Does This Photo From Jon Favreau Reveal a Potential ‘Mandalorian’ Spoiler?
If it feels a little early to be talking about a second season of The Mandalorian, it’s already been promised from Disney+, no doubt based on the faith that every Star Wars fan is already hooked. So far, that’s proven true thanks to the tantalizing plot twist of The Mandalorian finding a Baby Yoda as part of his bounty hunt.
Maybe it can be argued the real story involved here is the Baby Yoda rather than the arc of The Mandalorian. Then again, the second season may change things, if not before the first season ends.
Director, producer, and writer Jon Favreau is already starting production on Season 2, with a recent photo posted on Instagram. In the pic, The Mandalorian’s mask/helmet is seen sitting on a stone. It gives hints we might see yet another unmasking in the Star Wars universe.
‘Star Wars’ and its obsession with masks
Back in the day of the original trilogy, there was always speculation on what was under Darth Vader’s mask. Even when it was revealed he was Luke’s father in The Empire Strikes Back, nobody really knew what he’d look like under there. Only once prior did anyone see a quick glimpse of Vader without his mask in Empire, albeit from the back of his head.
Not until the end of Return of the Jedi did we see how battered Anakin Skywalker looked living under the Vader mask for years. It was clearly a nod to the classic Phantom of the Opera tale where he became so disfigured, he had no choice but live under the guise of a mask to continue functioning.
As everyone’s seen, Kylo Ren is in the same framework for the new trilogy. Even though he isn’t really disfigured (other than a facial scar), there seems to be all indication he wears his mask out of tribute to Vader.
In The Rise of Skywalker, there may be more to this than we currently know considering Palpatine is making a return.
For The Mandalorian, all speculation is on what Dyn Jarren looks like under his mask. If there’s any indication from Favreau’s Instagram pic we’ll see Dyn Jarren unmasked by next season, what are the chances it’ll happen before the eighth chapter ends this December?
What if he doesn’t look like we expect?
Let’s get ready for a surprise on what The Mandalorian might really look like. Based on the voice, most people are probably expecting him to look like something resembling Clint Eastwood.
His character is already based loosely on Eastwood’s iconic Man With No Name from various spaghetti westerns.
What happens if he’s unmasked and he doesn’t look like the typical person we expect? There have even been jokes on social media it’s a woman.
Sure, The Mandalorian wants to keep some more secrets, but being a woman probably isn’t one of them. Nevertheless, Dyn Jarren still might not look like the actor portraying him, Pedro Pascal.
Perhaps the man under the mask has some injuries he has to hide, even though all Mandalorian bounty hunters wear the masks by tradition.
Or, he may not reveal himself at all
Just because we see the mask in a publicity shot on Instagram doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily see Dyn Jarren unmasked. There’s a lot of good reasons to keep his physical appearance a secret, other than going against the grain in Star Wars always doing an unmasking eventually.
In his case, it might be due to his mask being damaged, something he somehow avoided when battling a horned beast at the end of Chapter Two.
Because The Mandalorian didn’t kill his infant bounty like requested, this could lead him into trouble, possibly leading to an unmasking against his will. One thing we’ve learned is the masked ones in Star Wars don’t take their masks off willingly and only under the most strenuous circumstances, as in when facing death.
