The Heiress
Episode 3 of The Mandalorian Season 2 begins with Mando, Frog Lady and The Child making it to Trask in one piece, despite being forced to make a manual re-entry. They touch down on this watery world but it’s less than smooth sailings – especially when they crash-land in the water. Thankfully they’re helped onto the dock. Our Frog Lady reconvenes with her husband who points Mando in the direction of an inn that could hold the answers he seeks. This comes in the form of a sailor who tells him it’s a few hours out from their current location. So The Child and Mando hop onboard and head out into the ocean. The Quarren feed a large Mamacore that’s being kept in the watery cargo hold but unfortunately double-cross Mando. After knocking The Child into the water, Mando tries to save him before it’s too late. Certain doom looks inevitable… until they’re saved by several Mandalorian that show up and help him out. With The Child safe for now, Mando learns the truth surrounding his heritage. It turns out he’s a child of the watch; one of the Mandalorian clan that broke away from society. Their goal was to re-establish the ancient way. Mando heads back to shore where he’s joined by the trio of other Mandalorian. After a brief skirmish by the dock, dispatching a host of angry Quarren, they claim to know where one of The Child’s kind is. Only, Mando needs to complete another side quest first before we can continue on with the main mission. Their target is an Empire freighter stowing guns onboard but it’s not going to be easy. Leaving The Child with the Frog Lady, the troupe head onboard and make their way through the corridors, dispatching inexperienced officers and stormtroopers. It turns out the real plan here is to take the ship. Ahead in the cockpit, The Captain feeds back to Moff Gideon what’s going on and after killing two of his own, Bo-Katan realizes he’s taking the ship down. Mando braves a stream of bullets from surprisingly accurate Stormtroopers and manages to dispatch them with a handy grenade or two. Thanks to his heroics, the team are able to take control of the ship and prevent it from crash-landing. With the mission a success, Bo-Katan gives Mando crucial intel to go on. He needs to take the foundling to the city of Calodan on a forest planet of Corvus. Once there, he should ask for Ahsoka Tano who will have the answers he seeks – and no doubt another mission for Mando to undertake before-hand. After an incident with a sea creature on his ship, Mando heads back into space and ready for what lies ahead.
The Episode Review
While The Mandalorian is interesting and drip feeds more background and history surrounding this vast world, the storytelling is surprisingly weak. It relies heavily on very basic story-telling tropes, tropes that have been rehashed numerous times in video games. In fact, at times this feels like watching a grindy video-game play out. You’ve got your main mission but a bunch of fetch and kill quests along the way that you’re forced to carry out before continuing. For Star Wars fans though, this show certainly scratches that itch but for TV show connoisseurs, this show really doesn’t do anything particularly outstanding that hasn’t been seen before. Still, The Mandalorian is a fun adventure nonetheless and if you’re in the mood for an episodic, simple show then this one will certainly scratch that itch.
