The Book of Boba Fett Ch. 5 is less of a detour than some think.
This unexpected yet thrilling episode still fits into the larger story.
The Short Take:
Ch. 5 of The Book of Boba Fett completely blindsided me with a relentless barrage of thrills. A very different episode, but I maintain it still fits into the show’s overarching story. The change of pace will hopefully reinvigorate us all as we close in on the finale.
[SPOILER WARNING: It’s a miracle I avoided spoilers before watching this episode. It will be for you as well if you keep reading! There will also be some incidental spoilers for The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, and Rebels.]
The Long Take:
I must resist the urge to use slews of exclamation points instead of forming actual words to express how I feel.
I did not see this coming. Not at all. I was fairly confident that Din Djarin would show up at some point before the end of this season because we heard his theme playing last week, but I was not prepared for an entire episode dedicated exclusively to him. So when Mando’s silhouette appeared in the opening scene of Chapter 5, aptly titled “The Return of the Mandalorian,” all the blood rushed to my head, my pulse quickened, and it never slowed until the credits rolled. (At which point I bounced my unsuspecting cat, Tauntaun, in my arms to the beat of the show’s theme.)
This was not a tease. This was not a tie-in to The Book of Boba Fett’s wildly popular predecessor. Cameos are for the weak, this show proclaimed. Instead we will give you a tsunami of deep Star Wars lore, meaningful character development that pick up threads left at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, throwbacks to past films (including The Phantom Menace!), and, maybe most of all, pure fun.
A huge part of the rush of this episode is the way in which it so quickly reconnects us to events of The Mandalorian, as if no time has passed at all. The Armorer survived! And she’s found a new hideout in some absolutely gorgeous ringed space station city. Din still has the DARKSABER (fist pump), which he acquired at the end of Season 2, and we get to see him struggle with it in a way befitting its majesty and power. This whole sequence had the perfect mix of spine-tingling action and mesmerizing story. And, again, I did not see it coming; I had assumed they would save all of this for Season 3 of The Mandalorian. Which begs the question…what are we going to get in Season 3 of The Mandalorian?! Maybe more of Bo-Katan? The actual return of Grogu rather than agonizing allusions to his precious existence? That bindle had tiny ear bumps! Does that mean Grogu will wear a tiny beskar helmet?! I’m getting ahead of myself, I know.
I love that The Armorer serves as the lore keeper here, filling the audience in on references The Mandalorian made in passing but didn’t necessarily spell out for fans who have not seen a lot of the Mandalore-centric episodes of animated series like Clone Wars and Rebels. Most notably, we get a CliffsNotes version of Bo-Katan’s backstory, but recast as a “cautionary tale.” At the end of Season 2, a lot of folks were confused by the idea that Bo-Katan wouldn’t accept the Darksaber from Mando when Sabine Wren had given it to her as a gift in Season 4 of Rebels (which takes place long before, at the dawn of The Rebellion pre-A New Hope), and the fable The Armorer tells Mando — about the curse that supposedly follows a non-combat induced passing of the saber — clarifies that issue really nicely because it fits into the wider MandaLORE (sigh, I had to) naturally. Meanwhile, The Purge was as vast and devastating as I had imagined, and had a tragic, haunting beauty to it. At this point, I’m already in shock at how this episode managed to deliver so much exposition in dramatic, dynamic fashion.
I was so surprised by these Armorer/Mandalore scenes because The Book of Boba Fett has not seemed particularly concerned with Mandalorian history — and understandably so, seeing as Boba is a clone and therefore not as connected with his Mandalorian heritage as his foundling father, Jango Fett. But this show is very much indebted to the show off of which it has spun, and this episode very clearly establishes that these shows are part of a more closely connected universe. That, frankly, is exciting when I think about the future of Star Wars on Disney+.
Perhaps it means that Mando, in helping Boba, will convince him that Mandalore as a culture — as a tribe — matters more than he may have thought, ultimately persuading him to join him and Bo-Katan in an attempt to make a new Mandalore that will be able to accept multiple ideologies, uniting those who follow The Way, those who do not, and even the surviving clones scattered across the universe. Maybe even Omega from The Bad Batch, who might (and this is wild speculation) still be around? I know the 3D animation style isn’t for everyone, but y’all really have to get on board with all the animated series. They’re incredibly rich with story.
Sabine Wren gives Bo-Katan Kryze the Darksaber in Rebels Season 4.
