The new season continues with Mando’s quest to find The Child’s home planet. This means tracking down other Mandalorians to aid his venture. When he’s told that one can be found on the planet of Tatooine, he returns to find the Marshal of Mos Pelgo Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant) — a man who is in possession of Mandalorian armor, but is not an actual Mandalorian. An aghast Mando agrees to help him defeat a larger foe, a Krayt dragon wreaking havoc on the town, in exchange for the armor.

• Gor Koresh and the Gamorreans: The episode opens with Mando and Baby Yoda traversing a city at night and stumbling into an alien fight club. There, Mando speaks to Gor Koresh, an Abyssin. Fans first met the one-eyed species in a cantina in Mos Eisley in A New Hope. The Gamorreans they watch fight are creatures introduced in Return of the Jedi.
• Stormtrooper graffiti: On their way to meet Gor Koresh, Mando and Baby Yoda walk by a wall filled with graffiti of stormtrooper helmets crossed out in paint, a nod to the Empire's defeat in Return of the Jedi.
• R5-D4: Luke Skywalker's droid R5-D4 (also nicknamed "Red") makes a cameo alongside Amy Sedaris' Peli Motto when Mando returns to Tatooine in search of the rumored Mandalorian.
• Boba Fett’s armor: The Mandalorian armor Cobb Vanth wears actually belongs to famed bounty hunter Boba Fett. He merely bought it from some Jawas.
• Tusken Raiders: The Sand People, formally known as Tusken Raiders, assist Mando, Cobb Vanth, and the people of Tatooine in their plan to defeat the Krayt dragon. The Sand People appeared in A New Hope, described as "vicious" monsters — a sentiment shared by Cobb. This time around, the Sand People are more humanized.
• Krayt dragon: Perhaps the most obvious nod to Star Wars is the Krayt dragon that Mando and co. fight. It first appeared (as a skeleton) in A New Hope and later in the game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.
• Anakin Skywalker's podracer: While en route to the Krayt dragon's cave and recounting to Mando how he got his Mandalorian armor, Cobb Vanth is riding a speeder bike that resembles Anakin Skywalker's podracer in The Phantom Menace.
• Bantha: What's a trip to Tatooine without bantha sightings? These hairy mammals — ones that attacked Luke Skywalker in A New Hope — are seen throughout the episode and often used as bait for the Krayt dragon.
• Boba Fett: The episode ends with a shot of actor Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. Since Jango Fett was beheaded, this mysterious figure is presumed to be Boba Fett, a Jango clone.

Following the revelation that Cobb Vanth is not, in fact, a Mandalorian, Din Djarin is back to square one in his quest to find more of his kind in “The Passenger.” Enter: Peli Motto and a new character, Frog Lady, who's in need of a lift back to her home planet and says her husband can help Din find other Mandalorians. The trip goes relatively smoothly until some X-wings pilots wary of Din’s ship cause him to crash on an icy planet filled with large spider creatures.

• Krykna spiders: To the delight of arachnophobes everywhere, Mando, The Child, and Frog Lady crash on an ice planet home only for Baby Yoda to awaken a horde of space spiders. The creatures date back to early concept art for The Empire Strikes Back and were apparently found on Yoda's planet Dagobah. They never made it into the final film, but they do appear in several episodes of the animated series Star Wars Rebels.
• Lieutenant Davan: The X-wing pilots find Mando’s ship in the nick of time and help him eradicate the spiders. They don’t arrest him because he helped someone named Lieutenant Davan. This is a callback to Season 1, Episode 6, “The Prisoner” when Mando joined a crew of mercenaries to retrieve a convict from a prisoner ship. When they encounter the lieutenant on the ship, Mando (unsuccessfully) tries to convince the mercenaries to spare his life.
• Q9-0: Speaking of “The Prisoner,” that droid that the Frog Lady uses to communicate to Mando looks awfully familiar. It’s Q9-0, the droid also on board of the ship during the attempt to spring the prisoner.
• Rodian: Peli Motto tells her droids to cook the krayt dragon meat at “medium rare!” because she’s “not some Rodian, for crying out loud!” Rodians are green-skinned humanoids featured frequently in The Clone Wars.
• Mos Eisley Cantina: Mando visits Mos Eisley Cantina, a tavern on the planet of Tatooine featured in A New Hope and The Clone Wars.
• Sabacc: When Mando tracks down Peli Motto, she’s playing Sabacc — a popular card game featured in Star Wars Rebels, The Force Awakens, and Solo: A Star Wars Story.
• Galaxy’s Edge: Mando passes a droid roasting some meat on a podracer engine outside of the cantina — a cheeky nod to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland and Disney World. There’s a theme park restaurant called Ronto Roaster that barbecues its meat on a “podracer engine.”
• Frog Lady: Frog Lady might be new, but the character has ties to the fandom. The character is voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, a voice actor on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Resistance.
• May the force be with you: Mando exchanges this pleasantry with the X-wing pilots. And, c’mon. This one doesn’t need to be explained.

