Why The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 1 Has So Little Baby Yoda
Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Mandalorian season 2, episode 1, "Chapter 9 - The Marshal".
Baby Yoda is back in The Mandalorian season 2 premiere, titled "Chapter 9 - The Marshal", yet he's hardly featured very prominently in the episode. The Mandalorian season 2 is continuing the journey of Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and The Child, aka Baby Yoda, as the former attempts to reunite the latter with his own kind. To do that, he's tracking down other Mandalorians, hoping to find the Jedi.
Introduced at the end of The Mandalorian's very first episode, Baby Yoda has since taken the world by storm. He's become the face not only of The Mandalorian, but arguably Disney Star Wars itself, and has been the biggest talking point regarding the show since its debut. With season 2 telling the story of the search for his people, it would be reasonable to assume a starring role for Baby Yoda, but that isn't the case in episode 1 - though there's good reasoning behind that.
The Mandalorian doesn't need a lot of Baby Yoda in order for him to make a big impression. It's clear Disney and the showrunners now realize they've struck gold with the character, and though it may be tempting to force him into every scene and have him take over, they display admirable restraint here. That's to the benefit of the character, as it stops him from being overexposed in the show, especially so early in the season. With the story only just being put in place, then there's a lot going on around Baby Yoda that needs to be dealt with first, which means less screen time being afforded to The Child. With the mission in The Mandalorian season 2, episode 1, encompassing Timothy Olyphant's Marshal, who wears Boba Fett's armor, Tusken Raiders, and a krayt dragon, then there's a lot going on that it's difficult to involve Baby Yoda more directly with.
Then there's the episode's ending tease, which sees Temuera Morrison play Boba Fett. The return of the fan-favorite bounty hunter is clearly designed to be the same kind of major talking point that Baby Yoda himself was in the same episode of season 1, and so having The Child take something of a back seat allows that greater room for impact. People would still do that if this had been a heavy Baby Yoda episode, but there'd be a little more competition, and rivalling the impact of this twist isn't necessary at this point in the season.
This fits with the use of the character as a whole. While Baby Yoda had some big moments in season 1, like the few times he used the Force, it was actually done quite sparingly, which allowed those scenes to hit even harder. The Child doesn't really need to do an awful lot to get attention, because he's so quite and instantly gif- and meme-able, and so the episode here just needs a few short snippets of him being funny and cute. It certainly delivers those, especially when he shuts his capsule as Din uses his whistling bird against Gor Koresh (John Leguizamo)'s goons. But as the search for other Mandalorians leads to meeting Jedi, such as Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), then Baby Yoda's role just become far more prominent and he'll have to dominate the screen more in The Mandalorian season 2, meaning it's much smarter to hold off on him now, leaving everyone wanting a little bit more.