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The Mandalorian: The Heiress

“This is the way.”

Chapter Eleven

The Mandalorian and the Child finally reach Trask, delivering their passenger Frog Lady to her husband. Now he has a final clue that will direct him towards a fellow Mandalorian and continue his quest to find a Jedi...

About freaking time we finally found a Mandalorian. Of course it is Bo Katan, I mean you don’t have Dave Filoni as an executive producer and not get some choice Clone Wars characters. I’ll get into the big name drop in a bit, but I wanna talk about a few minor developments in this episode.

First, we must say goodbye to our dear Frog Lady, who has been reunited with her husband and hatched a tadpole, congratulations (and thank God the Child didn't eat another egg).

With that out of the way, let's talk about action scenes. So when you do an action heavy series there are two potential pitfalls, repetition and diminishing impact. The first is obvious, you do the same thing again and again, it becomes stale. Cool once, maybe twice. By the third time your audience is rolling their eyes. For the most part the action in this series is inventive, making good use of the tools established for our hero.

The other one though, impact, is a much more elusive thing to pull off properly. Especially when you’re talking about a series with really only two continuing characters. We care about Mando and the Child, but not so much the others. That’s kind of why bringing in a well known character works. You can shorthand some stuff, well... unless that character is not as well known.


I have watched maybe two seasons of The Clone Wars, and I do intend to finish it one day. It just means that I am not invested in Bo Katan in any real way. I love Katee Sackhoff, who voiced the character in Clone Wars, so that’s a bonus, but this is really the first time I’m meeting her. The good news is that the writers clearly understand the character, and the actress obviously knows her very well. Katee inhabits the role with ease, but at the same time the actual substance of her appearance here is kind of shallow.

She arrives to save Mando’s life, and then tries to recruit him to her cause, uses his need for information as leverage to get him to help her and then changes the rules of that agreement when it suits her (pray that she doesn't alter it anymore). She is manipulative, arrogant and clearly has an agenda. I don’t really get warm and fluffy vibes, more like determined zealot vibes from her. I could be wrong, but that’s all I get from her. I hope she’s brought back to give us more information about her character, and I did think she was pretty cool regardless.


As for the rest, I am starting to wonder how much of the Empire is still around. They have people in full uniforms doing out-in-the-open stuff. They have a clear chain of command, and enough instilled loyalty to have that Captain commit suicide rather than be taken. As an adversary they work, I mean they are freaking space Nazis. But how much of a threat are they still? I guess Gideon is a big bad, and we need to know more about him, and the fact that Bo Katan is looking for the DarkSaber means there is some big picture plot going on, but does it go beyond that?

Okay, the name drop. Ahsoka. I watched enough of The Clone Wars to love Ahsoka. It is a big deal to bring her into live action, and a practical nightmare to pull it off properly. There are a bunch of potential conflicts going on, too. There is the Mandalorian and Jedi conflict which predates any of the movies by centuries, and the fact that this is a post Return of the Jedi version of Ahsoka, which means a lot has happened since we last saw her (I am aware she appeared in Star Wars: Rebels which was set before A New Hope). More importantly, does her appearance mean a new recurring character for the series? The Child needs to be trained, and her presence would be a big deal. Lots of questions.

Bits:

There was a subtle design difference between the male and female helmets of the Mandalorians, I assume that is a carryover from The Clone Wars?

The design on Bo Katan's helmet translated very well from the animation as you can see here. In fact her entire look is almost a perfect translation to live action.

The Mon Calamari yard tech was kind of perfect, getting the ship into a state that is barely functional. It fits in perfectly with Mando's luck this season (he really must've botched his luck roll when he took on this quest – yes, I'm not above an obscure Star Wars roleplaying reference).

You may have recognized Titus Welliver as the Captain of the imperial ship from a number of shows like Supernatural, Bosch and Lost.

Quotes:

Mando: (at the Child with a squid on his face) "Don't play with your food."

Bo Katan: "If you want my help finding the Jedi, you will help me take this ship."
Mando: "You are changing the terms of the deal."
Bo Katan: "This is the Way."

This was basically another filler episode, but it did give us some interesting character interactions and some potentially important world building.

2 1/2 out of 4 Hatchlings and Sea Monsters

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

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