Last week on The Mandalorian, Din finally managed to obtain information about where to find a Mandalorian covert — but not without a price. He found himself tasked with ferrying Frog Lady and her eggs to Trask, unable to use the Razor Crest’s hyperdrive as a result of said eggs. Their journey took an unintended turn as they ended up temporarily stranded on an ice planet and narrowly escaped death by a hoard of spiders. Meanwhile, the Child snacked like nobody’s business, despite Din’s repeated protests. Din eventually managed to repair the Razor Crest enough to take off, though the word repair should really be used lightly. Keep reading to find out what happened in episode 3, “The Heiress.”
The episode opens not too far from where the previous one left off — Din, the Child, and Frog Lady have almost reached their destination, the estuary moon of Trask is finally within view. The Razor Crest chugs along, and it’s obvious that Din wasn’t lying when he said that the ship would be limping the rest of the way there. It will be a miracle if it survives the rest of the season. Unsurprisingly, the ship’s landing array isn’t responding. They enter the atmosphere at a free fall, and the Razor Crest begins to resemble a giant, metal meteor as flames engulf the ship. A flight control operator continually pages the ship, demanding that the Razor Crest reduce speed for landing at the port, and Din manages to use the last of the fuel to bring it down steadily at the last moment because he’s nothing if not efficient. However, it’s all a wash anyway as an engine explodes and the ship unceremoniously tips off of the dock and into the water. Whoops.
After the ship is lifted out of the water, Din leaves it in the hands of a dock worker who isn’t too confident in the Razor Crest’s odds of being “repaired.” Frog Lady reunites with her husband, referred to as Frog Man, and the two share a tender moment as they gaze lovingly at their eggs that have made the perilous journey from Tatooine. Neither seems to notice how many are missing, so perhaps the Child is off the hook. Speaking of, the tiny green menace whines hungrily as he gazes at the canister. Someone’s going to need to talk to Din about packing snacks. The bounty hunter asks Frog Man where to find the other Mandalorians, ready to continue on with his journey, and he’s directed toward an inn as a mysterious woman wearing a black cloak watches on in the distance.
Din inquires with the inn worker about the other Mandalorians while the Child attempts to eat a bowl of chowder, out of which crawls a squid that latches onto his head. Ever the dad, Din scolds him and tells him not to play with his food. A Quarren fisherman approaches the table and tells Din that he can bring him to the other Mandalorians. They set sail on the Quarren’s vessel as Din and the Child begin to channel their inner Pirates of the Caribbean. The Quarrens insist that Din and the Child watch them feed the mamacore that’s held captive on the ship. And … you guessed it …
Once the creature begins to make its way toward the surface, the Quarren standing beside Din pushes the Child into the water. The mamacore quickly swallows our beloved Baby Yoda, hover pram and all, and in that moment our hearts all collectively stopped (Din’s included.) Without hesitation, Din goes into full dad mode and dives into the water, and the Quarrens’ real plan is revealed — they tricked him onto the ship in order to steal his beskar armor so they could sell it and reap the riches. They lock Din in the water chamber and repeatedly poke and prod at him with rods, attempting to drown him. In a stroke of luck, a trio of Mandalorians shows up just in time and takes out the ship’s entire crew. They rescue the Child from the mamacore as well, and Din’s tired, broken relief is palpable.
The next part is where things really begin to get interesting for Din, as his annoyance at watching the trio — which consists of Bo-Katan Kryze, Axe Woves, and Koska Reeves (the mysterious woman in the cape) — remove their helmets turns to confusion. Din insists that because they don’t cover their faces, they’re not Mandalorians. Bo-Katan informs him that she was indeed born on Mandalore, but the issue is rather that Din is a Child of the Watch, a cult of religious zealots that broke away from Mandalorian society in order to re-establish the ancient way.
Burdened with this new information about himself and the other Mandalorians, Din heads back to the docks, and he’s quickly outnumbered by a gang of unhappy Quarren. The Mandalorian trio comes to his rescue once more, barely breaking a sweat in the process. Afterward, Din returns to the inn with them and Bo-Katan explains that they’re planning to seize weapons from the port to use to retake Mandalore. Din is uninterested and skeptical about the endeavor, stating that the planet is cursed, and the other Mandalorian advises him not to believe everything that he hears. She agrees to tell Din where he can find one of his kind if he helps them on their mission.