Chapter 11 picks up with Din, The Child, and Frog Lady arriving on the planet of Trask. Frog Lady’s husband directs Din to an inn for answers on where to find other Mandalorians, but as luck would have it, they find him first and save him as Quarrens attempt to drown him for his armor. The Mandalorians ask Din to aid them on a mission, and in return, they direct him to a Jedi who can assist in his journey to reunite The Child with its kind.

• Bo-Katan: Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), the Mandalorian leader of the Nite Owls and lieutenant of the Death Watch featured in The Clone Wars, made her Mandalorian debut.
• Clan Kryze: The other Mandalorians alongside Bo-Katan make up Clan Kryze, a group of Mandalorian warriors also featured in The Clone Wars.
• Nite Owls: The Nite Owls, an all-women elite unit of Mandalorians featured in The Clone Wars, are also referenced.
• Death Watch: Another Clone Wars nod, the Death Watch was a Mandalorian terrorist splinter group that opposed the pacifist government of the Mandalore.
• AT-AT walker: An AT-AT walker — a four-legged transport and combat vehicle used for Imperial ground forces in films like The Empire Strikes Back — fished Din's ship out of the water after a bumpy landing.
• Mon Calamari: These humanoid aquatic species featured in The Clone Wars make appearances in the episode — one of which doing a lackluster job in fixing up Din's ship.
• Quarren: The squid-headed creatures that first appear in The Return of the Jedi attempt to drown Din and The Child in the beginning of the episode.
• Gozanti Cruiser: The ship that Din and the other Mandalorians hijack is an imperial ship featured in The Clone Wars and The Phantom Menace.
• Ahsoka Tano: Alas, the episode ends with Bo-Katan directing Din to the planet of Corvus to find a Jedi named Ahsoka Tano, aka Anakin Skywalker's former Jedi apprentice and a fan favorite from The Clone Wars. Rosario Dawson is rumored to be playing Ahsoka, making it likely that she'll appear in Chapter 12.

Mando and The Child return to the planet of Nevarro in "The Siege," where they're reunited with Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) and Cara Dune (Gina Carano). Din, Greef, Cara, and Mythrol (Horatio Sanz) raid an Imperial ship presumed to be a military base, but it's something much more sinister: a lab overseen by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). We finally get a sense of why Moff wants to get his hands on The Child: to get more DNA and presumably clone its powerful kind.

• Dark Troopers: The episode ends with Moff examining some black armored suits, a possible nod to Dark Troopers — a legion of droid soldiers that date back to the 1995 Star Wars game Dark Forces. This could indicate that Moff will attempt to restore the Empire's order in the galaxy.
• IG-11 in Nevarro: In a nod to Season 1, there's a statue of IG-11 (Taika Waititi) — the droid that risked its life to save The Child in the season finale — on Nevarro.
• Alderaan: Alderaan, Cara Dune's home planet, is referenced toward the end of the episode. The planet — destroyed by the Death Star in A New Hope — is also Princess Leia's (Carrie Fisher) home planet.
• Corellian Run, Hydian Way, and more lessons: The Child joins other students at a school as Din and co. raid the Imperial ship. The droid teacher's lesson plan includes geography and hyperspace trade routes, referencing Corellian Run, Hydian Way, and Coruscant (the former capital of the Republic).
• Mythrol's Han Solo nod: Introduced in Season 1 after Mando froze him in carbonite to deliver to the Bounty Hunters' Guild, Mythrol makes a return and even delivers a line that subtly references Han Solo (Harrison Ford). Mythrol notes that being frozen in carbonite left him blind in an eye — a nod to Han being unable to see after he was thawed from carbonite in Return of the Jedi.
• M-count (or midi-chlorians): The doctor in the hologram references "m-count" (or midi-chlorians), the scientific name for the organisms and species that possess The Force. This concept was first introduced in Phantom Menace.
• Imperial light cruiser: The Imperial light cruiser (also known as an Arquitens-class light cruiser) that appears prominently in Star Wars Rebels is featured towards the end of the episode.

