Each week, Anthony Breznican and Joanna Robinson will break down the latest episode of The Mandalorian—and speculate about what’s to come.
Joanna Robinson: Well, we’re back in the Sarlacc pit, Anthony, with The Mandalorian’s Season 2 premiere. I guess I should start by saying what we’re hoping to do with this column every week, which is to combine your unparalleled Star Wars expertise with my fondness for Timothy Olyphant’s helmet-proof hair. I hope folks understand that if they’re reading this, they can expect to find spoilers for the latest episode of the Disney+ show. But just in case they stumbled in this far with a case of hibernation-induced blindness, let me just say clearly and for the record: here be spoilers.
While discussing Season 1 last year, I know we spent a lot of time talking about how Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s western in space felt tailor-made for a meme-ready internet eager to fall in love with The Child (or, as he’s more commonly if erroneously known: Baby Yoda)—and for the generation of folks who grew up on a steady diet of original, non-CGI Star Wars as well. But I must say, if S1 was made for them, then I am convinced the Season 2 premiere was made specifically for me.
I’m a massive fan of Justified, which ran from 2010-2015 on FX and starred Olyphant as the charismatic US Marshal Raylan Givens, who had a fondness for hats and a great head of hair to match. I knew Olyphant would be in this season of The Mandalorian, but I had no idea that he would be playing a carbon copy of my beloved Raylan—only this time, in a borrowed helmet. His character—Cobb Vanth, the blaster-slinging protector of the former mining colony Mos Pelgo—may just be here for one episode, but a girl can hope that he and his space spurs will be back for more. On top of all that, The Mandalorian pays homage to my favorite B movie of all time, Tremors, by giving us a plot to blow up a menacing Krayt Dragon. Pure Joanna bait!
How did the premiere land with you, Anthony? Were you thinking Tremors, or was your head firmly in Dune territory?
Anthony Breznican: I definitely said out loud, That’s pretty Dune, when the ground began to roll with a subterranean dragon beneath it. I also get a kick out of Olyphant and his panoply of laid-back lawmen, so just as it was fun to see him play the malevolent version of a Texas Ranger on the recent season of Fargo, I was happy to see him turn up as a galactic sheriff in The Mandalorian.
I’m also a fan of author Chuck Wendig. Olyphant’s character of Cobb Vanth is taken directly from the sci-fi/fantasy writer’s Star Wars books, known as the Aftermath trilogy. As the title suggests, this was the connective tissue between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, showing us what went down after the Empire collapsed.
In the first book, Vanth appears in a kind of short-story interlude as a Tatooine sheriff perusing some Jawa junk with a manager from a mining company that has come to exploit the town. That’s where he finds the pitted and acid-scarred Mandalorian armor, along with remnants of a blown-up Hutt sail barge. Wendig didn’t—or couldn’t—explicitly say it belonged to Boba Fett, but he walked right up to the line of deniability. Just as Favreau and Filoni have done with this show, Wendig’s character was a way to give us Fett without it actually being Fett.
The origin for Vanth is slightly different in The Mandalorian, which shows Jawas saving him from certain death in the desert. But the result is same: He walks away with armor that gives him not just physical protection, but a certain swagger of authority that helps him protect the poor, dusty folks of Mos Pelgo.