The Short Take:
Chapter 3 of The Book of Boba Fett takes what we thought we knew and shuffles the deck to reveal a more complicated situation. The weakest episode we’ve gotten so far, but still plenty enjoyable. I trust Filoni and Favreau to have a plan.
[SPOILER WARNING: I’m going full spoiler right out of the gates of Jabba’s Palace.]
The Long Take:
This show has polarized Star Wars fans from the start. Some are not too keen on the pacing — saying it’s slow and boring — or have had issues with the characterization of Boba Fett. The Wampa’s Lair podcast this week featured an extended discussion about fan expectations of Boba’s character, providing valuable context from the Legends/non-canon works, so check them out for more on that. This third episode, though, seems to have prompted criticism even from those who were on board in Chapters 1 and 2. While my notes are not as harsh as some I’ve seen — I still enjoyed the episode a lot — this one just isn’t firing on all cylinders in the way Chapter 2 is.
Before I get into some more obvious reasons for that, I do want to point out that some of the “off” feeling of the episode is actually by design. The story both slows down and speeds up. I’ve seen some viewers say that there’s a lot of table-setting for the future while others excitedly praise how much happened. I think both can be true because the show tries to pull the rug out from under both Boba Fett and the audience. Based on the events of last week’s episode, I was expecting him to face off against the Hutt Twins for the rest of the season, trying to maintain his hold on Mos Espa and ultimately getting into a big fight with Black Krrsantan, the Wookiee gladiator turned bounty hunter. So when a fight with BK happens in this episode and the Hutt Twins peace out when the going gets tough, I was a little surprised.
Wow, they are moving fast here, I thought to myself. But, actually, these smaller chess pieces (no disrespect, BK) need to fall away to make room for the adversaries Boba actually needs to face going forward: the Pykes with a possible assist from the Mayor, who faked us out last week by deflecting attention elsewhere. It worked on me, at least — two Hutts and a Wookiee were an incredible distraction. I’m not completely counting out The Twins just yet…part of me worries that their gift is a Trojan Rancor, or perhaps a Trojan Danny Trejo?
In retrospect, of course it was the Pykes all along. The Pykes are the prime antagonists of the Tusken flashbacks. To me, it makes the most sense if the Tusken timeline and the Mos Espa timeline converge on the Pykes because then the bad blood between them can directly feed into a high tension, high stakes war that Boba can take personally. And no, I don’t really count the Nikto Sand Riders as the target of Boba’s ire because a.) the Pykes are underhanded enough to have framed them and b.) even if the Niktos were in fact solely responsible for murdering the Tuskens, the Pykes are the ones who pitted the Niktos and the Tuskens against one another by saying they would only deal with one group.
The scene in which Boba returns to the Tusken camp from his negotiations with the Pykes, only to find the entire tribe murdered, was absolutely devastating. And Temuera Morrison’s performance and Robert Rodriguez’s direction in this scene were pitch perfect. He doesn’t scream at the sky, he doesn’t cry his eyes out. He very solemnly and respectfully lays his new family to rest. That kind of understated reaction is much harder for an actor, but I could still see so much pain and loss on his face.
On Twitter, I saw a fan of indigenous descent say that the “Native rep” resonated with them and, more specifically, that they were “heartbroken” at the Tusken deaths in Episode 3. Their takeaway, though, seems to be that the show might be able to do some good in pushing “audiences to support the actual people affected by such real-life events.” Not being of indigenous descent, I cannot comment on how the scene made me feel in this context, but I thought it very powerfully concluded the flashback narrative, giving the Tuskens more multidimensional representation than they’ve ever had.
But, again, I was not expecting this so soon. I did suspect last week that the Tuskens would suffer a massive loss down the line because Boba’s adoption by the tribe seemed too nice to last long, especially knowing he’s no longer with them. But I would have assumed this kind of tragic climax would have been reserved for the end of the season, intercutting with Boba in some impossible situation, remembering his loss in a way that helps him pull through and keep fighting. Was this too soon? Too sudden? And did these Tuskens only exist to progress Boba’s character?
Maybe. This was both a point of discussion on The Wampa’s Lair and The Ringerverse, and I don’t want to downplay how harmful and frankly lazy fridging is, but here’s my potential defense of this plot point as a way of understanding Boba’s motivations in Mos Espa: it’s not necessarily the deaths of the Tuskens themselves but what their death says about a corrupt, oppressive social system that rewards this kind of genocide. So it’s not so much the loss but what Boba learns about Tatooine, the Pykes, and the crime syndicates — through that loss — that progresses his story. This is all contingent on what happens next, of course.