At long last, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) makes her grand debut in “The Jedi,” where we finally learn The Child’s backstory and name. Baby Yoda is not Baby Yoda but Grogu, a youngling from Coruscant who managed to escape Anakin Skywalker’s slaughter in the Jedi temple when the Empire came to power. Din wants Ahsoka to train Grogu, but the Jedi respectfully declines — sending Din and Grogu to Tython to allow The Child to choose its own path instead.

• Ahsoka Tano: The biggest callback in this episode is, of course, Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan apprentice. A fan favorite, Ahsoka appears prominently in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, but The Mandalorian marks her first live-action debut.
• The Jedi temple in Coruscant and Order 66: Ahsoka, who can communicate with Grogu, learns that The Child trained at the Jedi temple in Coruscant but narrowly escaped Order 66, which subjected that all Jedis be executed in Revenge of the Sith. The Child also managed to escape Anakin Skywalker’s infamous massacre of younglings.
• Yoda and (Yoda’s Theme): Ahsoka mentions that she’s only known one other species like Grogu: Yoda. This obviously doesn’t need explaining, but in a fun nod to the Jedi master, “Yoda’s Theme” by composer John Williams from The Empire Strikes Back softly plays in the background during the scene.
• Grogu’s Force test: Din and Ahsoka try to see if Grogu can still yield the Force with some rocks. When the rocks don’t work, Din uses the metal ball from the ship that The Child loves so much. It works, and the scene parallels Anakin’s very own Force test in Coruscant in The Phantom Menace.
• “Fear leads to anger”: When Ahsoka explains her reluctance to train Grogu, she notes to Din that Grogu’s “attachment to you makes him vulnerable to his fears, his anger.” This evokes Yoda’s advice in Phantom Menace: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
• Tython: Ahsoka sends Din and Grogu to the planet of Tython in the hopes that The Child will make contact with other Jedi and thus decide how to forge its own path. In Star Wars lore, Tython is a planet that is strong with the Force — one that plays a pivotal role in the history of the Jedi Order.
• Convor owl: When Din is out searching for Ahsoka, he strolls past an owl-like looking bird, a likely reference to convor owls first seen in The Clone Wars. It’s a fitting nod to Ahsoka, who befriends a Force-sensitive female convor named Morai in Star Wars Rebels.
• Grand Admiral Thrawn: Ahsoka presses Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth for information on Grand Admiral Thrawn, a villain whose story has been explored in Star Wars Rebels, among others. He was Grand Admiral in the Imperial Navy during the Galactic Empire, and vanished alongside Jedi padawan Ezra Bridger during battle, but Mandalorian’s nod to the villain strongly indicates that he'll make an appearance in future episodes.

The heist came after Din Djarin and Grogu arrive at the Jedi temple on the planet of Tython, where Grogu sits atop a seeing stone completely locked in an impenetrable beacon of Force. Lo and behold, Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) makes a much more formal debut alongside an alive-and-well Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen). They try to help Din project The Child, but in a tragic turn of events, Moff Gideon captures him.

• Boba Fett: Following his brief appearance in "Chapter 9," Boba Fett returns to demand back his armor, previously worn by Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant). He even references his father, Jango, and later parallels Luke Skywalker’s “I am a Jedi, like my father before me” dialogue when he says to Din, “I’m a simple man making his way through the galaxy, like my father before me.”
• Dark Troopers: Moff Gideon employs Dark Troopers, advanced battle droids and infantry exoskeletons with armor that resembles Stormtroopers, to kidnap Grogu. They appear in video games like Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Rebellion.
• The Empire: Boba Fett cautions Din and Fennec that the Empire, featured prominently in films like Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, is still up and thriving after he spots the cruiser.
• The butterfly: Grogu plays with a blue butterfly as he sits atop the seeing stone. The insect has appeared in Star Wars narratives likeThe Clone Wars and Star Wars: Battlefront.
• "This isn't a spice dream": Boba insists that the return of the Empire isn't a "spice dream;" spice is a nod to an illicit drug in the Star Wars universe. Featured in A New Hope and Solo: A Star Wars Story, the spice is largely considered to be inspired by the melange in Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune.

