Full Spoilers Ahead.
Writing stories in a franchise as big as Star Wars is difficult. So much is already established, but there's still so much space on the canvas to create something new. The problem when you're adding new work to the already-established picture is you run the risk of overlapping things you don't want to overlap.
This week's episode of The Mandalorian, titled The Heiress, was a well put-together, fun little adventure (very short episode) with major implications to what's ahead, but it's starting to compromise sensibility within the grand scheme. Let me explain.
For the third straight episode, we start our adventure with Din Djarin in a shady locale trying to find someone to give him a lead. Baby Yoda deals with a face-sucking alien in his soup while Din talks to a predator-looking creature in a dark cantina. Later, we discover this predator creature was lying about transporting Din to find other Mandalorians. Instead, he chucks The Child into a water trap while he and his crew try to apprehend Din.
A fun action sequence ensues as these other Mandalorians come to their rescue.
These are different Mandalorians, though. These ones look like ones we've seen in The Clone Wars and Rebels. These ones even take off their helmets.
One of these Mandalorians is none other than Bo-Katan, a character from The Clone Wars who was the leader of a group called "Death Watch" (I believe this group had a member voiced by Jon Favreau himself, so it makes sense that they would come back in The Mandalorian). I admittedly mistook Bo to be Sabine Wren, a character from the other show, Rebels, because her helmet had all kinds of artwork on it. But then she took off her helmet and sported her short, red hair. Bo was not one of my favorite characters of the Clone Wars. I would've loved to see Sabine instead, but it was still thrilling to see the return of another established character from a show that is canon.
Bo promises to lead Din to a Jedi, but Din must first help her and her team steal back some of their people's weapons that the Empire possess. This Jedi she mentions is none other than Ashoka Tano, probably the most popular character from The Clone Wars who also made a triumphant return in Rebels (she was one of the best parts of that show, and her story in Season 7 of The Clones Wars that released earlier this year was fantastic).
How they finally make Ashoka's return in The Mandalorian official was perfect and anti-climactic at the same time. Bo just namedrops Ashoka as she's telling Din where to find this Jedi. It was so nonchalant. For people (like my wife) who never watched any of the other shows, they wouldn't give it a second thought. But super fans (like myself) surely got all giddy and excited. Yet, hearing her name avoids some grandiose, unrealistic moment of introducing her to the show visually. While that method certainly worked in the season premiere with Boba, I'm okay with not getting something similar for Ashoka. Too many of those moments would make me feel like I'm watching something like "Masked Singer: Star Wars edition," as if we're all trying to guess who the guest cameo/established character will be this week.
So why is bringing back all these established characters from the previous shows (all of which take place before Episode IV, mind you) a bad thing? Well, it's for the same reasoning that it was a good thing that all the characters in Rogue One died.
Where the heck have they all been this whole time?
Look, I get it. The Mandalores never joined the rebellion. But still, they fought the Empire for a long time. Rebels ends with big battles against the Empire, and these characters definitely knew about the war and absolutely cared enough to fight in it (even when no one else did, a theme of those last couple of episodes). But bringing them back now is like pretending The Mandalorian is a continuation of Clones Wars and Rebels more than it is a show about what happens after Episode VI, as if we just fast forwarded through the original trilogy.
And now we get the bombshell that Ashoka is still alive. Again, where has she been? Did she go back into hiding? Was she running from Anakin, her former master, the whole time? In Episode VI, Yoda and Obi-Wan talk like no other Jedi are left (except Leia). I guess it's possible they wouldn't know Ashoka is still around, but it's starting to get unbelievable. What's worse is I'm sure they'll give us some paper-thin reason why she's up to whatever she's been up to. Or maybe they'll flesh out more story in an Ashoka-led show or something (like I said last week, I'll be disappointed if The Mandalorian turns into nothing more than merely a springboard to the launch of other shows).
All in all, this episode had a pretty good balance. It was compact, concise, and still fun while moving the plot forward a bit.
Notes:
-The episode's director showed off a full range of scope. The opening shot instantly raises the stakes with a tense moment. The frog lady reuniting with her husband was a brief, yet intimate, moment. We got some fresh camera work on an empire ship's corridor (the shot had a cool angle), as well as a couple of fun shots above water that give the audience a bit of a thrill.
-It was kind of weird to see the Imperial officer in a "Hail Hydra" moment as he kills himself to prevent capture and divulging of information by swallowing some electric-shock gadget. Speaking of gadgets, we got to see one or two other cool, though maybe familiar toys, including one from Djarin as he chucks some grenades at a pack of troopers who are shooting at him. It was nice to see his armor put to use by deflecting a bunch of laser fire.
-I read an interesting theory that would be really fun if it came true. Again, I don't particularly like this show treading too much on original-trilogy story beats, but this idea is pretty juicy. A lot of people think Sabine will return in some fashion, too. And they think we'll find out something pretty huge about her lineage (I know, a lot of fans are tired of this idea after the sequel trilogy trolled us all). The theory suggests that Sabine may be Obi-Wan Kenobi's daughter. Whoa! It actually makes sense, too, because we find out during The Clone Wars that Obi-Wan had a secret romance with the Mandalore queen Satine (the similarity in the name alone is enough to convince me). As of now, Sabine's father supposedly is Ursa Wren, but who knows, they could throw a wrench into that. To what purpose would all of this be, you ask? Who knows...although, they are making a live-action Obi-Wan series, too. Maybe we'll find out some things he was up to when he disappeared all these years. But I digress.