The mission? Raiding an Imperial freighter that’s loaded with weapons. Din drops the Child off with his new favorite babysitters beforehand, Frog Man and Lady, reminding his small protégé to be respectful and mind his manners (aka “I am literally begging you not to eat those eggs again”). Once they’ve boarded the freighter, the Mandalorians are quick to begin picking off the stormtroopers outside, and they efficiently make their way through the ship down to the cargo hold. After shaking off a decent chunk of the ship’s army, Bo-Katan informs the Imperial officer that remains with the crew in the cockpit that they’re actually commandeering the entire ship (much to Din’s dismay, but hey, “This is the Way”).
The Captain pages Moff Gideon to request immediate backup, but Gideon informs him that’s no longer an option if the pirates have taken the cargo hold. The Captain shoots both of the pilots — “Long live the Empire” — and steers the ship into a steep downward descent to crash back down onto the surface of Trask. The Mandalorians make their way to the cockpit, Din and Koska steadying the ship as Bo-Katan pins the Captain against the wall. She demands to know where the darksaber is and if he (likely she means Gideon) has it, but the Captain takes his life by electrocuting himself, dying with whatever information Bo-Katan needs. As they ready themselves to finally leave the planet, Bo-Katan invites Din to join them once more, but he declines. True to her word, she follows up on her end of the bargain and tells him to take the Child to the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus, where he will find Ahsoka Tano.
Din returns to the Frog family household to find that one of the eggs has hatched, and the Child is thankfully playing with the baby and not eating it. The Child is upset as Din picks him up to leave, and the bounty hunter gruffly states, “No, I have enough pets.” Returning to the docks, Din is less than impressed to see the state of his ship that he paid to have fixed … and it’s somehow even worse on the inside. Forget the Black Pearl, because the Razor Crest is the new pirate ship on the block, decked out to the nines with nets and ropes galore. His credits may not have gone far in the way of repairs, but the dock worker is clearly an aspiring interior designer. As they take off for what promises to be a (very) bumpy ride, an ominous looking sea creature appears and begins to descend upon the Child. Honestly, if the Child isn’t busy eating something, something is busy trying to eat him. Din grabs the leggy little creature at the last moment, and the Child coos happily in delight before he proceeds to slurp down his latest snack. The Razor Crest breathes a sigh of relief as it’s finally able to jump into hyperspace again, though a piece of it rips off and is left behind, drifting lazily through space like a tumbleweed in the desert.
It was satisfying that this episode finally touched upon the long-awaited explanation as to why Din’s Mandalorian “Way” differs from what we’ve seen of the warriors featured in the Star Wars animated series, because of the blatant differences between the treatment and reverence of wearing the helmets has been a point of confusion since the first season. Din seemed almost scandalized at the revelation, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see him dropping all of the ideals he was raised with and ripping off his helmet to toss his hair from side to side in a cinematic moment anytime soon, but this will likely serve as a piece of character progression for him moving forward nonetheless.
Thanks to Bo-Katan, it sounds like we’ll finally be seeing Ahsoka Tano next week … though, with Din’s luck of getting sidetracked, there’s no guarantee. One of the strengths of The Mandalorian is its ever-changing characters and settings throughout each episode — Din is constantly on the move traveling to different places and meeting new people and creatures. This is in part thanks to the brilliant technology that is utilized to film the show (check out Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian to learn more) because it allows the production crew to build and use new sets in an incredibly efficient manner.
The writing on the show continues to be impeccable; it’s an impressive and appropriate mixture of dramatic and action-packed moments, interlaced with perfectly timed comedy in between. Though Star Wars has always told epic and grand tales, the franchise has never been shy about comedic moments to lighten the harrowing tension. We’re but three episodes into the second season of this hit series and it continues to be a monumental success.
Episodes 1-3 of season 2 of The Mandalorian are now streaming exclusively on Disney+. Check out the rest of our recaps here. Episode 4 will premiere Friday, November 20.
