Star Wars: The Mandalorian - The Heiress Review

MND "The Heiress"

The third episode of The Mandalorian Season 1 got a lot of mileage by featuring a cadre of Mandalorians jet-packing in to save the day. Now, the third episode of Season 2 does the same. Leaving a trail of righteous fanservice in the sky, "The Heiress" features high adventure, guest starring a beloved Clone Wars and Rebels character making her live-action debut, and provides meat and potatoes thrills all the way through.

Din successfully delivers Frog Lady to her companion and makes a deal with a Quarren crew to find other Mandalorians. It's a trap, but those very Mandalorians rescue Din and the Child from a death on the high seas. And Katee Sackhoff, who voiced this role on the aforementioned animated shows, appears as Bo-Katan Kryze, a punch-the-air moment for Star Wars fans. In animation, Bo-Katan is an intense, bitter character. Sackhoff brings a lighter charisma to her in live-action, that being part of her default screen presence.

When Bo-Katan and her companions casually take off their helmets, Din freaks out and smugly looks down on their disregard for the Creed. It becomes clear that Din and the Mandalorian covert from Season 1 are a fringe orthodox cult with their own stringent code on never removing their helmets in the presence of another living being. A few things are going on here. On one hand it's writer Jon Favreau's idea of Mandalorian mystery coming into conflict with new canon's (read: Dave Filoni's) face-front Mandos, and finally reconciling the two.

It's also a slick move on the show's part to cast the Mandalorians the show's been following in a different light. Their certainty of purpose can look like reverent conviction or fanaticism. And in a way I'm put in the interesting position of not being on Din's side here. Here's Bo-Katan, the rightful ruler of Mandalore the Great, and Din is acting like an asshole.

Star Trek's Worf, a Klingon orphaned and taken in by human parents on Earth, overcompensates for this by acting "more Klingon than Klingon". He insists on Klingon tradition all the more rigorously, precisely because he is the product of a human upbringing. A similar thing characterizes Din. A foundling rescued and recruited into a strict Mandalorian Creed, Din holds onto such an ethos to a fault. The Way did save his life, after all.

Bo-Katan's mission is some standard Imperial Remnant sabotage, with the aim of stealing weapons and a cruiser. This is straightforward swashbuckling fare in a cool Star Wars context. But the dynamism of the episode's action is inconsistent. Bo-Katan's rescue scene on the space-boat is a quick, solid setpiece with some variety of technique, but much of the action on the cruiser boils down to her cadre running and gunning in a straight line down an Imperial corridor - or more accurately, walking and gunning. Granted, this is core Star Wars DNA stuff (from the Death Star corridors to Finn, Poe, and Chewbacca blasting away troopers on the Star Destroyer Steadfast in The Rise of Skywalker), but not as dynamic as the earlier boat rescue.

"The Heiress" of the title seems to refer to Bo-Katan Kryze, heiress to the rule of Mandalore. It is her presence that gives the show one of its most fan-pleasing episodes yet. And aside from some reservations on the strength of the climax, this is a fine, down-the-middle action episode that complicates the show's Mandalorian world-building. 7/10.

Stray observations:

- Check out the uncannily Earth-like fisherman sweater that Mon Calimari is rocking in the image above. The bustling port environment he works in is based on early Takodana concept art, at least by eyeballing The Force Awakens art book - before the Takodana market concept (codenamed "Exotic City") became Maz Kanata's castle. 

- "Everyone seated needs to eat", the tavern worker says to Din Djarin. What is this, Oga's Cantina at Galaxy's Edge? The Disneyland establishment requires each guest to order something.