This week’s outing of The Mandalorian is a major one for a bunch of reasons. To begin with, “Chapter 11: The Heiress” brings a fan favorite character from the Star Wars animated universe to live-action. Namely, Bo-Katan Kryze, with Katee Sackhoff reprising her role from The Clone Wars and Rebels. And by bringing Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin face to helmet with one of the most prominent Mandalorians elsewhere in the franchise, the show finally addresses a major plot hole that’s been bugging fans for the past year.
In season 1, it was established that Djarin never removes his helmet as it’s against Mandalorian code to do so. This was an effective way of explaining why Pascal’s face is always hidden, but the thing is is that it clashed with what we’d seen in the animated series. Bo-Katan, Sabine Wren and other Mandalorians took their helmets off all the time and didn’t seem to share Mando’s religious beliefs. Now, episode 3 finally addresses this discrepancy and provides us with an explanation.
Djarin is immediately offended by Bo-Katan and her crew when they take their helmets off in his presence. He reiterates his stance on how it’s against the Mandalorian way, but Bo-Katan explains why he’s the only one that believes this. “You are a child of the Watch,” she tells him. “A cult of religious zealots who look away from Mandalorian society… their goal is to reestablish the Way.”
She’s presumably talking about the Death Watch, a militant Mandalorian splinter group that Bo-Katan was a part of at one point. She once led an attempted coup against her own sister, Duchess Satine Kryze, during the Clone Wars. However, she broke away from the group when they allied with Darth Maul and formed the Mandalorian Resistance instead. Establishing Djarin as being raised by Death Watch neatly explains his unusual customs and offers another connection to the world of the animated shows.
And there are plenty more where they came from as well. As revealed in this episode, Ahsoka Tano is on her way to The Mandalorian and she’s expected to debut soon.