The Mandalorian season 2 Easter eggs are taking the hunt to another level. The premiere saw links to the prequels, original trilogy, and even the video games hiding in plain sight. This week is no different – including cameos from famous faces, classic Star Wars species popping up, creepy creatures that have a storied history in a galaxy far, far away, and so much more. We’ve combed through every frame of the new Chapter in the Disney Plus series this week and put them all in one place – so you can impress your friends (from a distance).
Trask
Mando is tasked with helping a Frog Lady ferry her cargo (her eggs, gross) across the star system. Their destination? A moon called Trask. It’s actually a new Star Wars location – which is cool in and of itself – but the name “Trask” has ties to other figures in the franchise.
Trask is the name of multiple characters in the now non-canon Legends series of stories, while the only current canon recipient of the name Trask is hidden away in RPG board game Lead by Example. There, Trask was a sergeant in the Rebel Alliance.
May the Force Be With You
Hearing “May the Force Be With You” is nothing new in Star Wars, but Mando’s frosty chat with the New Republic pilots (one of them is a familiar face as you’ll soon see) adds an extra dimension to the line. It’s Din Djarin’s response after that’s most pleasing to long-term fans. He says “And to you” in response, something that has (remarkably) never been uttered before in canon but is a favourite reply of Star Wars fans everywhere.
The spiders
Arachnophobics, beware. Chapter 9 is filled to the brim with not only Easter eggs, but spider eggs too. The Child, unfortunately, decides to munch on the arachnid spawn, waking up most of the brood.
The spiders are a deep Star Wars cut too. Their origins date back to an unused piece of concept art for a knobby white spider in The Empire Strikes Back. Part of their design was used in Star Wars: Rebels for the creatures known as krykna, but this seems to like a return to Episode 5’s plans.
New Republic pilots (and Dave Filoni) commandeer a familiar ship
It’s easy to forget where The Mandalorian is set on the Star Wars timeline. We got a quick reminder this week thanks to pilots Captain Carson Teva and Trapper Wolf. They’ve been patrolling the Outer Rim and are especially wary of anyone who doesn’t have their transponder on – they’re clearly still looking for remnants of the Empire.
Trapper Wolf, though, is the most interesting of the pair. He’s played by Dave Filoni, showrunner of Star Wars: Rebels and The Clone Wars. He even appeared in the first season, so it’s nice to see him making a return – especially in the iconic X-Wing.
Zero
The Richard Ayoade-voiced droid Zero may have been permanently decommissioned by Mando in the first season, though he still makes a return here. He’s first glimpsed as part of the wire-filled pile of scraps on The Mandalorian’s ship, and is then taken over by the Frog Lady passenger, who uses the droid’s vocabulator to help translate her language into something more understandable to The Mandalorian.
Frog Lady’s actor
It doesn’t happen often, but actors can double up on Star Wars roles. Not often as close as this, mind. Misty Rosas played the grumpy ugnaught, Kuiil (which was voiced by Nick Nolte). In season 2, she plays the Frog Lady who has to be escorted across the galaxy and will hopefully lead Mando into the path of some other Mandalorians in future.
Jawas
Surely everyone caught this one? The teeny-tiny hooded figures on Tatooine were seen hanging around outside Mos Eisley cantina (another Easter egg) early in the episode.
Dr. Mandible
The ant-like alien sitting across from Amy Sedaris’ Peli doesn’t look like any species we’ve come across so far in Star Wars. A new species is a pretty big deal – but it’s likely a nod to Ant Man director Peyton Reed, who also directed this episode.
Sabacc
Unless you’ve got an encyclopaedic knowledge of the games some of the scum and villainy partake in in-between backstabbing, you might not have heard of Sabacc, the game played by Dr Mandible and Peli.
It’s a card game that was featured in a handful of novels (and an early draft for The Empire Strikes Back) before making its most well-known appearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story. As for the rules, it’s essentially blackjack but it’s first to 23 and with a larger deck.
Huttese
The Mandalorian has a way with words, clearly. He speaks a tiny amount of Huttese – the language of the Hutts – to the Frog Lady in a big to find a common tongue between te pair. He fails, but Jabba would be proud of his dialect, that’s for sure.
Don't miss out on next week's episode: find out when it drops with The Mandalorian season 2 release schedule.
