Friends, pilots, droids, etc.: Have you recovered from Friday’s season finale of The Mandalorian yet? If you’re not quite there, we don’t blame you. We saw the return of a certain Jedi who’s pretty important to this whole Star Wars thing. A goodbye that probably had you burning thr0ugh the last of your Kleenex stash. And a whole bunch of hints as to where Season Three will go.
I know—it might be hard for both of us—but let’s revisit that goodbye, which saw Mando pass Baby Yoda along to Luke Skywalker. When the green-lightsabered Jedi shows up, he brings along an old friend: R2-D2, his (very) excitable droid. As soon as R2 gets as look at wee little Baby Yoda, he promptly flips shit. Beeping, blooping, uncontrollably shaking. You know, he could’ve just been happy that day. Or thought the little guy was the cutest thing he’s ever seen. But Star Wars fans think there’s something more to it.
If you’ll remember, during the big Ahsoka Tano episode of The Mandalorian, we learned that Baby Yoda’s legal name is Grogu. And with the name? A whole backstory. We broke the new information down here, but essentially, the episode told us that Baby Yoda was rescued from the Jedi temple by a mysterious do-gooder when the Jedi-wiping Order 66 hit. Since Baby Yoda’s memory went foggy around this time, we don’t know who, exactly, saved him. (One of our writers has his money on Mace Windu.) But if you ask some other Star Wars fans, they might tell you that R2-D2 wasn’t just excited to see a baby version of Skywalker’s old mentor—he was happy to see an old friend. As Reddit user gaborgeorge theorized on the discussion thread for The Mandalorian‘s season finale:“I’m giving a prediction based on how Grogu reacted to R2-D2. R2 is the one who rescued or helped rescue Grogu during Order 66. Seemed to me like they both saw an old friend.” He continued in the replies:
Yes! It would be cool if they either touch on this subject later on in Mando or if they show an episode in one of the animated shows about this event and how Grogu survived. Maybe in A Droid Story? Good writers and directors always set things up to pay them off later and this seemed to me like one of those moments. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll find out more about Grogu’s escape at some point in some medium.
It’s a solid theory: If you’ll remember, R2-D2 has never been short of surprises in Star Wars lore, seemingly always showing up at the right place, at the right time. And with Disney announcing upward of a million new Star Wars TV shows, the storytellers of a galaxy far, far away need increasingly more backstories to fill in. So you could easily imagine A Droid Story focusing on R2-D2’s mission to save any padawans from the Jedi temple during Order 66. Or, you know, it could be as simple as what another Reddit user, MyManTheo, quipped in the comments.
“Nah I reckon R2’s reaction was simply a mirror to the audience’s reaction to first seeing Grogu. I can imagine R2 just going “omg it’s a baby YODA!”
I reckon so too, Theo.
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