Why is everyone after Baby Yoda? Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon) speaks

Although we only met him in the second-to-last episode of The Mandalorian, the villainous Moff Gideon (Breaking Bad vet Giancarlo Esposito) immediately made an impression. He knew the Mandalorian’s real name. He commanded a cadre of Stormtroopers. He had his won TIE Fighter. He even had the legendary Darksaber, for crying out loud, and he would stop at nothing to get his hands on Baby Yoda, which immediately made us hate him.

Speaking to IGN, Esposito sounds like he’s reveling in this reputation. “My four daughters watch this and obviously the world is like, ‘It’s the Baby Yoda show,’ and I’m never jealous or have any problem with that, but I have to say, two of my daughters texted me and two of them [called] me: ‘Papa, please don’t hurt that baby. Don’t hurt that baby.’ And I said, ‘I will squash that little big-eared bastard,'”

And then he laughed evilly. “Joke, joke, joke,” he added, probably because the interviewer was afraid for his life. “You know, what we can do with technology today and what a human story we can make out of Mandalorian — this baby encompasses all of that, and we want to have that hope for our future, especially now in our world.”

Mof Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) with Storm Troopers and Death Troopers in THE MANDALORIAN, exclusively on Disney+.

So we know that Moff Gideon wants Baby Yoda (I feel like I should mention that his official name is “The Child,” even if no one is ever going to call him that). In fact, everyone seems to want Baby Yoda, but we don’t know why. Esposito offered what little clues he could:

"Like any great leader or scientist — clue, clue, clue — with someone who is advanced in a certain way, yeah, you could want to be their best friend, or you could want to co-opt what is inside them to figure out how to make all of us a little better at humanity. So it’s that power and control of a Moff leader who is trying to put the universe back together. But, how does he know everything? How does he know everything that’s going on? He’s a very interesting character and I’m so honored to be a part of this production."

So Moff Gideon wants Baby Yoda so he can tap into some kind of power that can help him set the universe in order following the fall of the Empire. We still know so little about Baby Yoda, who’s the engine that makes the plot go forward, but they’ve done a great job of piquing my curiosity.

I’m also psyched to see Esposito get more screen time as Moff Gideon; if you’ve seen Breaking Bad, you know he can play an top shelf villain. And happily, we’ll be watching The Mandalorian season 2 before the year is out!

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