Who Is Din Djarin’s New Squad From This Week’s Episode of The Mandalorian?
The most recent episode of Disney+’s The Mandalorian, “The Heiress,” set us on a new journey for both Din and Baby Yoda, so let’s unpack what that means for the future of Din, his trust of the Mandalorian way, and finding the Jedi.
**Spoilers for The Mandalorian episode “The Heiress” lie within.**
The episode “The Heiress” was interesting for a bunch of different reasons, one being that we saw Baby Yoda’s growth and understanding from one episode to the next (meaning that he understood not to eat the Frog Lady’s eggs), but more than that, we learned of an entirely different crew of Mandalorians that Din Djarin knew nothing about.
When he is on a ship trying to make passage to meet more of his kind, he’s suddenly confronted with a real fear: The fear of losing Baby Yoda. The ship’s crew throws Baby Yoda to a beast on their ship, and Din jumps in after him. Quick to try to fight his way out in the same way he did with the sand dragon, Din ends up trapped in a cage before, suddenly, a squad of Mandalorians shows up to save him and Baby Yoda.
The twist? They just … take their helmets off, no problem, unlike our friend Din.
First, there’s Bo-Katan Kryze (played by Katee Sackhoff).
With a long-standing history with Mandalore (and, more importantly, who rules it), Bo-Katan is a character that many fans know from Clone Wars. Constantly trying to gain control back of her home planet, she first made moves to dethrone her sister Satine and her pacifist ways but inadvertently brought the Sith to Mandalore (through Darth Maul). After realizing her error and freeing Satine from the Royal prison, she began her quest to regain control of Mandalore.
Which leads to the darksaber. When Bo-Katan starts to talk to the Imperial captain on the ship (Titus Welliver) when they manage to get into the cockpit of the ship they’re taking over, she asks him where the darksaber is. He refuses to answer and sacrifices himself before she can get information, but it does show us where this is heading.
Then, we have Koska Reeves (played by WWE star Sasha Banks, who is listed by her real name Mercedes Varnado).
We don’t know too much about Koska. She is with Bo-Katan, and she clearly knows her way in a fight, but other than that, there isn’t much given away from her character. What I do like about her is that she doesn’t take any nonsense or pause from the fight. When Mando and his new squad are faced with a never-ending sea of Troopers, Koska (with the rest of her Mandalorian friends) keeps fighting her way through each new wave of them.
I hope we get to learn more about her and with how important she is to the greater Star Wars lore. I feel like that isn’t the last time we’ll see this group of Mandalorians.
Finally, there’s Axe Woves (played by Simon Kassianides).
Much like Koska, we don’t know that much about Axe. Other than his cool name. But my working theory is that Din is going to rely on this new group of Mandalorians to help him learn about a different crew of Mandalorians and how his “cult” isn’t the only way to be.
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By the end of the episode, Bo-Katan tells Din that he needs to find Ahsoka Tano. And while fans would be incredibly excited to see that character brought into the fold of The Mandalorian, it does come with the knowledge that Rosario Dawson (who is meant to play Tano) is still in an ongoing court case with Dedrek Finley wherein Finley accused Dawson and her mother of workplace discrimination, after Finley came out to the Dawson family as a trans man.
I’m excited to see where the show is heading, especially now that Din knows that he is part of a “cult” of Mandalorians who believe you cannot take your helmet off at any time. Does that mean he’ll get to finally exist outside of his beskar armor? Who knows? But I would love to see more of Pedro Pascal’s face.
Anyway, I love this squad.
(image: Lucasfilm)
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