Recap / The Mandalorian S2E3 "Chapter 11: The Heiress"

What really is the way?

Written by Jon Favreau

Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard

Release date: November 13, 2020

Arriving on Trask, the Mandalorian meets another group of Mandalorians, who aren't what he expected.

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Tropes:

• All of Them: Which doors should the Stormtroopers close?
  Officer: All of—all of them! (firefight continues) Close all of them! Close all the doors!
• The Alleged Car: The Razor Crest was always an older ship, a little banged up, but after the events of the previous episode, it can barely fly in the Cold Open and only just avoids a crash landing. By the end of the episode, it's held together with netting and twine, but at least it can fly.
• Armor Is Useless: Both averted and played straight. Mandalorian Beskar armor shrugs off pretty much everything, even if the impacts still causes pain. Meanwhile, Stormtrooper armor takes a single shot to puncture as usual.
• Badass in Distress: Din, twice. First, he's tricked into diving into a pool while the hatch above him is sealed. Second, he's confronted by a group of thieves while carrying the Child (due to the pram being destroyed in the first incident) and can't safely put the kid down to fight them. Both times he gets bailed out by the Nite Owls.
• Bad Boss:
  • Gideon continues to tick yet another box by virtually asking the compromised Imperial captain of the Gozanti Cruiser to go down with the ship instead of extracting/rescuing them, even adding on how their deaths are for the good of the Empire, which is a defunct state after the one-two knockout combo of the events of Return of the Jedi and the Battle of Jakku.
  • The captain himself guns down his own pilots after being given that order, likely having deduced that they wouldn't follow through if they knew what Gideon meant.
• Bait-and-Switch: After plummeting down to Trask's surface and barely managing to brake before they're splattered on the docking pier, it looks like the Razor Crest will make a perfect landing... only for one of the engines to sputter out at the last moment, sending the ship sideways into the harbor. (A nearby dock worker is watching the scene and simply shakes his head.)
• Better to Die than Be Killed: The Imperial captain is so terrified of Gideon that he is willing to pull a Taking You with Me on the Mandalorians when ordered. When Bo-Katan says she'll let him live if he gives her information, the captain replies that Gideon wouldn't and triggers a Suicide Pill.
• Big Damn Heroes: Bo-Katan and her companions rescue Din and the Child from the Quarren sailors' trap, and later from the sailor's brother and friends.
• Brick Joke: Mando pays the Mon Calamari server with the Mon Calamari flan he received in the very first episode.
• The Bus Came Back: Bo-Katan returns after last being seen ruling over Mandalore in Star Wars Rebels, having been exiled from her home since then, and working to reclaim the planet and the Darksaber.
• Bus Crash: Possibly for Bo-Katan's nephew Korkie. She says she is the last of her line, but lines usually refer to parent-child lineage and don't automatically include relations like nephews. So Bo-Katan's nephew could've missed that bus; he could still turn up.
• Call-Back:
  • Djarin uses the Mon Calamari flan he earned back in the pilot to buy information on other Mandalorians.
  • Bo-Katan Kryze is a character featured prominently in the Mandalorian arcs of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.
  • Ahsoka Tano is a main character in Star Wars: The Clone Wars^note the former padawan of Anakin Skywalker between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Rebels.
  • The fact that Bo-Katan knows Ahsoka's whereabouts indicates either she and Sabine Wren are still looking for Ezra Bridger ever since the finale of Star Wars Rebels, when she returned after being presumed dead for a while, or she has since settled down after they eventually found him. It is later revealed after this episode that it takes place before the Distant Finale of Rebels.
  • Bo-Katan tells Din where to find Ahsoka and to tell Ahsoka that Bo-Katan sent him. Given Ahsoka and Bo-Katan served closely together during the Siege of Mandalore, it comes as no surprise that they still trust each other over two decades later.
  • Similar to his encounter with Cobb Vanth, Din is taken aback when Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians take off their helmets (even assuming they stole the armor). He accuses them of being pretenders and, even when they explain the situation, he insists they're not true Mandalorians. But, after saving his life yet again, they end up becoming Fire-Forged Friends by the end of the episode.
