The Mandalorian – Season 2, Episode 3 Recap, “Chapter 11: The Heiress”

You guys! I’ve been reading some of your “concerns” about The Mandalorian and I just don’t get it. The one persistent complaint about the series is that there has been far too much “filler.” (Even though no one seems to be able to come to a consensus on exactly which ones these filler episodes are.) A criticism to which I have one question. What is it supposed to be filler for?

There used to be a time when this used to be what all television was like. Sure, we would eventually get to that “endgame” that would fulfil the premise – and the promise – of the show, but we were just as happy to spend between 30 to 60 minutes with our favourite characters every week. It took a 120 episodes for Dr. Richard Kimble to find that one armed man. It was five years before we found out if Sam Beckett ever made the leap home. And I don’t think David Banner ever found what he was looking for.

But it didn’t matter. We kept coming back because we liked these characters, and their stories, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could inside each and every one of their fictional worlds.

This is what The Mandalorian is. It is very much a throwback to that kind of serialised storytelling, where the journey was often far more important than the destination. This is the type of TV I grew up watching. Those were the characters that would become an integral part of not just my pop-culture life but my everyday life. And I would eagerly wait to check in with them, episode after episode, week after week.

So let’s check in on Mando and Baby Yoda.

I’m not sure if we can even call it stunt casting anymore, since every episode of The Mandalorian seems to have at least one “wait… was that?” moment, but having Katie Sackhoff and Titus Welliver in this episode was an absolute delight.

There is definitely something to be said about having great actors play even the teeniest of parts. Case in point, Titus Welliver’s Imperial freighter captain, who says so very little in the episode and yet manages to convey an entire spectrum of emotion from arrogance to fear to resignation, to everything else in between.

Katie Sackhoff ain’t no slouch either. Hers was an inspired piece of casting. Having the same actor who voices the animated version of a character show up as her live action counterpart almost never happens. God knows I let out an audible squeal when she removed her helmet.

Yes, she removes her helmet, but more on that later, because I’m clearly jumping ahead of myself. We only meet Bo Katan and her squad of mercenaries in act two of this brilliantly brisk episode.

In the first act, Mando arrives at Trask, misses the landing platform and dunks the Razor Crest into a bay, reunites Frog Lady with her husband (let’s call him Frog Dude), and hooks up with a gang of Quarren who take him on a trip across the sea in their Deadliest Catch trawler, only to double cross him and try to steal his very valuable armour.

Enter Bo Katan, Koska Reeves, and Axe Woves, a squad of Mandalorians that quite literally swoop in to rescue Mando. They save him and Baby Yoda (who, in an ironic twist of cosmic proportions, is swallowed whole in his egg-like capsule by a giant carnivorous Mamacore), but their act of goodwill is undermined in Mando’s eyes when all three of them promptly remove their helmets.

It seems like Mando’s “way” isn’t the “right way” after all. Bo Katan explains that while her order, The Kryze, have been fighting to liberate their home planet, Mando’s order, The Watch, were a breakaway group of religious zealots hellbent on rekindling the ancient ways. Was Mando a part of a cult? Are they holed up in a compound somewhere on Kashyyyk with a stockpile of weapons and canned food? Was that Mudhorn signet he got in Season 1 a NXIVM style brand? These were all questions that had me going “whaaaaaaaaaaat?” almost as much as it did Mando. Hell, it rattled him so much that I could see it in his helmet.

After rocketing off in confusion, Mando and Baby Yoda encounter another mob of angry Quarren, only to be rescued again by Bo Katan and her team. Finally, he agrees to help them on their mission to reclaim some stolen Mandalorian weapons from an Imperial freighter in exchange for information on where to locate the Jedi.

Which brings us to the outstanding third act of this episode. The raid on said Imperial freighter is full of fantastic Star Wars moments. Corridor shootouts. Dim Stormtroopers who can’t aim. Cocky captains who refuse to get their hands dirty unless they absolutely have to. And even a holographic cameo from the show’s big bad.

But besides the fantastic action set piece, this third act also serves to grow the story in new and interesting ways.

We learn that Bo Katan wants Moff Gideon’s Darksaber. We learn that Ahsoka Tano is in the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus. We get another peek at what remains of the Empire. A mere shadow of what they once were, all of their military might and precision has now been reduced to these fringe factions who do what they must to survive. It’s a role reversal with the Rebels. These Imperials are now the ones on the run. Smuggling arms. Hiding out. Evading the powers that be.

With every new episode we also get a clearer picture of this fractured universe in which everyone is in it for themselves. All of them desperately trying to hold on to whatever piece of it they have: whether it’s an unending fight for freedom (Bo Katan and her Kryze), or hopelessly grasping for former glory (every Imperial we’ve since encountered), or simply finding a way to survive (Frog Lady and Frog Dude).

Now, if you, like me, are a fervent Star Wars observer (read: fanboy), who watches all of the movies and TV shows, and reads all of the books and comics, and plays all of the video games, then the story threads in this episode shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. We’ve already met Bo Katan many times in both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. And her quest to acquire the Darksaber and reclaim the throne of Mandalore is already well-established in the franchise’s lore.

The thing that The Mandalorian does so well is tell its story in a way that really doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve seen any Star Wars at all. Sure, those of us in the know get a little jolt of excitement when we hear the name Ahsoka Tano. But even those of you who don’t know who she is aren’t in any risk of being left behind. Mando is, after all, your surrogate. You’re on this journey with him, and he knows about as much as you do.

“Take the foundling to the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus. There you will find Ahsoka Tano.“

Bo-Katan

And just like that, a million fanboys and fangirls cried out in delight. Next week, we may get to see a Jedi. But given that the Razor Crest is being held together with fishing wire and duct tape, who knows if they’ll make it to Corvus and Ahsoka Tano in one piece.

Calamari Flans

• Baby Yoda spends most of this episode either avoiding tentacled creatures or playing with frog spawn. The Frog species must be delighted that he is no longer swallowing their eggs whole. (The Internet can now take a collective chill pill and calm the fuck down.)
• WWE’s Sasha Banks finally makes her appearance as the Mandalorian Koska Reeves. Though she’s credited in the series not by her ring name but by her real name, Mercedes Varnado.
• Mon Calamaris are terrible mechanics.
• The AT-AT crane like thing that fishes the Razor Crest out of the harbour is very cool.
• Are they going to get Baby Yoda a new floating crib?
• Last week we had an ovomorph, this week we got a facehugger. What’s with all the Alien references?
• We’ve already had Timothy Olyphant, W. Earl Brown, and Titus Welliver. How many more Deadwood alums are we going to see this season?
• Now that Mando reconsiders his religious beliefs and maybe removes that helmet from time to time, I guess Pedro Pascal needed to be on set a lot more than he was in Season 1.
• Can someone please give Bryce Dallas Howard a Star Wars movie to direct already? Both her episodes of The Mandalorian have been the perfect blend of story, and action, and humour, and heart.
• This episode of The Mandalorian was brought to you by the letter “C.” Calodan and Corvus are both new additions to canon.

The Mandalorian, Season 2, is now streaming on Disney+.