The Truth About The Spiders In The Mandalorian Chapter 10
Contains major spoilers for The Mandalorian season 2, episode 2
Our friends Mando (Pedro Pascal) and the Child have faced some tough challenges during the course of The Mandalorian. Pirates, stormtroopers, and even a Krayt Dragon have terrorized our intergalactic twosome. However, all of that was nothing compared to what awaited them in chapter 10, "The Passenger."
While trying to transport the Frog Lady (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and her brood of eggs in need of fertilization to their home, Mando is forced to crash-land on a desolate and icy planet. The situation is made approximately one hundred billion times more horrifying when some eggs they find around their wrecked ship begin to hatch and a swarm of tiny, terrible spiders emerges. Not dead of arachnophobia-related heart attack yet? Well, after the baby spiders get to scuttling, mamma spider comes out of hiding — she's significantly larger and certainly not interested in letting her newfound prey escape.
The whole sequence is harrowing, even if you aren't predisposed to fear arachnids. The spiders, known as Krykna, are something we haven't yet seen in the live-action Star Wars properties. However, that doesn't mean they're new to the franchise. These walking nightmares have a long history of terrorizing intrepid space explorers across the Star Wars universe.
Kryknas have been terrorizing the Star Wars universe for years
The Krykna have their origins in a piece of concept art by Ralph McQuarrie (via StarWars.com). The white, almost stone-like spiders were conceived as being native to the swampy planet Dagobah, where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) first encountered Grandmaster Yoda (Frank Oz). Although the creature didn't end up getting used in the original films, like many minor monsters of the Star Wars canon, they later popped up elsewhere in the franchise.
Perhaps their most notable appearance before The Mandalorian was in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels. In the episode "The Mystery of the Chopper Base," the Resistance crew known as the Phoenix Squadron have set up a command station on the remote and mysterious planet Atollon. The planet appears to be mostly uninhabited — that is, until some strange-looking rock formations reveal themselves to actually be bodies of the aggressive Krykna. After realizing the bodies of the spiders are resistant to their blaster pistols, the crew makes a hasty retreat.
The spine-tingling creature's appearance in The Mandalorian is yet another inclusion in the series that's sure to thrill fans who have a deep knowledge of the Star Wars creature canon. For arachnophobes, it was just another reminder that even though it's airing on Disney+, the series isn't all Baby Yoda's cuteness and Amy Sedaris' comic relief.