• The Cameo: The Mon Calamari dock worker is co-puppeteered by Janina Gavankar.
• Character Development: After spending most of her chronologically last appearance in Star Wars Rebels episode "Legacy of Mandalore" being doubtful of her worth to lead Mandalore with the Darksaber due to her perceived inability to stop the Empire from taking over Mandalore, Bo-Katan is very pissed about Mandalore being taken over by the Empire again as well as Gideon taking the Darksaber. She is fiercely determined to get the Darksaber back so she can lead and save her homeworld once more.
• Character Title: This episode is actually named for two — In addition to Bo-Katan's claim to the throne of Mandalore, note that the tadpole born to the Frogs is pink like the mother. As the firstborn of the clutch, she too is heiress to her family line.
• Coming in Hot:
  • The Cold Opening has Din and Frog Lady trying to slow the Razor Crest's descent before it crashes into Trask's spaceport. It works... and then one of the engines gives out moments before they finish landing and the ship tips over into the water. It has to get craned out.
  • The climax has the Imperial captain attempt to nosedive the Gozanti Cruiser into Trask to keep the Mandalorians from taking over the ship. They're able to take control of the bridge and prevent the crash.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians seem to have a thing for observing people of interest from a distance first, like in The Clone Wars — when a disguised Obi-Wan arrived on Mandalore in "The Lawless", Bo-Katan saw his arrival before later rescuing him from Maul's Mandalorians, and in Ahsoka's Walkabout arc, Bo-Katan and her Mandos observed Ahsoka throughout the arc before recruiting her at the end of the arc. Here, Koska watches Din arrive at the Trask port before Bo-Katan and co. meet him later.
  • Two episodes back, we saw The Child was able to close off his own pram in times of trouble. This time, he uses it to protect himself before getting swallowed by the Mamacore.
  • Bo-Katan offering her hand to help up Din in distress is framed similarly to the Death Watch soldier that did the same to him as a child in the flashback from Chapter 8. Speaking of which, this episode confirms what fans of Clone Wars already guessed, that the Mandalorians who rescued Din as a child were part of the Death Watch.
• Crooked Contractor: The Mon Calamari technician who repairs the Razor Crest does an utterly appalling job, jury-rigging the interior with bits of fishing equipment and leaving it covered with marine life. Somewhat justified in that the ship arrived in even worse condition and had to be fished out of the water, but then the Mon Calamari had the gall to charge one thousand imperial credits for repairs.
• Cryptic Background Reference: Bo-Katan fought in the Purge, and she and her Mandalorians are on Trask to reclaim weapons that have been plundered during the Purge to build up their weapons stockpile for when they retake Mandalore. Gideon also somehow took the Darksaber from under her, and she only confirms her suspicions about this at the end of the episode.
• Cthulhumanoid: Several red-skinned beings with squid heads are wandering around the docks. They appear to be perfectly ordinary citizens going about their normal business, though, and not some sort of Eldritch Abomination as this trope usually entails. They're Quarrens, long established in Star Wars canon, usually as bad guys. Sure enough, some try to kill Din for his armor.
• Cult: Bo-Katan identifies Din as a member of the Children of the Watch and calls them this. He takes it as well as you'd expect from someone being told their religion or culture is a fanatical outlier, though he does warm up to her by the end of the episode.
• Culture Clash: Din has one when he meets Bo-Katan's Mandalorians, who observe different cultural beliefs than him in regards to the Mandalorian lifestyle, and how they casually remove their helmets in front of others. Bo-Katan claims that the group he comes from is a cult obsessed with ancient traditions no longer observed and Din takes offense, believing that the way he's been raised to believe is the only way.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: On two separate occasions, Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians take down a group of tricky Quarrens trying to corner Din.
• Cyanide Pill: The Imperial transport Captain uses a suicide shocker installed in his mouth to commit suicide after being captured by the Mandalorians. In clear reference to this trope, he activates it by biting down hard, presumably on a microswitch installed in a tooth.
• Didn't Think This Through: The Imperial officer orders the doors sealed in the cargo bay when trying to hold off the Mandalorians. It doesn't occur to him that he just sealed them on the side with the airlock controls.
