The Mandalorian Season 3 is here after a two-year hiatus, and in Episode 1, creator Jon Favreau spends most of the game time reintroducing the players and setting up new stakes. Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin is back with Grogu after picking him up from babysitter Luke Skywalker (an entire event that happened in Boba Fett’s book), and in the premiere, the duo return to Navarro to put their old friend Greef Karga in charge and revive the planet. But after a brief confrontation with space pirates, Greef admits: he could use another weapon at his side. His marshal, Cara Dune, found new work — and actor Gina Carano, who played Cara in the show’s first two seasons, was kicked out of the Star Wars universe.
What happened to Marshal Dune? Greef explains to Din midway through the episode, “After she brought in Moff Gideon” — Giancarlo Esposito’s Empire-affiliated, Darksaber-swinging villain from season 2 — “she was recruited by special forces.”
Star Wars fans might hear that line and think The Mandalorian team might be readying her for a role in the previously announced Lucasfilm Disney Plus project Rangers of the New Republicbut in reality the premiere Poochie moment is the last beat of an ugly and unhappy divorce between Disney and Carano.
During the 2020 run The Mandalorian season 2, Carano caused a stir after that refuse to include her personal pronouns in her Twitter bio — a practice widely seen as a way to support trans and non-binary people — say the pressure to do so led to harassment. While the MMA fighter turned actor later apologized, saying that Pascal “helped[her]understand why people put them in their cinemas,” her social and political views would cause more turbulence in the coming weeks. In February 2021, Carano shared another Instagram Story post (since removed) comparing fan outcry about her faith to the treatment of Jewish people during the Holocaust. Her post immediately received backlash, suggesting that the comparison itself was anti-Semitic. The uproar caused hashtag #FireGinaCarano to become popular on Twitter almost immediately, prompting Lucasfilm to make a statement about its future in the Star Wars series.
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her in the future,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “Nevertheless, her social media posts that denigrate people based on their cultural and religious identity are repugnant and unacceptable.”
Lucasfilm’s unremarkable discharge of Carano met with his own fury over the culture war, and in the months to come the pariah status would turn her into a viable star in another sector of show business. Later in 2021, the actor linked her car to conservative media outlet The Daily Wire, which planned to use her controversial star power in a right-wing western, Terror on the Prairie. She got in too My son Hunteran factually dubious chronicle of President Biden’s son, whose documented drug-related incidents made him fodder for conservative news outlets. Terror on the Prairie was released directly to The Daily Wire in June 2022 (with a theatrical run in Russia). My son Hunter earned a small domestic theatrical run from Breitbart News in September. Carano is currently attached to White knucklea serial killer thriller in development since 2021. Not quite Star Wars.
The one thing The Mandalorian season 3 premiere did not to do was kill Marshal Dune. Somewhere, Cara is still busting skulls in the name of good. But for the foreseeable future, Lucasfilm doesn’t need Carano to keep her spirit alive in the Star Wars universe.
