Every episode of The Mandalorian season 2, ranked worst to best
“Chapter 11: The Heiress”
As she showed last season, director Bryce Dallas Howard has a knack for big emotional moments. At first, “The Heiress” feels a little watered down after everything Din Djarin went through in the two episodes prior. However, the big emotional peaks carry the episode forward and build to a satisfying climactic payoff.
We get some big mythology bombs dropped on us in this episode, learning that Din is part of an extremist religious sect that split from the rest of Mandalore. Bo Katan is the rightful ruler of Mandalore and does not follow the same creed that Din does, challenging everything he believes about who he is.
My favorite moment of the episode and one of the best moments of the season is when Din, after meeting Bo Katan and the other Mandalorians, looks out at a setting sun, questioning everything that he knows for the first time. We see this image a lot in Star Wars, notably with Luke in A New Hope. Without any dialogue, Howard shows us just how profoundly this new information has impacted Din and sets the stage for the decisions he makes later in the season.
We also see more communication between Din and Grogu in this episode, and much of it happens in small moments that you might not even notice if you blink. Din knows when Grogu is hungry, knows that he’s having fun with the frog people, talks to him about behaving, and responds to his various coos as if he understands exactly what he’s saying.
The action sequence on the ship are splendid, too. It’s thrilling to see other Mandalorians fighting alongside one another using various weapons and tactics, and to see Bo Katan brought to life in live action after watching her character in the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels. Howard and actor Katee Sackhoff clearly have a great understanding of this characters’ motivations and values. Equally angry and honorable, she’s on a noble quest, but is willing to use brutal violence and risk lives to get what she wants.