There are so many little nods in this episode that it’s difficult to track them all.
As Din Djarin and Bo-Katan battle the TIE Interceptors, there’s a moment with the N1 Starfighter that looks as though it was pulled straight out of Tim Burton’s “Batman” (1989). Din Djarin pulls straight up into the air with his N1, leaving the silhouette of the ship to hang in the sky for just a moment before descending back down on his enemies. It hearkens back to that moment when the Batwing is framed against the moon in the night sky during the penultimate climax in Tim Burton’s superhero masterpiece.
Then, we set the stage on Coruscant, the former capital of the Republic. For those folks hoping to see Mon Mothma or any of the inner workings of the government, it’s important to note that Coruscant is not the capital in this era of the New Republic. That honor goes to Mon Mothma’s home planet of Chandrila. After that, other planets hosted the capital until it landed on Hosnian Prime at the time of “The Force Awakens,” when it was destroyed by the First Order’s Starkiller base. Coruscant was one of the last planets to fall to the New Republic after Mas Amedda signed an instrument of surrender well after the Battle of Jakku. You can read all about that in Chuck Wenig’s “Aftermath” books.
On Coruscant, there are some familiar sights. Chief among them is the opera house that Dr. Pershing is speaking in at the beginning of the episode. It’s the same one where Anakin Skywalker and Sheev Palpatine had their discussion about midi-chlorians and Darth Plagueis in “Revenge of the Sith.”
Monument Plaza is a location we’ve heard a lot about but have never seen in close detail in live action. The peak of Umate, the highest mountain on Coruscant, features at the center of the plaza and Pershing and Kane have a touching heart-to-heart there. It’s featured in media from “The High Republic,” “The Clone Wars,” and Chuck Wendig’s “Aftermath.” We glimpse it in “Return of the Jedi” for the barest of seconds. It’s an important spot on Coruscant and it’s good to be getting a better look at it. The music here is also very familiar. It sounds like they’ve adapted John Williams’ “March of the Resistance” to play here, which is a very interesting choice of theme here.
The bus Pershing and Kane get on also feels very much like the transport Padmé and Anakin take to get to the refugee ship in “Attack of the Clones.”
Other locations on Coruscant are mentioned, including the Skydome Botanical Gardens, which come right out of old Legends material.
The last thing I’ll point out: the days of the week that get called out in the episode. Benduday is the equivalent of Friday in a galaxy far, far away, named after the Bendu monks that were an early precursor to the Jedi Order on Coruscant. Whether they’re related to the Bendu that was voiced by Tom Baker in “Star Wars Rebels” is up for debate. Taungsday is the third day of the week in the galactic calendar, and weeks in “Star Wars” are 5 days long, not 7. All of these days have an obscure origin in a magazine series published between 2014-2016 by DeAgostini that came with replicas of pieces of the Millennium Falcon.
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