Image Credit: InsidetheMagic.net
But Boba Fett isn’t even IN this episode, you might be thinking. Why isn’t this the premiere of The Mandalorian Season 3? That’s the elephant in the room that I can’t avoid any longer. The pacing of this episode and, to a lesser extent, the tone, do seem more in line with The Mandalorian than episodes 1-4 of The Book of Boba Fett. The latter has been much slower, taking its time to saunter like a bantha on the dune sea. But this Mando-focused episode, in contrast, packed an incredible amount of story, action, character development, AND Star Wars flavor in, at a breakneck pace. The fact that we go from a violent bounty hunting job to exposition about a displaced, dying race to a duel over an ancient weapon to a wacky ship repair montage with firecracker mechanic Peli Motto — all in one cohesive episode — is a marvel.
The sequence on Tatooine with Peli and the N1 starfighter is the most fun place this episode could have ended up. Amy Sedaris’ masterful comic timing and quick-witted, quirky writing makes this sequence when otherwise it may have seemed extraneous or gratuitous. Just the way Sedaris says, “Hey look, everyone — it’s Mando!” brings so much life, energy, and levity to the scene. The womp rat, the gang of diminutive droids scurrying around, and Peli’s oversharing about her data history with the Jawas also bring us back to the weird and wild, flavorful Tatooine we’ve experienced in the first four episodes of this show.
I’m not sure how likely it is that this N1 starfighter is the same one little Ani flew in the prequels, but I’m not even sure that really matters. The way that Mando and Peli talk about the ship, like two hipsters extolling the virtues of vintage records, radiates so much love that the starfighter doesn’t have to be a Skywalker specific artifact for it to be significant. And the modded version of the ship looks SO cool. It’s sleek and has the metallic coloring we now associate with Mando. Seeing him take a joy ride was indeed a joy. And it’s very clear that the speed and stealth of this ship, keeping Mando (and….Grogu? Maybe? Please?) off the grid will come in handy when we eventually get back to The Mandalorian.
I would like to try to argue that this episode, as random as it feels right now and as much as it feels like it belongs with The Mandalorian, actually does fit into the larger story that I think The Book of Boba Fett is building. If my theory/hope from my review of Chapter 4 last week comes true, then Mando, just by virtue of being a bounty hunter, has an invitation to join Boba’s growing tribe. Boba recruited Fennec, then Krrsantan, and now we’re adding Din to the crew.
I think it’s very purposeful for this episode to show Mando adrift after saying goodbye to Grogu. He very clearly misses him and worries about him. And, as a couple podcasts, like ForceCenter, have noted, the opening fight scene when Mando, in pursuit of a bounty, takes on a gang of Klatooisians with the DARKSABER (sorry, I’m still not over it — it’s so cool), implies that he’s kind of a dark, bloodthirsty wreck without Grogu. Not just because he misses him, but because Grogu brings balance to his life and makes him better. This paired with his dismissal from the covert of orthodox Mandalorians after he confesses to having taken his helmet off makes him a bounty hunter without a tribe just like Boba, Fennec, and Krrsantan. When we see him tracking down The Armorer, he’s clearly looking for a new sense of purpose post-Grogu. Perhaps he could find that new purpose, as well as a new home, with Boba’s bounty hunter coalition, at least for a little while. At least — who are we kidding — until he gets dragged back into the formation of new Mandalore in Season 3 of his own show, to arbitrate the ideological conflicts between the Armorer/Paz Vizsla’s covert and Bo-Katan’s Nite Owls. Regardless of what he ends up doing, the point is that Mando’s search for home and family is very similar to Boba’s.
So too are their philosophies. When Fennec asks Mando if he’d like to be part of Boba’s hired muscle, Mando tosses the bag back to her and says, “It’s on the house.” This implies that the Boba/Mando bond is already strong, and that the sense of honor and loyalty Mando cites as fundamental to The Way aligns perfectly with the respect-based operation Boba is trying to get off the ground. Where The Armorer’s zealotry shuts Din out of the only family he’s had his entire life (until he met Grogu, of course), Boba Fett’s bounty hunter house offers all the loyalty without all the lifestyle restrictions. Boba, after all, has already shown that he’s more accepting of adapting and evolving in response to both new cultures and peoples he encounters and new family members he finds.
This is the way. Mando’s way and Boba’s way.