• Drowning Pit: Din is trapped in one by the Quarren fishermen until Bo Katan's party comes to the rescue.
• Easily Forgiven: The Frog Lady is more than willing to look after the Child for a few hours, being such a pile of love at her babies hatching. She doesn’t seem to hold it against the Child for eating several of her unfertilized eggs. She is a parent, after all - she knows that babies have to eat and will feed themselves, and recognizes the Child meant no harm.
• Eaten Alive: The inn near the Trask spaceport serves chowder with a small living squid-like creature in it, meant to be eaten alive.
• Exact Words: Din asks the dock worker if he can fix his ship. The worker answers no, but he can get it to fly again. When Din returns at the end, Din finds that the Mon Calamari has strapped it back together with wires and netting, but as promised the Razor Crest is still able to fly, if barely.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: It takes a few seconds for the Imperial captain to register that his men locked the Mandalorians in the... cargo control.
  Officer: I think we have them trapped, sir.
  Captain: Trapped them where?
  Officer: In the cargo control area.
  [Beat]
  Captain: [sporting an expression that screams "Are you fucking serious?"] Where?
  Officer: In the cargo control areAAAAAAAAAH!
  [the officer and several Stormtroopers are jettisoned out of the cargo hold]
• Face Death with Dignity: When Gideon orders the Imperial Captain to scuttle the Gozanti Cruiser, the Captain complies without hesitation, gunning down his own pilots and later killing himself rather than be captured.
• Facial Dialogue: It's clear that the Imperial pilot is quietly shitting bricks as the Mandalorians carve their way through the freighter's stormtrooper contingent. It's just as clear that the captain is thoroughly exasperated with the level of incompetence that he's surrounded by.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Although Din and Bo-Katan initially rub each other the wrong way (for the former, it's being called a member of a "cult"; for the latter, it's having to pretty much force Din to help her, something any Mandalorian she'd met until now would have been happy to do when they learned she was trying to retake Mandalore), they come to respect each other by the end of the episode even if they can't see eye-to-eye on how to live up to the Mandalorian way of life.
• Food Eats You:
  • The Child's bowl of chowder contains a live octopus-like creature, which latches itself on the Child's face and attempts to devour him. Mando isn't the least bit fazed by the incident.
    Mando: Don't play with your food. [pokes the critter with his knife]
  • Inverted in the end, when a tentacled critter crawls across the cockpit and tries to catch the Child when Mando is distracted with flying. Mando crushes it in his fist suddenly and the next we see of the critter, the Child is sucking the last of it up like a noodle.
• Glass Smack and Slide: During the assault on the Gozanti Cruiser, Koska grabs a stormtrooper and takes off with her jetpack; the unfortunate trooper is later seen landing on the cockpit of the ship before sliding away.
• Harmful to Minors: The Child is swallowed by the mamacore and dragged beneath the water. Din immediately tries to go after him but can't catch the beast and struggles to breathe as he's forced underwater himself. He's clearly terrified for his adopted son and, when Koska rescues the baby, Din's hands slightly shake as she hands the Child to him.
• Hero of Another Story: Bo-Katan is pursuing her own vendetta against Gideon and is trying to rebuild her forces after the Empire's Purge on Mandalore. At the end of the episode, she and her Mandalorians continue their effort elsewhere after parting ways with Din.
• Homage Shot: The scene of the Razor Crest entering the atmosphere of Trask is a mirrored version of the re-entry sequence from Apollo 13. The latter film, of course, was directed by Ron Howard, father of this episode's director, Bryce Dallas Howard.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Discussed by Axe Woves when he mentions that the troopers "couldn't hit the side of a Bantha". For the most part, they do just that, unable to hit their targets. It's only when Mando gets in the line of fire to allow Bo and her team to take the bridge that they actually hit him (seeing as his shiny Beskar armor is a pretty hard target to miss with a repeating blaster in a cramped corridor).
• Internal Reveal: Both we and Din learn that he and his clan aren't the only surviving Mandalorians, but that they are a fanatical cult started by the Death Watch during the Clone Wars after they failed in their coup on Mandalore.
