The Mandalorian’s executive producers Dave Filoni and Rick Famuyiwa must have pretty sore calves ahead of the premiere of the Disney Plus show’s hotly anticipated third season, because it certainly seems like they’ve been spending quite some time in spin class.
The pair were fielding questions from Deadline about the absence of Gina Carano’s character, Cara Dune, after the actor was swiftly removed from any further involvement with the series after infamously making some incendiary antisemitic remarks online, and it was quite the tango.
When asked point blank about how the showrunners and the powers that be are addressing Carano’s removal from the series, their response was something to the effect of: Cara Dune still exists in the universe, but we’d rather you focus on Din Djarin and Grogu. Says Famuyiwa:
“Cara was a big part and continues as a character to be part of the world. It had to be addressed in the creative and [Jon Favreau] took the time to think about that. It was something that was discussed as we knew it was going to have impact on the show, but at the same time, what has been at the heart of the show are the two characters — Din Djarin and Grogu — so ultimately it felt like a servicing of that, and around the Mandalorians.”
After Famiwuya expertly skated around the topic, Deadline pressed a little harder, asking for confirmation that Cara is pretty much offscreen somewhere doing some bounty hunting. Enter Dave Filoni, elegantly carrying on with the pas de deux:
“It’s a big galaxy and we have many characters in it — many characters are fighting for their screen time. We’ll just have to see as the season unfolds what the adventures are, but it’s a great character, someone who was vital to Din Djarin’s beginnings; we’ll see if he has evolved beyond that. Now Season 3 is mainly dealing with Mandalorians and the Mandalorian saga, the Mandalorian tale. (There’s) different characters he’s met since Bo-Katan (who) take a lot more prominence, which makes sense where his arc is going, the story of him and Grogu specifically.”
And, plié. There’s a number of different meanings that can be gleaned from Filoni and Famuyiwa’s cagey remarks. The first being that Cara Dune has been written out of the show and won’t be addressed again. A second possibility is that Carano’s character gets killed off-screen, but they don’t want to spoil that fact, for whatever reason. The third, and perhaps least likely, is that Dune will somehow return, with her new appearance being explained away by some still-under-wraps Whovian plot device (or not).
If there’s one thing we can take away from the pair’s non-responses, it’s that at the very least, The Mandalorian writer’s room put some thought into how to tackle Dune’s absence. We’ll find out exactly how they’ve done so for ourselves, when The Mandalorian lands on Disney Plus on March 1.
If there’s one, final certainty to take away, it’s that the world has not forgiven Carano for her insensitive remarks, despite her best efforts to gloss over them.