Star Wars: The Mandalorian Episode 7 Easter Eggs Explained

This Star Wars article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian.

The Mando is back on Nevarro for the penultimate episode of the season, gathering friends for a final confrontation with the Client. The fight doesn’t go the way even its double-crossing participants expected. By the end of “The Reckoning,” the Empire has arrived, and with them comes a new villain who will challenge our heroes in the season finale. At his command is an entire platoon of familiar Imperial units hailing from different corners of the Star Wars universe, plus there are a few other callbacks you might have missed while watching the episode.

Here are the easter eggs and references from The Mandalorian episode 7:

Baby Yoda

– The Ugnaught Kuill says he suspects Baby Yoda might be a “Strand-Cast,” a new term in the Star Wars universe. He says he saw strand-casts when he was indentured to the Empire, but they were ugly creatures, not as functional as Baby Yoda. They come from “gene farms.” It sounds like these are similar to but distinct from clones, perhaps people and/or creatures programmed from scratch at the genetic level rather than a clone of another person. We talked way more about the origins of Baby Yoda here.

The New Republic

– Cara says she’s wanted by the New Republic for the jobs she’s done since she left the Rebellion. So far, the New Republic in The Mandalorian has been used as an impersonal fist of justice: see the X-Wings bombing the prison transport in “The Prisoner.” 

– Kuill refers to Cara as a “drop trooper,” confirming in more detail what exactly a Rebel “shock trooper” is. 

The Empire

– Giancarlo Esposito is here as Moff Gideon, an Imperial warlord. He’s quite willing to look exactly like the evil Empire of the past, descending from a TIE fighter with his army of stormtroopers. Perhaps, like the Client, he believes the galaxy was more peaceful under the Empire and plans to keep his title until the rest of the fascist structure can be rebuilt around him. 

– The Moff title itself has been around since the Original Trilogy and was extensively expanded upon in tie-in material. The first Moff to appear in the films was Grand Moff Tarkin, whose title put him on an equal footing with Darth Vader. In canon, Moffs are sector governors, with twenty in total (including the Grand Moff) enforcing the Empire’s will in their specific star sectors. Their role was similar in Legends, but because of the longer running time of the Legends canon more of them were named. Legends also includes a secret gathering of Moffs called, hilariously, a Mofference. 

– Gideon’s ship is known as an Outland TIE Fighter. It appears larger than most single-person TIE Fighters, and its wings fold in a way reminiscient of the Imperial Lambda shuttle. 

– Rogue One‘s death troopers return as part of Gideon’s Imperial force. Elite stormtroopers, death troopers are surgically augmented, go through advanced training, and wear armor that can baffle sensor systems. While regular stormtroopers can be cannon fodder, these troopers are intended to be versatile and unstoppable. 

Aliens

– The pale-skinned woman with stripes on her face who pays Cara Dune for winning her bout has marks similar to those of Asajj Ventress, a Rattataki alien. She could be any number of “near-human” species. 

– The alien Cara Dune fights is a Iridonian Zabrak.

– Other aliens in the episode include Nikto, Rodians and Trandoshans.

Planets

Kuill mentions “the Cytocaves of Nora,” a gene farm. This is also a brand new location. He jokes that it looks like Cara Dune might have come from there, possibly a reference to her appearance not being “ugly” like Kuill says Baby Yoda’s is. 

Megan Crouse writes about Star Wars and pop culture for StarWars.com, Star Wars Insider, and Den of Geek. Read more of her work here. Find her on Twitter @blogfullofwords.