The Book of Boba Fett Ch. 4 offers big answers and hints at a jaw-dropping conclusion.
He's not the Boba Fett everyone wants, but he's the one we need.
The Short Take:
Pacing issues continue, shading in a little too much unnecessary backstory, and there are a couple head-scratcher moments. But I didn’t mind amidst all the Star Wars-y goodness. Very excited about what this episode (hopefully) foreshadows.
[SPOILERS as vast as the dune sea.]
The Long Take:
I have a confession to make: I loved the prequel films when they originally came out. Having worn down my VHS tapes of the original trilogy, I was so excited for new Star Wars that I was largely blind to any flaws. For my 16th birthday, I got a Jar Jar Binks inflatable chair, and sat in it un-ironically. Not long after, my little cousin very violently popped it. And, I have to admit, I was a little sad to see it go (in a way I wouldn’t now). Even now, I often find myself in the apologist’s position, defending what was good about the prequels while also conceding what didn’t work about them.
All this is to say that I constantly worry that I have a positive bias when it comes to Star Wars. That I am too excited to just have more and to experience the thrill of expanding and deepening the galaxy I love — too excited to know when a new star in the constellation misses. So when I hear and read fan reactions to The Book of Boba Fett, saying that this is a betrayal of the fearsome, ruthless bounty hunter we knew and ruins the character, or that nothing happens in the show, I start to wonder — is something wrong with me?
But then I remind myself that different Star Wars fans want different things, and that’s okay. So perhaps it’s more productive to think about what I personally want out of a Star Wars show like Boba Fett’s. As I discussed in my Chapter 2 review, I watch Star Wars for the universe. I want to see weird creatures, droids, bounty hunters, smugglers, and Jedi all occupying the same space. I want to see a fully realized world that stirs the imagination. And this show has delivered that, even more so than The Mandalorian. As much as others have complained about the Vespa speeder gang or “mods” (who actually seemed more visually blended in this episode), the random guy with the super goggles chilling outside of the mod parlor is exactly the kind of world-building flavor and texture I crave.
Galaxy splendor allows me to pay little mind to the pacing issues that episodes like this one create for the show. Chapter 4 lingers and relishes in a backstory quest, chronicling how Boba and Fennec met and how they teamed up to retrieve Boba’s “Firespray gunship” from Jabba’s Palace. Did we need to see why and why Boba had his ship when he appeared in Season 2 of The Mandalorian? No. Did we need to see exactly how Fennec got her cybernetic midsection? No. Did we need to go back to the Sarlacc pit to know that Boba looked for his armor there first? Definitely not. In fact, this unnecessary shading in of interim scenes or gaps that no one was really asking for slows the show down quite a bit. After the build-up to the Pykes’ arrival last week, I can see how spending so much time in the desert and in the past may frustrate some viewers who are eager to see how the Mos Espa conflict escalates.
I, however, didn’t mind because I thought everything I saw in this episode was so cool, with almost every scene containing some kind of dazzling detail only Star Wars can produce. Chef droids? A bantha wagging its tail? A rancor sucking down a meaty bone through the holes of his pen? Lengthy discussion of some weird desert fruit called black melon? A tiny drone that knows how to make blueprints? A Wookiee ripping off a Trandoshan’s arm? How can anything in the episode actually disappoint me when I get all of that?
What was necessary viewing, in my opinion, was the origin story of Boba and Fennec’s partnership. Why they are so loyal to each other and why two bounty hunters — who are notorious loners — would team up to try to take over Jabba’s empire. And this episode answered that in a big way. With falling in the Sarlacc pit as the final straw, Boba Fett is fed up with risking his life for other powerful figures’ idiocy. He essentially wants to be his own boss. I also got the sense that he had found peace and happiness with the Tuskens and, as I predicted in my review last week, their death at the hands of the Nikto Riders/the Pykes have prompted him to fix a broken system and, as he says in this episodes, “save lives” that historically have been needless casualties in crime lord machinations.
Fennec makes it clear that she still wants to maintain her freedom, but even when she has cleared her debt to Boba, she chooses to stay because what he describes gives her hope that she too no longer has to be a lackey for hire and that she, like Boba, doesn’t have to be alone. The chemistry between Ming-Na Wen and Temuera Morrison really sells this idea. The looks they exchange instantly convey that they understand one another. And I love how Fennec refuses to make a big deal out of it. She just very tersely says she will go along for the ride.