The common criticism I can most get on board with is that the cyberpunk Vespa gang didn’t work, but this may be more an issue in execution than in concept. I like the idea of Boba taking these punk kids in when the rest of the city views them as societal menaces. And I like the idea that they would try to aesthetically rebel against the status quo on Tatooine with a more vibrant cybernetic lifestyle. It certainly offers a healthy alternative to Luke’s adolescent whining about power converters and never being able to escape the backwater planet in A New Hope.
Visually, though, the color palette contrast was just a little too jarring. If they had gone a shade lighter with the bikes or made them dirtier — to blend them in with the overall look of Tatooine, I think it could have worked. From our time with the Tuskens and basically every other time we’ve been to Tatooine in the Star Wars canon, we learn how formidable and unforgiving an environment Tatooine is. So to have speeders this shiny and this bright seems to undercut that idea too much. I’m inclined to think that no matter how much they might try to keep those speeders shiny, the dusty winds would keep coating them anyway. To be clear, I’m not saying characters like these don’t belong in Star Wars; we’ve seen plenty of characters with cybernetic modifications, especially in the comics. They just make less sense on Tatooine.
The chase between the Vespa gang and the Mayor’s majordomo towards the end of the episode didn’t bother me as much as it did others. Since the majordomo seems to excel at nothing other than diplomatic passive aggression, this chase seems appropriately leveled. If it had been any faster and more daring, wouldn’t we all be sitting here talking about if it were realistic enough? If it made sense that the majordomo, considering his occupation, would be able to engage in a high speed chase scene?
Power ranking in general has been a challenge in this show. How do you pit Krrsantan, who has effortlessly obliterated so many foes in the comics, against one of the coolest Bounty Hunters in Star Wars history? And we introduce these young punks into the show, and they have to both be impressive enough to work for Boba but also young and green enough for us to believe they’re just random kids on the streets of Mos Espa. And then they go up against the majordomo, who really shouldn’t have any physical skills whatsoever. Realistically, that chase wouldn’t have lasted more than 20 seconds. But this is an episode of a Star Wars TV show that needs an action sequence. Maybe the mistake is not introducing some muscle or an assassin working for the Mayor earlier on, so as not to box the majordomo into mismatched action.
Even with all these questions and criticisms, I trust. I feel like I’ve said this many times in the past, but most recently with The Bad Batch animated series. I trust Dave Filoni (and Jon Favreau, but mostly Filoni since he’s the Star Wars lore mastermind) to know what they’re doing. And, unlike Boba Fett may at some point in the coming weeks, I have yet to regret that unconditional trust.
Various members of The Ringerverse podcast have been coming down hard on Boba for taking a lot of “Ls.” Joanna Robinson makes a strong case for how Boba continually finds himself out of touch with what’s going on and is “bad at his job” as a crime lord. I’m not necessarily denying this — in fact, a lot of the observations are astute. But I do think that the show is testing our faith in Boba’s approach to daimyo-hood. We underestimate him now, he holds fast onto his nobility, and then there’s a big payoff at the end. He will prevail. And that will be thrilling, and well worth whatever weakness or implausible incompetence we experience now.
To go back to my discussion from last week about the influence The American Western has on this show, I’d say that Boba occupies the role of the noble sheriff that no one believes in or everyone thinks is being stupid by taking moral high ground. Even Fennec, his lieutenant and possible friend, constantly questions his decisions. And yet Boba has been SO consistent in his mercy, acceptance, and sense of justice. He listens to the “urchins” and quickly calls out Milton (sorry, I mean Lortha Peel, played by the legendary Stephen Root) on his water-mongering nonsense. He lets Black Krrsantan, who brutalized and nearly killed him, go free with some friendly bounty hunting career advice. He tenderly befriends the rancor and wants to keep it as a pet, learning how to ride it rather than abusing it like a prize fighting dog.
My cynicism reflex assumes the rancor will attack as soon as Danny Trejo gives the signal or that any character we’ve met so far — including Fennec — could betray him. But I don’t think that’s what this show is trying to say. It’s about clashing approaches to law and social order, and favors Boba’s way. The show has wisely boiled this down to fear vs. respect, but it’s really an everyone out for themselves, with those in power taking advantage vs. building a fair society for all species and all walks of life.
We’ve been comparing The Book of Boba Fett to criminal underworld dramas like The Godfather or The Wire, but what if it’s about a battle of genres: the Western disrupting the crime drama through Boba Fett?
That noble sheriff figure almost always wins the day. He’s not afraid of the outlaws, he never backs down, and his triumph is a moral victory. Respect will win over fear. It has to.