Among its many accolades, The Mandalorian is worth celebrating for bringing so many actors into the Star Wars universe in ways that likely wouldn't have played out in the franchise's feature films. From Rosario Dawson to comedian Bill Burr to Timothy "I Should've Been In More Than One Episode" Olyphant, executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have done a fabulous job casting the various heroes, villains and in-betweeners across its first two seasons. And one of Season 2's strongest moves was bringing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. vet Ming-Na Wen back as assassin Fennec Shand.
Specifically, Ming-Na Wen's Fennec was brought back as a co-badass opposite Temuera Morrison's Boba Fett for the episode "The Tragedy," and the two characters returned once more in The Mandalorian's Season 2 finale. Not only during the episode's events, but also during the post-credits sequence, which served as the official introduction for the upcoming series The Book of Boba Fett. Today, Disney+ and Jon Favreau confirmed the Boba project is an official spinoff and not a third season of The Mandalorian. As well, it was confirmed that Wen will be returning in full for the new project, which she celebrated on Twitter in a way that makes it quite clear how appreciative she is to call Star Wars her day job.
Before penning that post, Ming-Na Wen amusingly jumped on social media earlier in the morning to tease fans about good news being on the way, and then directly promoted Jon Favreau's guest spot on Good Morning America, where he clarified The Book of Boba Fett's placement in the Mandalorian franchise and talked about the Season 2 finale a bit. In another post, Wen also called her future as Fennec "surreal," which definitely sounds like a suitable word to use for such a situation.
While actual story details haven't been divulged, the Mandalorian finale's post-credits scene featured Boba Fett and Fennec Shand entering Jabba the Hutt's Palace and confronting Jabba's subordinate Bib Fortuna (as reprised by Matthew Wood). That confrontation didn't last very long, with Bib getting killed off unceremoniously so that Boba could usurp his throne to become the new kingpin of Jabba's criminal enterprise. Just don't expect for him to try and make Fennec wear Princess Leia's gold bikini, because she would shut that shit down right quick. Unless she wanted to wear it, obviously.
With her limited Season 1 appearance, Ming-Na Wen joined a select few actors who have been prominent-ish elements within both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars-verse. Others include, but are not limited to, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman, Benicio Del Toro and even Oscar Isaac, who is reportedly still jumping from the latter-day Star Wars trilogy to become Marvel's Moon Knight. What's more, The Mandalorian Season 2 also featured appearances from Wen's fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. actors such as Thomas E. Sullivan and Simon Kassianides. Here's hoping for Clark Gregg and Robert Downey Jr. in Season 3, right?
The Mandalorian Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Disney+ right now, with The Book of Boba Fett already set for a December 2021 debut. While waiting to hear more about the show and Ming-Na Wen's role in it, head to our Fall 2020 TV premiere schedule and our Winter and Spring TV rundown to see what new and returning shows are on the way.