• Ironic Echo: Inverted. After changing the parameters of their mission, Bo snarkily tells Mando "This is the Way." She says it to him again at the end of the mission, this time in total sincerity.
• It Is Beyond Saving: Din was taught that Mandalore (the planet) is cursed and not worth trying to reclaim. Bo-Katan understandably has a more optimistic view, intending to reclaim and rule her homeworld as she once did as soon as she can get the Darksaber back from Gideon.
• The Juggernaut: Din tries taking the role in the shootout to the bridge with the Stormtroopers by virtue of having beskar armor, running into the line of fire and soaking up the shots with his armor so he can get close enough to toss some grenades at their position. It is downplayed, however, in that while he gets away from it with zero injuries, being pelted with rapid blaster fire is still painful and prevents him from charging at full speed.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When informed that the Mandalorians have overrun every section of the ship except the bridge, Gideon bluntly tells the captain that he's beyond the point of rescue and his only option is take the Mandalorians down with him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The Child, after consuming the Frog Lady's eggs at least three separate times without any hint of shame in the previous episode, gets attacked and nearly devoured by a predatory creature three times in this episode.
• Last of Her Kind: Family variant. When Bo-Katan introduces herself to Din, she states that she is the last of her line, suggesting that the rest of Clan Kryze (including Korkie, whose fate has been unknown since The Clone Wars Season 6) is dead: hence, she is the titular Heiress. However, it's possible she only meant her parents and siblings, while her extended family members are fine.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Having not been born on Mandalore, but rescued and raised by the fanatics of the Death Watch, Din is a Child of the watch and unaware of the truth about Mandalore and its culture.
• Lured into a Trap: Din and the Child are ambushed by the group of Quarren that were supposed to guide them on the ocean of Trask. They intend to steal Din's beskar armor and have a sea creature swallow the Child's pram. Fortunately, Bo-Katan, Axe Woves and Koska Reeves come to the rescue.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The Imperials aboard the Gozanti Cruiser (save for The Captain) gradually descend into fear and panic as the Mandalorians take the ship.
• More Dakka: The final group of Stormtroopers guarding the cockpit door have repeating blasters that even beskar-clad Mandalorans can't simply stroll through. Mando's armor holds up to the barrage, but the rapid impacts are enough to stun him and he can barely manage to toss a couple grenades in their direction.
• Moving the Goalposts: When the Nite Owls recruit Din for their mission, they tell him their objective is to secure the cargo of blasters and munitions aboard the Gozanti cruiser, then make off with the crates before the ship breaks atmosphere. But once the mission is underway and they take the cargo hold, Bo-Katan reveals the real plan is to hijack the ship as well. Din isn't happy, calling her out for "altering the deal". Bo simply reminds him that he needs her information on the Jedi, so he reluctantly continues with them.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Koska seems really into her meal of tentacles, which brings to mind a similar joke with Anakin and worms/bugs in the 2003 Clone Wars cartoon.
  • The port facilities include large four-legged walkers equipped with cargo cranes strong enough to easily hoist the Razor Crest out of the water. The Imperial AT-AT walkers were widely believed to have been inspired by the cargo cranes at Oakland, though George Lucas and Phil Tippett both deny it.. The crane even makes the same mechanical noise as was heard when Luke was nearly crushed by an AT-AT's foot after crashing his snowspeeder in The Empire Strikes Back.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The deck officer panics when the Mandalorians are about to reach the cargo bay and orders the troopers to close the doors. It turns out they locked them in the cargo control, which allows the Mandos to safely jettison the Imperials in the cargo bay without a fight.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Bo-Katan and her Mandalorians want to recruit Din to their cause to retake Mandalore, but he refuses as he was told by the Watch that Mandalore is a lost cause and his own mission is to return the Child to the Jedi.
• No True Scotsman: Din's initial reaction to Bo-Katan and her people: if they're willing to show their faces in public, then they aren't true Mandalorians. He does seem to get over it by the end of the episode, though.
