WIRE Buzz: Timothy Olyphant playing The Mandalorian's space sheriff; S.H.I.E.L.D. sneak peek; more

Fans learned last week that beloved Santa Clarita Diet and Western actor Timothy Olyphant would be heading to The Mandalorian, Disney+’s more Western-flavored take on the Star Wars universe. What they didn’t know for sure was if he’d be bringing some of his gunslinging, justice-wielding resume to the live-action sci-fi role. Now they can rest easy knowing that even in space, Olyphant will be a sheriff.

According to Slashfilm (which has recently had its finger on the pulse of Mandalorian S2), the actor will add to the already Mandalore-focused season by playing Cobb Vanth, the guy that ended up with Boba Fett’s armor in a post-Sarlacc Pit world. Temuera Morrison, the face of Jango Fett, is coming aboard the series to play Boba, which is already a tense situation, considering that Vanth is simply the self-appointed sheriff of Tatooine's Freetown in Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath series. Boba might want his duds back.

Or, hey, he could be dead and Morrison could just be playing Boba in a flashback to set up why a random ex-slave like Vanth has his mitts on some choice Mandalorian armor. Either way, it sounds like there may be a shootout coming soon to a few intergalactic gunslingers.

The second season of The Mandalorian adds actors like Katee Sackhoff, Temuera Morrison, Michael Biehn, and Rosario Dawson to a stacked returning cast including Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, Ginacarlo Esposito, Bill Burr, and The Child AKA Baby Yoda.

The Mandalorian returns this October.

Next, a month after dropping their first full trailer for their final season, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is giving fans an even deeper look into its end’s beginning. The live-action Marvel series has previously teased plenty of time travel hijinks — including a situation where the agents need to save Hydra — but now fans can get a sneak peek into the first episode of Season 7.

The minute and a half trip to the Great Depression is both an amusing conversation between the cast of time-displaced characters and a nicely pinpointed piece of historical specificity. They contemplate the Butterfly Effect and plenty of multiverse nonsense, but the show’s stance towards time travel and its effects seems to be as hands-off as Endgame itself.

Take a look:

Phil Coulson, or what’s passing for him these days, and the agents wander 1931 New York City with plenty of pep and humor, which is exactly what fans were expecting from their twisty, turny, time-travelly final season. The cast this time around includes Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Jeff Ward, and a special appearance by Enver Gjokaj.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. begins its final season at ABC on May 27.

Finally, Neil Paik has another short story getting developed for the screen. The author/screenwriter/director (he does a lot) recently saw Rainbowfish picked up for a feature adaptation by Warner Bros. and now Reawakening is getting the series treatment at Amazon.

According to Deadline, the short story (about two siblings who end up, through violent forces beyond their control, on opposing sides of an interstellar conflict) is also being adapted by Paik and will be executive produced by Lena Waithe and Rishi Rajani. The Earthling refugees and utopian aliens are going to be waging war in this sci-fi tale that looks to make a mark under Amazon’s original umbrella.

No timeline has yet been set for the series.