The Mandalorian season 3: this episode 5 cameo confirms the importance of the series for Star Wars

Episode 5 of Season 3 of The Mandalorian saw the brief return of a character who confirms the importance of the series in the Star Wars franchise.

With its first four episodes, The Mandalorianhad made a great introduction, both spectacular and intriguing. Arrived at mid-season, the series now sets a clear course before heading towards its last three chapters. Episode 5, titled The Pirate, plays an essential role in bringing together all the plot elements installed in this third season, and consecrates the new narrative model chosen by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. The scale and stakes are no longer the same, and protagonist Din Djarin's quest is now that of all Mandalorians.

While some complained about the lack of clear direction for this new season, the series has hung up the wagons in style: Nevarro, Greef Karga and the Pirates are back, as are the stuffy Coruscant administration and the Mandalorians themselves. Even Moff Gideon has the right to a teaser, and should return at the end of the season for a final confrontation with the people he almost destroyed. As a bonus, after trying to salvage the wanderings of postlogy in its episode 3, the series continues to forge close ties with the animated part of Star Wars. An inspired choice, as The Bad Batch has just delivered its last two episodes, and which is materialized by a cameo that will delight fans of Star Wars: Rebels .

the key to the franchise?

Indeed, as New Republic Captain Carson Teva, introduced in the second season, is reunited with, a hulking purple alien strikes up the conversation. And if his presence will inspire nothing to the uninitiated, he is nevertheless a major character of the extended universe, since he was among the main characters of the series of animated Star Wars: Rebels, also created by Dave Filoni. Garazeb Orrelios, alias Zeb, is a Lasat introduced in the animated series as a member of the rebel cell Spectre, and his presence here is undoubtedly not due to chance.

For if Rebels clearly didn't have the cultural impact of its sibling The Clone Wars, many of the elements that make it up have been taken from Filoni's little garden on Disney+. This is the case, for example, of the character of Bo-Katan Kryze, whose importance is capital this season, and who had become queen of Mandalore in Rebels before the Great Purge recounted in The Mandalorian. The return of Zeb Orrelios, who is making his first appearance in live-action (it's still Steven Blum who lends him his voice), could also augur the upcoming arrival of the spin-off Ahsoka, which will be a direct continuation of the anime series.

The series, announced for 2023 and worn by Rosario Dawson, will see not only the return of Anakin Skywalker's former Padawan, but also of the entire Specter Squadron (including another Mandalorian by the way, Sabine Wren, who will be played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo). The arrival of Zeb in live-action in season 3 of The Mandalorian, combined with the mention of Grand Admiral Thrawn in season 2 and the presence of the Purgills (kinds of space whales) in Chapter 17, poses the final pieces of the puzzle of this project. This therefore confirms the importance taken by the series in the grand plan of the Star Wars franchise.

As we know, Dave Filoni likes to have fun with his toys. He had already shown it in the past with ideas as wacky as they were brilliant, such as the return of Darth Maul or the invention of the planet Mortis in The Clone Wars. And while The Mandalorian may have looked like another sandbox on the fringes of a thriving universe being developed under Disney's auspices, the postlogy fiasco has completely upended the plans of the firm. The series, contrary to what it was at the base, has finally become the cornerstone of the whole saga, carrying at arm's length the hopes of a future return to cinema.

While postlogy has never been able to offer narrative avenues interesting enough to be explored again in the future (although Disney is capable of anything), The Mandalorianremains the connective tissue that now holds the universe together. The success of the series allowed Filoni and Favreau to embark on a gigantic rescue operation of a saga adrift since the takeover by Disney. And that translates into a set capable of summoning the legacy of the entire Expanded Universe Star Wars, whether to better contextualize the postlogy or bring back well- beloved of live-action animation.

Now, this season 3 is racing towards its end point: The Mandalorians are ready to unite to reclaim their planet, while the sinister Gideon plots his return. And in the future, who knows? Perhaps this will all lead to an ultimate “Filoni-verse” crossover to take on Grand Admiral Thrawn, an Expanded Universe cult villain making his live-action debut in Ahsoka. Far from the complicated management of the universe in the cinema, it is through the series that Star Wars was able to begin its renaissance, to better initiate, if all goes as planned, a new awakening of the Strength in cinema.