• Not What I Signed Up For: When Bo-Katan reveals her plan to steal the Gozanti Cruiser instead of just stealing the weapons, Din gets upset since his mission is to take care of the Child and not getting dragged into her own war. He has little choice but to play along, however, since she has the information he needs and won't give it to him otherwise.
• Offhand Backhand: As the Razor Crest is about to leave orbit, a starfish-like creature crawls out and is about to drop itself on the Child, but Mando catches it one-handed and crushes it in his fist. Then he feeds it to the Child.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Koska retrieving the Child's pram from the mamacore. We don't see how she does it, just some flashes of light in the water before she flies out with the pram in hand.
• Oh, Crap!: When Gideon tells the Imperial captain "You know what to do", the two pilots share terrified glances, knowing exactly what's about to happen and clearly not so willing to sacrifice themselves.
• Older Than She Looks: With the assumption that Bo-Katan was only in her early 20's during the events of The Clone Wars, she should be in her early to mid 50's when The Mandalorian takes place, but she certainly doesn't look it.^note Katee Sackhoff was 39 when the episode was filmed. This is especially noticeable when compared to her much more aged look in Rebels.
• One-Man Army: When the Mandos storm the Gozanti Cruiser, the Imperials confronting them report to the bridge that there must be ten of them. One of the pilots then notes that according to the scanners, there's only four of them.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Koska rescues the Child from the mamacore and reassures him that he's safe now as she returns him to Din. She also seems to be looking playfully at the Child while she eats her alien squid chowder.
  • Even though Bo-Katan calls Din's sect a cult and he wants little to do with her in response, she still rescues him again later and tries to mend fences. They may not see eye to eye, but she at least respects his faith and dedication to his mission.
• Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: While the Crest is Coming in Hot on manual control, Frog Lady has to help Mando hold down a lever with one hand while using her other hand to stop the spawn container from toppling off its seat.
• P.O.V. Cam: We get a kaleidoscopic view of the Child from the multiple eyes of the tentacled thing stowing away on the Razor Crest as it's about to drop on him.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When Bo-Katan and her companions save Din and the Child from the wrath of a group of Quarrens seeking revenge on them due to one of them being the brother of one of the sailors that tricked him.
  Bo-Katan: He didn't kill your brother — I did.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: How Bo-Katan views the Children of the Watch, the Mandalorian sect Din was raised in.
• The Reveal: Bo-Katan identifies Din as a Child of the Watch, who, in her words, are a religiously zealous cult that broke away from standard Mandalorian culture in the belief of re-establishing the ancient way. We also learn that the Children of the Watch aren't the only surviving Mandalorians, but that some, like Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls, survived The Purge of Mandalore.
• Sea Monster: The mamacore is giant sea creature that the Quarren sailors try feeding Din and the Child to. It swallows the Child in his pod whole, but it apparently dies when Koska rescues him. If not, it certainly dies when the Nite Owls blow up the vessel after leaving it.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Razor Crest's atmospheric re-entry in the Cold Opening is one to Apollo 13, which was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard's father Ron Howard.
  • The various scenes of people eating tentacled creatures are this to Oldboy.
  • To Serenity, the Firefly continuation movie: The Razor Crest already evoke a similar ship design to Serenity, but as the Crest flies off into hyperspace, a piece flies off into space.
• Suicide Pill: The Imperial captain has one hidden in his mouth that electrocutes him when he refuses to be taken captive by the Mandalorians.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Mandalorian armor may be resistant to pretty much all weapons, but the wearer still needs to breathe. Din and Koska are both gasping for air after diving into the water.
  • Mandalorian culture is nowhere near as homogeneous as Din seems to think, leaving him gobsmacked when he meets Mandalorians who don't adhere to The Way as rigidly as his tribe.
  • Going off the above, telling someone that the religious sect they dedicated their life to is a cult without any explanation just makes the person angry, as what happens with Bo-Katan and Din.
  • Din is forced to take a lot of blaster fire from Stormtroopers wielding repeating blasters to remove the last obstacle standing between the Mandos and the bridge. His Beskar armor absorbs the shots, but being hit so many times so quickly clearly does a number on him and the blasts still pack a punch (as he's heard wincing in pain with each bolt hitting him).