What we learn about Boba’s motivations explains why he seems different now — why he isn’t just a cool-looking bounty hunter who never says anything. When Fennec says that the Tuskens made Boba “soft” — the show demonstrates a tremendous amount of self-awareness, maybe even defiance in anticipation of some fan reactions. Boba’s reply — “No, it’s made me strong. You can only get so far without a tribe.” — seems to make a statement about strength. It’s not about whether or not Boba Fett is a badass anymore; it’s about how we define badass. At any rate, the retroactive internal logic behind Boba’s actions in previous episodes works for me. Whether or not you like his reasoning is another issue, but I think it checks out in terms of explaining the show.
I will admit, though, that there were some perplexing moments in the episode. Boba Fett sternly proclaiming “Do you know who I am? I am Boba Fett!” while holding the tiny rat catcher droid by the neck did seem a little ridiculous. (I enjoyed the general presence of the LEP service droid, though.) Boba assuming he had lost his armor in the Sarlacc pit made no sense whatsoever. I get that he was unconscious when those Jawas nabbed it, but why would he think that he made it out while his armor didn’t? Sure, the Sarlacc is cool, so if we just needed an excuse to kill it, fine. But this was the only part of the episode that started to test my good will.
A scene that increased my good will — my favorite scene of the episode — was Krrsantan accosting the Trandoshans in The Sanctuary. Not everyone may know or recall, but the Wookiees and Trandoshans have a long history of bad blood, mostly because Trandoshans would capture Wookiees and hunt them for sport. When they allied with the Empire, they made Wookiees their slaves. The show already alluded to this in Chapter 1 when a Trandoshan emissary on Mos Espa brings a Wookiee pelt to Boba as tribute. Even without any of this context, it’s very clear that Krrsantan is fuming at his table, eyeing the Trandoshans as they have a good time. I don’t know if this was intentional, but the placement of a Twi’lek in the midst of the Trandoshan party potentially makes them extra offensive to Krrsantan because Twi’leks also have a history of slavery, as we see in Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi. The fact that Krrsantan takes the time after the fight to interact with the Twi-lek also implies that he wasn’t happy with the way they were treating her.
As if the tension in this scene weren’t enough, the ever-charming Garsa Fwip fearlessly tries to intervene. I couldn’t take my eyes off her during her entire speech. The fact that she is not intimidated by Krrsantan AT ALL paired with her silver-tongued approach to trying to save “this unfortunate Trandoshan’s” life makes her a character I want to know more about. Her banter with Boba Fett has been a treat as well. When he says, “I guess it was worth a shot,” she just rolls her eyes and throws her hands up in the air. Even the way she gestures and says, “Hit it, Max” at the end oozes charisma. Jennifer Beals has been a breath of fresh air in this role, and I hope she becomes a more regular player in the Star Wars universe going forward.
This dynamic cantina scene also serves the larger story, making the recruitment of Krrsantan into Boba’s employ feel earned because we gain insight into Krrsantan’s character first. In the context of Boba’s conversations with Fennec, I think Krrsantan joining up creates a clear pattern: bounty hunters banding together to create their own tribe under Boba’s leadership. Hopefully Fennec and “Santa” (again, Garsa Fwip is amazing) are just the first steps in what I think — what I hope — the show is setting up for its grand finale. In the desert flashbacks, Boba very clearly says “our kind” when he airs his grievances, indicating that he not only wants more for himself but for other bounty hunters like him.
How awesome is the idea of a bounty hunter collective forming at the end of this show?!?!? Fennec’s line, “Credits can buy muscle, if you know where to look” certainly implies that their party will grow in number next week. And the theme from The Mandalorian was definitely playing when she said it. Does that mean just Din Djarin shows up? Are we talking a whole band of Mandalorians, if Din’s still hanging out with Bo-Katan and company? Might they put a call out to ALL the bounty hunters they know? Some would just come for the credits, but others might see Boba’s vision and stick around like Fennec did. Could we see Bossk in a future episode? Could Cad Bane, a fan favorite (or maybe just my favorite?) bounty hunter from the animated series, make his live-action debut? If I dare to dream, we could be building towards a very different but equally cool version of the iconic line-up from The Empire Strikes Back. If they could recreate how it felt to see a gang of cool bounty hunters for the first time, everyone, regardless of how they’ve felt about the show so far, could go home happy.
Image Credit: Wookieepedia
No matter who shows up, a wall-to-wall battle between the Pykes and an army of bounty hunters sounds nothing short of thrilling. Is it next Wednesday yet?