Former Imperial sharpshooter Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr), the mercenary who double-crossed Mando in Season 1’s “The Prisoner,” returns in an episode that sees Din confront his moral Mandalorian code. With the help of Mayfeld, Fennec Shand, Cara Dune, and good ol’ Boba Fett, Mando infiltrates a remote Imperial Remnant base (in stormtrooper armor!) in an effort to track down Moff Gideon and Grogu’s whereabouts. Mando’s message manages to get to Moff by the end of the episode (that “soon” Grogu “will be back with me”), teasing the ultimate showdown.

• Stormtrooper disguises: Is it a Star Wars narrative without the protagonists donning stormtrooper disguises? Din and Mayfeld infiltrate the Imperial base in such — paralleling Luke Skywalker and Han Solo rocking stormtrooper outfits to rescue Princess Leia in the original 1977 Star Wars film.
• Mayfeld’s “little green friend” comment: Mayfeld mentions that Din will need to say goodbye to his “little green friend” forever if detected in the Imperial pase. Palpatine calls Yoda “my little green friend” in Revenge of the Sith during his showdown with the Jedi.
• Thermal detonators: The pirates that attack Din and Mayfeld en route to the Imperial base are armed with thermal detonators, weapons that date back to the original Star Wars trilogy. (Princess Leia threatens to set one off in Return of the Jedi while in Jabba the Hutt's palace.)
• Rhydonium: The cargo that the pirates attempt to destroy is filled with none other than rhydonium, a fuel source also featured in Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars.
• Operation Cinder: During Mayfeld and Din’s conversation with Valin Hess (Richard Brake), Mayfeld and Hess discuss the lives lost at Operation Cinder. The operation was a contingency plan carried out by the Empire to destroy Imperial planets following the Battle of Endor.
• Taanab: To avoid further confrontation with Hess, Mayfeld mentions that Din lost part of his hearing in Taanab — a planet rich in Star Wars history. It’s most known for the planet in which Lando Calrissian scored a victory over a pirate fleet during the Battle of Taanab prior to Return of the Jedi.

Mando and co. manage to track down Moff Gideon in the explosive season finale — this time with additional help from Bo-Katan, who wants to get her hands on Moff’s Darksaber. They successfully capture Moff; however, his legion of Dark Troopers close in on Grogu and the gang. The group is saved at the last minute by none other than Luke Skywalker (an apparent CGI of a young Mark Hamill) and R2-D2. After an emotional goodbye with Din, Grogu takes off with Luke and R2-D2 to begin Jedi training.

• Luke Skywalker and R2-D2: Perhaps the biggest Easter egg is the arrival of Luke Skywalker and his trusty droid sidekick R2-D2. And, well, c'mon — this one doesn't require an explanation.
• Luke’s smoky entrance: When the Jedi arrives on the cruiser and helps the gang defeat the Dark Troopers, his smoky entrance — illuminated only by his green lightsaber — parallels Darth Vader’s ominous entrance in a Rogue One massacre.
• Bacta tank: At the start of the episode, Boba Fett trades insults with Koska Reeves (Sasha Banks), and Koska tells him that if he continues to push her, he’ll be talking “through the window of a Bacta tank." A Bacta tank is a cylindrical tank filled with healing liquid substances. Luke Skywalker recovered in one after a wampa injured him in The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Death Star(s): On the Imperial Shuttle, one of Moff's officers taunts Cara Dune and says he was on the Death Star, to which she asked, "Which one?" The cheeky response refers to the two Death Stars in the franchise — the second of which was constructed after the destruction of the first one during the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope.
• Darksaber guidelines: It's Din who bests Moff in battle, resulting in his newfound ownership of the Darksaber. He tries to give it to Bo-Katan, but Moff notes that the rules state she must defeat Din in battle in order to legitimately wield the saber. Bo-Katan agrees with Moff and doesn't accept it. Still, it's worth noting how the decision conflicts with the fact that Bo-Katan accepted the Darksaber from Sabine Wren in Star Wars: Rebels without engaging in actual battle.
• Bib Fortuna and Jabba’s palace: A post-credits scene showed Fennec Shand and Boba Fett storming into Jabba the Hutt’s palace and killing Bib Fortuna. Featured in Phantom Menace and Return of the Jedi, Bib served as Jabba the Hutt’s chief of staff for decades and assumed control of the palace after Jabba’s death until Boba Fett killed him.