The Mandalorian‘s second arc ended with a bang. After a daring rescue mission to retrieve Grogu from Moff Gideon’s evil clutches, the gang were cornered on the ship’s bridge by a squad of killer robot Death Troopers. It looked like the end was nigh until a single X-Wing arrived and a hooded figure emerged. As he carved his way through the droids with a familiar green lightsaber, fans became increasingly excited as it turned out that this was indeed Luke Skywalker coming to save the day.
It was the cherry on top of a fantastic season that went a long way to helping us forget the catastrophic Rise of Skywalker. Since then, Lucasfilm has unveiled a whole bunch of Mandalorian spinoff shows, with the core series about to shoot its next batch of episodes imminently.
Given that Grogu’s departed with Luke to continue being trained in the Force, the stage is set for a story about a power struggle between Bo-Katan and Din Djarin over the future of Mandalore and the Darksaber. Beyond that vague outline, we don’t know much, but a new report from The DisInsider says that we’ll also see the debut of a Wookiee (or Wookiees).
In retrospect, it’s surprising there hasn’t been a Wookiee in the show already as the practical costumes are a great fit for the budget and aesthetic. In addition, Wookiees have popped up as bounty hunters in various Star Wars media, with my favorite being the genuinely despicable Hanharr in Knights of the Old Republic 2. While it’d be possible for the series to simply have a cameo from Chewbacca, I’d love to see a Wookiee character that demonstrates that they’re not all rough and tumble good guys.
The Mandalorian‘s third season was supposed to begin production on April 5th, but we haven’t seen anything indicating that filming has begun. They’d better get a move on, though, as Pedro Pascal is scheduled to start shooting HBO’s hotly-anticipated The Last of Us adaptation in July.
