Welcome to Fantha Tracks complete guide to The Mandalorian. Here we will post every reference, Easter egg, everything named and unnamed per episode and some fun trivia in-between. If you are keen to avoid spoilers, move along…
Official summary: The Mandalorian joins a crew of mercenaries on a dangerous mission.
The Razor Crest arrives in a hangar of the space station that Ran uses. In the background we see another appearance of an A-LT Utility Droid from Rogue One and Solo. The space station itself is of a design that is reminiscent of others we have seen throughout various Star Wars media.
New Characters: Ran, a human male who shares a history with the Mando who he knew when they were kids. Ran is putting together a crew to spring an associate from jail. He is played by Mark Boone Junior, who is best known for playing Bobby Munson in ‘Sons of Anarchy’.
Mayfeld, human male, former Imperial sharpshooter with a short fuse. He is Ran’s right-hand man and the team leader for this mission. He was played by stand-up comedian Bill Burr who had a recurring role in ‘Breaking Bad’.
Burg, a Devaronian male, the muscle on the team. Apparently Devaronians are now also very resistant against fire, what does plays up with their devil-like looks. Sulfur acts like a stimulant for them. He is played by Clancy Brown, who has done many Star Wars works including the voices of Savage Opress (The Clone Wars) and Ryder Azadi (Rebels).
Zero, full name Q9-0 according to the end credits, is an unknown type of droid and the pilot for the mission. A droid of the same kind could be seen in Chapter 3 among the forces attacking the Mandalorian. The droid was portrayed by Richard Ayoade (voice) and Chris Bartlett (body).
Xi’an, a purple-skinned Twi’lek woman, an expert fighter with knifes and another face from the Mandalorian’s past. They used to be lovers, or at least she has/had an interest in the Mando. Xi’an was a role played by Natalia Tena (Tonks in ‘Harry Potter’ and Osha in ‘Game of Thrones’), as a fan of Star Wars she was more than happy that she was able to play this role. We still wonder if the color of her Twi’lek skin (purple) was chosen as a reference to the purple/pink hair that Nymphadora Tonks was known for. The name Xi’an brings in mind another favorite character from Legends, the Twi’lek Jedi Xiaan Amersu.
Among the prisoners are: A human male who appears dressed as a Jedi (do note: this kind of clothing was considered common in the galaxy so it does not have to be a Jedi), an Ardennian, an Imperial male and an alien prisoner (if not for the nose he could have been an Ongidae). They are guarded by a new kind of security droid and 1 human male: Davan, a New Republic soldier. He wears a very familiar helmet with the (inverted) Aurebesh reading CD1 or DC1 – is the C his other initial? While his outfit is new, and a bit different then the New Republic soldiers that we saw in the sourcebook ‘Scum and Villainy – Case Files on the Galaxy’s Most Notorious’, the logo on it is an old one: The original New Republic logo as used in Legends. This is weird because the new canon introduced a different logo. Davan is played by Matt Lanter, who is better known as the voice of Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars.
Qin is the Twi’lek brother of Xi’an and the one they were trying to free from New Republic Custody. Qin was played by Ismael Cruz Cordova. In 2013-2014 he appeared six times in ‘Sesame Street’ playing a character named, Mando. Mando, short for Armando, was a Latino character Muppet brought into the series.
Introduced also in this episode are: a New Republic prison ship (nice mash-up between various building styles and with the type of hatch seen in The Empire Strikes Back with the Millennium Falcon) with a new kind of security droids. Ran also owns a new type of gunship.
Mentioned and known in this episode are: the joke that stormtroopers have poor aim makes it way in-universe in this episode. The Razor Crest gets compared to a Canto Bight slot machine. Various computer interfaces and scomp links. Gungans, the Mandalorian’s hate for machines, Alzoc III (homeplanet of the Talz), R1-series astromech droids (now with a hover function it seems), a mouse droid and Zero watching the holo recording of Greef.
And in the final scene we see three X-Wing pilots arrive in classic T-65’s, all three are cameos. The first face we see is someone who needs no introduction really, Dave Filoni. His character was named in the end credits as Trapper Wolf (again going with his favorite animal). The second face is that of Rick Famuyiwa as Jib Dodger. Famuyiwa was the director of this episode, as well as Chapter 2, and is reported to return to direct multiple episodes for Season 2 of The Mandalorian. The female is Deborah Chow as Sash Ketter. Chow was the director of Chapter 3 and the upcoming Chapter 7, and will return to direct the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
