Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, most people are firmly in agreement that the shadowy figure seen at the conclusion of The Mandalorian‘s season 2 premiere is indeed Boba Fett, who has long been rumored to make his return in the hit Disney Plus series. Of course, star Temuera Morrison was also linked with bringing The Clone Wars‘ Captain Rex into live-action, but based on the story of the first episode, it would appear that he’s definitely playing the legendary bounty hunter.
Boba Fett’s armor was the key driving force behind the season 2 premiere, with Mando seeking out one of his kind and instead stumbling upon Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth, who acquired the Mandalorian duds in a trade with some Jawas. Having struck up an alliance and burgeoning bromance, the episode ended with Mando speeding off into the distance before the cliffhanger ending revealed that someone had been keeping a close eye on both Din Djarin and his newly acquired property the whole time.
Clearly, Boba Fett managed to escape the Sarlacc pit on Tatooine that he was dumped into during Return of the Jedi, and The Mandalorian could end up diving into the Star Wars back catalogue for an explanation as to how he survived. In 1996 Legends short story A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett, it was revealed that he’d managed to escape certain doom and lived to fight another day.
In the story, Boba gets out of the pit when his jetpack explodes and injures the Sarlacc, but he’s also seriously hurt in the process. The fan favorite certainly looks very battle-scarred when he shows up in The Mandalorian, so Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni may be looking towards the Expanded Universe for inspiration to explain how he’s still alive and well.