The Mandalorian sees the live action debut of Zeb from Star Wars Rebels

polygon.com:

This week’s episode of The Mandalorian season 3, “The Pirate,” saw the return of Caron Teva, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s New Republic Starfighter captain who first crossed paths with Din Djarin last season. But Teva wasn’t the only familiar face — as a certain purple-haired Lasat starfighter made his first live-action Star Wars appearance this week. That’s right: that tall alien commiserating with Teva at the bar was none other than Star Wars Rebels’ Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios.

For those unfamiliar with Star Wars Rebels, the 2014 animated series co-created and produced by Dave Filoni, who serves as executive producer on The Mandalorian, here’s the gist: Zeb is a former rebel starship pilot-turned-New Republic captain who served as a member of the Spectres, a group of resistance fighters and the protagonists of Star Wars Rebels. Steve Blum, the voice actor best known for his voicing the character of Spike Spiegel in the English dub of the 1998 anime Cowboy Bebop, reprised his role as Zeb in this week’s episode for the first time since Rebels wrapped.

The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett have been sprinkling Easter eggs calling back to 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars and 2014’s Star Wars Rebels as early as the former’s second season. Mandalorian has featured the live-action debut of not only Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice-turned-Jedi-in-exile; and an offhand mention of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the namesake of Timothy’s Zahn’s trilogy of novels who made his first now-canonical appearance in Star Wars Rebels; but also Cad Bane; the ruthless, red-eyed, blue-skinned bounty hunter from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, who made his live-action debut in the final episode of The Book of Boba Fett.

Zeb’s appearance in this