
When we last saw Samuel L. Jackson in the Star Wars universe, his character, Mace Windu, lost a hand to Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). He was also blasted out of a window by Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), seemingly falling to his death in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. Jackson is eager to make a return and admitted on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in March 2022 that he’d spoken to his Argylle co-star Howard about it.
“There’s a huge history of people with one hand returning in Star Wars…The only person I’ve ever said that to about coming back was Bryce Dallas Howard, ’cause I just did a movie with her,” Jackson said. “And she directs episodes of The Mandalorian, so, ‘You think you might be able to hook a brother up? I mean, you like me, right?’ She’s like, ‘I love you, you’re amazing!’, ‘So put me back in there. Put me in, Coach. I’m ready!’ You know, I’ll learn to lightsaber left-handed. Come on, hook me up.”
Yes! Favreau confirmed in May 2022 that he is already working on Season 4. “As we tell stories, those stories take on lives of their own and they have trajectories. And then as those trajectories begin to organically intersect, larger stories with more characters start to make more sense…As Dave’s doing Ahsoka, it’s very much informing the writing I’m doing for Season 4,” he told CinemaBlend at Star Wars Celebration in June 2022 of his co-creator Filoni.
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