• Surrounded by Idiots: It's hard to tell which is driving the poor Imperial captain more nuts: the way an underling reports he has the intruders trapped in the cargo hold control when he's in the cargo hold; or when one controller tries to talk on the radio to said underling after he and the stormtroopers have clearly been blasted out the airlock.
• Swallowed Whole: The mamacore does this to the Child, pod and all. The Child is clever enough to seal the pod moments before, allowing the pod to remain airtight long enough for Koska to perform a rescue.
• Taking You with Me: The Imperial captain tries to crash the entire transport when Gideon informs him that he's beyond help and has only one option. The Mandalorians manage to breach the cockpit and stop him just in time.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: The deck officer tries to seal himself and his men in the cargo bay to stop the Mandalorians, failing to realize that he's on the wrong side of the airlock and the Mandalorians have access to the cargo controls. Cue him and his men getting vented out the cargo door. They were still above the bay, however, so there's a slim chance they survived the fall.^note Very slim. It's not clear how high up they are, but during the captain's attempted suicide dive a few moments later, Koska notes at that point they're 10,000 feet up, and so were likely higher when blowing the cargo hatch.
• Too Dumb to Live: The lower officer traps the Mandalorians in the cargo control area, where they are able to open the doors and throw him and his soldiers out of the ship.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Initially subverted, then played straight. Din is initially grateful that his kin saved him and the child... until they take off their helmets, causing him to suspect they're pretenders like Cobb until they reveal their origins and the nature of his sect. When Bo-Katan outright tells him that he was reared in a cult, he understandably does not take it well and jetpacks off without further discussion.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When the Razor Crest nearly burns up upon atmospheric re-entry and almost crashes into the dock, no-one other than a Mon Calamari dock worker notices and said dock worker only looks on curiously instead of in fear.
• Villainous Valour: The unnamed Gozanti captain remains unflinchingly calm as his situation goes from bad to worse, and doesn't even blink an eye when Moff Gideon orders him to scuttle the ship and himself with it.
• Villain Has a Point: Gideon says the obvious when he points out that if the Mandalorians have taken as much as of the ship as the captain has said, they’re beyond saving.
• Wham Episode: Din finds another Mandalorian covert, which turns out to be led by the very much alive Bo-Katan, who tells him where he can find a Jedi named Ahsoka Tano. This is the first time Din learns Mandalorians are much more fragmented than he thought, and those he grew up with are considered a splinter faction of zealots.
• Wham Line: Bo-Katan directing Din to the way of a Jedi she's acquainted with very well.
  Bo-Katan: There you will find Ahsoka Tano.
• Wham Shot:
  • Fans of the animated shows will instantly know from the helmet design of the first Mandalorian that lands on the ship just who exactly that is. And even if they don't recognize the art, as soon as she speaks, they'd recognize Katee Sackhoff's voice.
  • Even without prior knowledge, the moment she takes off her helmet will tip the audience off that something's up with the Mandalorian way.
• What a Piece of Junk: Pieces keep falling off the Razor Crest, even after it's repaired.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Quarren thieves have no problem feeding the Child to a mamacore to get Mando inside the cage, and the brother of their leader intends to get revenge by killing the Child.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Koska is introduced in her armor by hitting a jet pack assisted dropkick on a Quarren. Appropriate since she is played by Sasha Banks, credited under her real name of Mercedes Varnado.
• Wretched Hive: Trask is a black market port where Imperial remnants can run weapons in plain sight. It's also the kind of town where you can blow up a fishing ship within sight of the pier and casually go for a drink after gunning down a dozen Quarren and leaving their dead bodies on the street, all without even hint of law enforcement anywhere.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Din's reaction to the Mon Calamari dock worker's worksmanship on his ship, which is essentially just tying the whole thing together with rope and nets.
    Din: Mon Calamari. Unbelievable.
  • Also the reaction of the Imperial Captain when he realizes that his troops have "locked" the Mandalorians in a room with the Cargo Controls. When his troops are in the Cargo Area.
    Captain: [sporting an expression that screams "Are you fucking serious?"] Where?

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