The major pieces of The Mandalorian‘s plot are finally starting to fall into place, after last week’s episode revealed why Moff Gideon and his followers are so keen to get their hands on Baby Yoda. That being said, the show isn’t known for powering through the major story beats, so things will obviously take a lot longer to come together, and based on recent comments by Giancarlo Esposito, we might not even find out the full extent of his character’s plan until season 3.
The smash hit Disney Plus series follows a standard formula that lays out the narrative in broad strokes, before the title hero and his adopted son tend to get distracted by a subplot that makes the progress to their final destination that little bit slower. The latest run of episodes has already introduced Boba Fett and Bo-Katan into the mix, with Ahsoka Tano likely set to debut on Friday, but there’s no guarantee that all of the major players will even interact with each other this season.
In fact, in a recent interview, Esposito admitted that the next run will feature much more Moff Gideon after he’s been reduced to brief appearances and holograms so far, meaning that we might not discover his endgame for a while yet.
“I have a feeling you’ll see more of me next season. More than likely you’re going to see a lot of Moff Gideon. I can’t be sure of that, but it seems as though this iconic journey that they want you to feel it. I think you’re going to start to see other storylines start to creep in. When we start to realize there’s such a deep connection between the show’s storylines and the rest of the galaxy and what’s really happening. Maybe you’ll get an inkling of what he wants.”
The Mandalorian should be commended for taking a slow-burning approach to the Star Wars mythology, especially in an era where attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been, but the show can’t keep spinning its wheels forever. Jon Favreau is already incorporating elements from both animated canon and the movies, but holding off on the big reveals for too long could end up having a detrimental effect down the road.