From what I understand from the trailers, this Season will somehow segue into a much larger plot arc about some kind of Galactic-level threat from a resurgent Imperial remnant. Obviously, saying anything more specific than that would just be speculation, but my conjecture is this means some kind of proto-First Order (I hope not), or some story leading up to Thrawn. I just learned that those weird space whale/octopus things imply a connection with Thrawn, but I haven’t seen most of the Rebels cartoon so I’m not certain. (The imagery of space whales seems wildly incongruent with the kind of military sci-fi vibes I remember from Zahn’s books). If these conjectures are even partially accurate, it seems this first episode is basically just filler. Also, it would mean the show is definitely moving away from its small-scale, lower key story-telling roots, which is kind of disappointing, and really doesn’t seem appropriate for this type of show. On the positive side, maybe a larger-scale story focus will distract us from the fact that Seasons 1 and 2 are now pretty much dramatically meaningless.

It’s strange - since I grew up with EU stories, I always imagined the larger scale events that shaped the Post-ROTJ era would involve Luke, Han and Leia. But I guess in this latest incarnation of Star Wars it’s going to involve Mando and various Filoni characters.