Gina Carano has been in the news a lot lately, and not just because of her return as Cara Dune in The Mandalorian season 2. The former MMA star-turned-actress has been voicing some controversial political opinions on Twitter recently, touching on everything from the presidential election to the COVID-19 outbreak to the use of pronouns, which has severely impacted on her popularity. There’s an increasing sense, then, that she may be removed from the hit Disney Plus show soon.
If this is something that the producers are seriously considering, the latest episode of the series may have accidentally set up a way to seamlessly write Cara out of the picture. In “Chapter 12: The Siege,” we learned that she’s actually from Alderaan, the home planet of Leia Organa. By the end of the outing, representatives of the New Republic arrive on the scene and one offers Cara a place with them, given her military history and her Alderaanian origins. She dismisses the offer, but we later seeing her looking longingly at a New Republic medal, suggesting she could change her mind.
It’s likely that this plotline was intended to establish Cara Dune embarking on her own adventures in a potential spinoff series, something that has been talked about a lot in the recent past. After she became a breakout character in season 1, that definitely seemed like a smart move for Disney, but not so much anymore. In fact, recent reports have said that Lucasfilm has quietly canned the idea in light of Carano’s social media scandals and if that’s the case, then Cara heading off to join the New Republic could close the door on the character instead of opening up a new one for her.
It’s important to note there’s been no official word on whether the studio is thinking of letting Carano go, of course, but if they are, then The Mandalorian season 2 may have stumbled upon the perfect way to do it.