Jon Favreau, you’ve done it again. We’re five episodes into The Mandalorian and it’s still delivering the goods. You get a bar of Beskar, and you get a bar of Beskar…
Only a few hours after being dropped on Disney+, there’s all new speculation and excitement regarding a certain mystery character who appears at the end of the episode, cropped so we only get a few moments to study the boots and hear the distinct sound of spurs. Something tells me there’s a new sheriff in town, and there isn’t room for two.
Mando is pursued by a bounty hunter in the opening to remind us that he’s now the wanted man. They’re after the kid, but they’ll have to go through him and they all know it. He’s out of the Guild like John Wick, and he’s going to have to solve this one way or another. He can’t just keep running and disintegrating everyone who catches up to him. Mando heads to Tatooine to repair his ship at Mod Eisley Spaceport. He heads to the local cantina to look for work to pay for the job. Living paycheck to paycheck. You know what it’s like. It’s hard to find good work these days. Even Wuher the bartender was replaced by a droid. After Tatooine lost one of its best employers, Jabba’s droids went on LinkedIn and took jobs away from the locals. Stinking droids. No wonder Wuher didn’t like to serve their kind.
The Mando meets a wannabe bounty hunter and strikes a deal to catch his bounty so that the green upstart can get into the Guild. When they catch up to the bounty, Mando is double-crossed, but that goes bad for the backstabber. Luckily, he is good to Mando dead. He was holding enough credits to pay for the manual labor and parts his ship needed to get back on the road. Cut to the scene where the action took place, and a mysterious character investigates the abandoned bounty in the desert. These few seconds will be all fans talk about for the next seven days.
Before we get into who that character might be, I wondered about something else. The short-lived character who double-crossed the Mandalorian. First of all, this arrogant womp rat had the audacity to sit in the VIP section. What’s he doing at the Han Solo table? That corner should have a velvet top around it. It’s droid management, I tells ya. No regard for local legends. Then he says his name like he’s James Bond or something, like Mando is supposed to know who he is. Bounty hunting is a complicated profession, kiddo. You can’t fake it until you make it.
The kid’s name is Toro Calican. No, I didn’t recognize it either. The kid’s reputation does not precede him, but something about the name sounded fishy to me. So, I went to an anagram site to see if Jon Favreau threw any hints at us with this name. What I found was interesting, and a few anagrams stood out. The top hit was “Cloaca Intro.” Like this kid is a jerk and everything that comes out of his mouth is Bantha fodder. Like his intro is nothing special. Further down the line was “Raccoon Tail.” This was probably what triggered my sleuth brain to figure out his name. Favreau was probably just having a little fun naming his characters using letters from short phrases that describe the character. He’s definitely vermin. Just as I was about to close the page I saw “Location Arc,” and it made me wonder if I’m some crazy conspiracy theorist or if the locational setting for this episode is going to be important to the story. Is Mando landing on Tatooine just a fan service bone, or are we coming back in the season finale? Or is Tatooine somehow connected to our mysterious character? You can tell me if I’m just a crazy old wizard. I can take it. I’ve been wrong on all of my speculation so far!
I anagrammed “Fennec Shand, Assassin,” Toro’s bounty. “Ashcan Sand Sense Fins” turned up. Maybe the mystery character is Admiral Ackbar. It’s a trap! This anagramming thing is going nowhere unless “Financed Sash Sans Ens” means something. Paul Ens is the director of Lucas Online. Did they finance this mystery character who’s wearing what looks like a cape or a tunic…or a…sash? Could it be Boba Fett? Maybe, but not because of the anagram. We did finally get a name for the planet where the big Mandalorian showdown happened. But don’t go looking for anagrams there.
Here’s a list of who this mystery character really might be, in no particular order:
Jodo Kast — An alliance soldier turned bounty hunter from Legends. A Mandalorian armor wearing Boba Fett rip-off. We got a lot of these poor man’s Boba Fetts in Legends. We fell in love with the armor, and Boba Fett was off limits to writers at times.
Fenn Shysa — Another poor man’s Boba Fett from the original Marvel Comics series. If you bought this issue as a kid, you wanted to through it into the Great Pit of Carkoon when you found out the guy on the cover was an impostor.
Cobb Vanth — A likely suspect who first appeared in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath. He’s actually on Tatooine, and he’s known as the Sheriff of Freetown. This guy seems to fit the bill more than anyone since it’s widely conjectured that he’s currently in possession of Boba Fett’s armor. The Sarlacc didn’t want that in his belly for a thousand years.
Boba Fett — Let’s stop here for a second. A lot of people would go nuts, in a good way, if the actual Boba Fett showed up as the “unexpected enemy” in Chapter 8. The official one sentence synopsis of Chapter 8 is “The Mandalorian comes face to face with an unexpected enemy.” A showdown at the Mod Espa Corral would be a wizard way to close the season. Let’s kill Boba Fett for good, and once and for all. Twice and for all. Three times and for all? He had his chance many times in the Expanded Universe. There’s a new Mandalorian in town, confirming that Boba is definitely out of the picture would solidify or new Mandalorian’s place in our hearts. Beside’s, I think the “unexpected enemy” will probably turn out to be little Baby Yoda. Mando did refer to the moss colored tot as his enemy to the Mandalorian Armourer.
Cad Bane — Appeared first in the first season finale of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series. He’s a gunslinger, like the title of the chapter suggests, and he’s a real badass. Visually, he would be hella cool as a live-action character, and fans really would like to see some of these animated stars come to life. Years before The Mandalorian takes place he was considered to be the best bounty hunter in the galaxy due to the death of Jango Fett. If the rest of the Guild is failing to bring in Mando, maybe he’s the one to call.
Greef Carga — He’s mad. He lost his best client when Mando ran off with Baby Yoda. But why the mystery? It’s not him. We already know he wants to get a piece of Mando. We would like to see more Carl Weathers, though.
Moff Gideon — Teased in the trailer, Giancarlo Esposito’s character is a warlord in charge of a force of former Death Troopers. Again, though — why the mystery? We’ve already seen him in the trailers, and he’s got minions to do his tracking.
Nah, it’s Boba Fett. Or maybe it’s just someone else unexpected, like the Spanish Inquisition.
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