Now that Din Djarin has captured Moff Gideon on The Mandalorian, the Disney+ hit might be in need of a new villain going into season 3. There are certainly plenty of other baddies in a galaxy far, far away who could give him a run for his money.
The fact that Mando has spared Gideon’s life seems to hint that his arc is far from over, but there are a bunch of other antagonists in the Star Wars universe who could take over from Moff before he manages to escape the clutches of the New Republic.
During the climactic duel in “Chapter 13: The Jedi,” Ahsoka Tano forced Magistrate Elsbeth to reveal the secret location of her master, who turned out to be Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn is a cold, calculating military strategist and one of the most sinister villains from the de-canonized Expanded Universe stories.
So far, Moff Gideon is the highest-ranking member of the Imperial Remnants seen on The Mandalorian. But if Thrawn is in the mix, he definitely ranks higher than Gideon. He could even become the Thanos-esque big bad of the Mandalorian-verse.
Although Boba Fett gladly worked for the Empire in the original trilogy, he seems to have turned on them in The Mandalorian. If Boba decides to singlehandedly take on the Imperial Remnants, Moff Gideon had better watch his back.
Lucasfilm has yet to confirm what the Boba-centric spin-off The Book of Boba Fett will be about, but it seems primed to be a revenge-driven thrill-ride.
The sequel trilogy didn’t do much to explain the rise of Supreme Leader Snoke, who was essentially characterized as a store-brand Palpatine who sits atop a throne and pulls the puppet strings of a Skywalker he turned to the dark side.
Snoke is pretty much a blank slate whose characterization could be rounded out by Jon Favreau within The Mandalorian’s Imperial Remnants story arc to try to make the sequel era make more sense.
If the absence of Grogu leads The Mandalorian away from the Jedi and the Sith and back into the bounty hunter trade, then another fan-favorite icon from the original trilogy could be introduced.
Bossk is one of the hard-edged badasses that Darth Vader hired to track down the Millennium Falcon. He’s a terrifying beast who towers over people. In The Empire Strikes Back, he just stared at a pair of dissenting Imperial officers until they left him alone.
Since the sequel trilogy underdeveloped Gwendoline Christie’s promising side villain, The Mandalorian is free to flesh out Captain Phasma’s origin story as an ambitious fascist who joins the Imperial Remnants as a teenage recruit to help bring back the Empire and rises through the ranks ahead of the First Order’s takeover.
Just as The Mandalorian has given more depth and action to the original trilogy’s most underutilized side villain, it can do the same for the sequels’ most underutilized side villain.
While Migs Mayfeld was introduced in “Chapter 6: The Prisoner” as a straightforward villain – both an enemy of Mando and an enemy of the New Republic – he’s been gradually turning into an antihero across his character arc.
In “Chapter 15: The Believer,” Mayfeld blew up a whole Imperial refinery and implied that he needs to kill Empire sympathizers in order to sleep at night. Now that he’s a free man, he could go after the top dog: Moff Gideon.
Richard E. Grant is in his '60s, so the Imperial bureaucrat he played in The Rise of Skywalker lived through the Galactic Civil War. Maybe Allegiant General Pryde earned his stripes in the Imperial Remnants before the formation of the First Order.
Grant has just appeared as a variant of the titular trickster god in Marvel’s Loki, so the payroll people at Disney+ already have his information.
Cad Bane is a gun-slinging bounty hunter inspired by spaghetti western antiheroes. It would be great if The Mandalorian’s third season introduces fans to Bane in live-action form.
Bane has recently resurfaced in the Star Wars canon with a supporting role in The Bad Batch. Dave Filoni may be using The Bad Batch to set up Bane for his live-action debut.
The season 2 finale “Chapter 16: The Rescue” seemed to suggest that Bo-Katan could become the main villain in The Mandalorian’s next season. Bo-Katan will stop at nothing to acquire the Darksaber and reclaim the throne of Mandalore.
Now that Mando has unwittingly acquired the weapon and claimed the throne, Bo-Katan might not be so friendly. She has a history of ruthlessly pursuing her goals in the animated series.
The Imperial Remnants’ quest to acquire Grogu’s blood and get it into the hands of a cloning engineer seems to suggest a link between The Mandalorian’s ongoing storylines and the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine in the sequel trilogy.
If Palpatine does return in The Mandalorian (explaining the “somehow” of The Rise of Skywalker), then he would instantly become a more powerful and intimidating villain than Moff Gideon.
