Episode 4 of The Book Of Boba Fett was a marked improvement over Episode 3 and yet . . . I just can’t get into it.
I was chomping at the bit after each episode of The Mandalorian, eagerly awaiting the coming week’s entry. That show played like a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. Not much dialogue, lots of smaller stories breaking up the larger narrative, and plenty of adventure, with the perfect Western musical score.
In The Book Of Boba Fett, the titular character is Mr. Chatty. The show is filled with exposition and clunky dialogue. And we’re stuck on Tatooine full-time. So much for rollicking space adventures, daring heists or epic confrontations. This is a lot of walking and dreary conversation. Even the score feels like a pale imitation of The Mandalorian’s soundtrack.
Revenge Of The Fett
Episode 4 actually does have a heist, at least. Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) in the Tusken Raider timeline, wants revenge for the slaughter of his adoptive tribe. (Really classy how they first humanized the Sand People, making them the indigenous people of Tatooine, long-oppressed by off-worlders and then killed them off to give Boba Fett some character development!)
He finds Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) dying in the desert, left for dead by Mando in The Mandalorian, and takes her to a mod shop to have her patched up with cybertronics. All things “mod” in this show are completely wrong. The cyberpunk style of the scooter kids and the “mod” tech / tattoo artist in the shop are so far from the aesthetic of Star Wars, I’m honestly surprised the powers that be at Lucasfilm gave them the greenlight at all.
In any case, when Fennec awakes he asks for her help and she says she’ll help if it wipes away her debt to him for saving her life. He needs her to help him retrieve his ship, Slave 1, from Jabba’s palace, where Bib Fortuna now resides. The daring mission is rather humdrum, with the pair easily infiltrating the fortress and Fennec killing about three dozen guards in the process.
A better scene comes after, when Boba takes them to the Sarlacc pit to try to retrieve his armor, which he wrongly assumes is in the beast’s belly. They hover over the pit and are nearly pulled inside, but Fennec manages to drop an explosive into the belly of the beast, killing it.
They take Slave 1 (I refuse to rename it just to appease the current cultural zeitgeist) and find the speeder bike gang and Fett gets revenge from the skies, in a brief but brutal act of retaliation—though for my part, the bad taste left by the decision to slaughter the noble Tuskens off-screen remains.
The past timeline ends with the two returning to Jabba’s palace and killing Bib Fortuna, which brings us up to the present. I assume this was the last flashback of the season and going forward the show will focus entirely on the present.
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Meanwhile, In Mos Espa
The present timeline is a bit of a jumbled mess. Boba Fett finishes his Bacta Tank treatments (which is another clue that no more flashbacks are forthcoming) and heads into town.
At the Cantina he watches as the big—and apparently rather one-note and thick-headed—Wookiee bounty hunter , Krrsantan, gets into a fight with some gambling Trandoshans. The establishment’s proprietor, Garsa Fwip (Jennifer Beals) attempts to calm the barbarian down but he rips another limb off for good measure and storms out.
Naturally it’s not until this moment that Boba Fett offers the Wookiee a job. This is silly. I said of last week’s episode that he should have either imprisoned Krrsantan or offered him a job since he’s so desperately in need of muscle. Instead, he just let him go. Why wait until now to hire him? Surely this man-who-would-be-Daimyo would have thought of this at the time! This all feels...totally pointless.
My theory is that Boba Fett doesn’t actually want to rule. For all his talk of starting his own House and saving lives by being a kinder, gentler crime lord, he just doesn’t seem to want it that bad. He has no army and hasn’t even discussed forming one until now. He talks about ruling with respect instead of fear. He sympathizes with some punk scooter kids who can easily afford expensive cyber-mods but have to steal their water and is just generally incompetent in almost every single way. He’s bad at this, but the show doesn’t seem to acknowledge that.
Why does this man not retire? Just go off somewhere with his credits and live a life of peace and harmony and solitude. He’s an animal lover, obviously, scratching the Rancor’s cheek and showing oodles of affection to his pet Bantha which, by the way, was the star of this episode as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never seen a Bantha wag its tail before, and Boba Fett feeding it treats and getting licked by it was adorable—though perhaps something I’d expect in an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender rather than The Book Of Boba Fett.
In the video above, I talk about how I really like the character Morrison is playing in this show. He’s a kind old dude with a chill attitude. He’s the kind of mellow, LSD-dropping uncle every kid wants to hang out with. But he’s not Boba Fett.
A lot of people tell me that he’s actually the perfect culmination of Boba Fett’s long arc from the prequel films, through The Clone Wars to the Disney+ live-action show. I guess I’m not as up on all the lore as superfans, but to me we went from a sinister, Han Solo-capturing bounty hunter who was absolutely 100% fine working with Jabba the Hutt and Darth Vader one second, to a wise old monk who wants peace and equality for all the next.
His transformation isn’t shown onscreen, either. He emerges from the Sarlacc pit a changed man, showing mercy and compassion to his captors in the desert from the start. There is no dynamic arc, no change from mean-spirited and selfish to compassionate and kind. This show fails because Boba Fett is static and not really Boba Fett at all. Even if he undergoes further transformation during his time with the Tusken Raiders, this is barely shown and largely just implied.
I like this character. I just don’t think this character is who he’s being billed as. This is not Boba Fett, this is an imposter. He barely even wears his helmet.
In the end, Fett brings the crime lords of Mos Espa to his palace for dinner and planning. (Note that the show focuses entirely on Jabba’s holdings on Tatooine despite Jabba actually holding sway over a much vaster empire that spans far beyond this world, let alone the metropolis of Mos Espa).
Here, Boba Fett’s weakness and incompetence is on full display. While he does rattle his saber a bit, frightening the crime bosses with the Rancor below them, he’s all bark and no bite. When he asks them to join forces against the Pyke Syndicate, they tell him they’re not interested. Instead of flexing his muscle, Fett immediately capitulates. Fine, he says, if you won’t join me at least don’t join them okay? Pretty please?
They agree, and he seems satisfied, sure that they will see him as the lesser of two evils, though why he should assume such a thing is beyond me. Maybe he’s just not that bright.
Whatever the case, this episode did not assuage my concerns with The Book Of Boba Fett. So far we had one decent premiere followed by a very strong second episode, a very bad third episode and a lackluster fourth. Overall, I’m just really disappointed. Disney and Lucasfilm should not have followed up The Mandalorian with another show about a Mandalorian bounty hunter, but just less cool and interesting and set only on Tatooine. The fact that the story has almost no momentum and the character feels completely wrong don’t help matters.
Speaking of The Mandalorian, it seems like he could make an appearance soon. When Fennec Shand says they can “buy muscle” the theme song from that show plays very briefly. That makes me think Mando will return at some point in the next three episodes. It’s crazy that this show is over halfway over and almost nothing has happened. Good grief.
What do you think of The Book of Boba Fett so far? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
For me, the Bantha and the fight with the kitchen droids were the best part. Everything else was kind of slow and boring and it all feels very pointless and not particularly like Star Wars.
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