The Mandalorian finally returned to our screens today with the first episode of its second season. Much like last time, Disney Plus had refrained from spoiling much prior to its arrival, so we didn’t know a lot going in. Now that the outing is here, though, it’s become clear that the show has finally made a long-held fan theory come true. And it’s all to do with the introduction of Timothy Olyphant’s character.
Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin returns to Tatooine in the opener and seeks out a local marshal he’s heard is a Mandalorian like him. In fact, the man is actually Cobb Vanth, who bought his Mandalorian suit of armor from Jawas, who scavenged it from a certain Sarlaac pit in the desert. Vanth acts as a lawkeeper for the city of Mos Pelgo and while there, he teams up with Djarin to take down a krayt dragon, with Vanth ultimately giving up the armor to the bounty hunter.
For one episode, then, The Mandalorian became the show that fans thought it would be when it was first announced. Back in the day, all we knew about the series was that it starred a guy in Mandalorian armor who wasn’t Boba Fett. This led to speculation that Vanth would be the main character, with the title actually being ironic, as Vanth was created by writer Chuck Wendig for his Aftermath novels.
Obviously, this theory didn’t turn out to be correct, as showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni instead created their own protagonist in Djarin. However, Vanth has now finally made his live-action debut, with the possibility there for him to return. This is probably one of those chicken-and-the-egg situations and we’ll never find out whether the EPs already planned to use Vanth in the show or if they got the idea from the fans, but it’s fun to ponder regardless.
The Mandalorian continues next Friday on Disney Plus.