It is unfair to everyone involved that, by far, the best episode of The Book of Boba Fett is actually an episode of The Mandalorian. It’s even less fair that this would be one of the lesser episodes of The Mandalorian, but them’s the shakes. It is even more unfair that next week is poised to be the biggest episode of Star Wars TV yet, and it will have nothing to do with Boba, Fennec, Black Krrsantan, a rancor, or anything else from this show.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
1. A breath of recycled air
No offense to Tatooine, home world of the Skywalkers, Max Rebo, and Peli Moto, but it was so refreshing to get an episode that wasn’t entirely set on the desert rock. The planet that the first third of the episode took place on was essentially a giant city built on the inside of a roller coaster loop, floating in space (so basically, a Halo, if my non-existent gamer perception is correct). It was an incredibly interesting visual, something new for live action Star Wars, and easily the most interesting setting in this entire series thus far.
In addition, Bryce Dallas Howard’s direction gave the show the most interesting shots of the entire series thus far, with a particularly cool long shot of Din Djarin that almost resembled the Goodfellas Copacabana scene or the party at Jack Horner’s house in Boogie Nights. Howard knows what The Mandalorian should be, and so she was very at home delivering that, as opposed to the other directors of this series so far trying to guess what Book of Boba Fett is supposed to be, and failing to find anything that is distinct or very interesting.
2. That was the way
This episode (and perhaps Chapter 6 as well) is all about answering the burning questions left over from The Mandalorian‘s “Chapter 16: The Rescue.” Here’s what we know: Din still has the darksaber, though his wielding of it is imprecise and clunky. Din hasn’t seen Grogu since Luke took him, but that’s going to change. Din is ok telling the Armorer that he’s removed his mask, but he still has Catholic Mandalorian guilt over it.
This also sees Din thrown out of his cohort of Mandalorians for removing his mask. He’s even called Apostate on the way out of the door, but he retains the darksaber, a piece of beskar armor made for Grogu (from his melted down spear), and the knowledge that he did the right thing for Grogu, and that matters more than some ancient jargon that he’s been blindly following. Din seems surprisingly ok with walking away from it all. This can be seen as the character’s evolution from his time with both Grogu and Bo Katan’s band of Mandalorians, as he now has a worldview that is broader than it was before. There’s a part of me that thinks that season three is him trying to access purification on Mandalore, but that seems like a step backwards. Why set him free only to come back to his self-imposed prison?
3. New ship, who dis?
While the Razorcrest was a bomb ass ship, it is pretty dope to see Din flying a Naboo starfighter from Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It sort of fundamentally changes the type of show that this can be, however. Din was able to use the Razorcrest to transport others; now, he’s in a single passenger ship with a spot for Grogu. It’s not exactly the best ship for a bounty hunter, unless there is a cargo hold of some size that we didn’t see. But this is another way that this episode is setting up Din for the third season, and getting all of the details worked out, so it can jump directly into story.
4. Cameo parade
Let’s run ’em down: aside from Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, the Armorer is back, as is Paz Vizsla, the Mandalorian voiced by Jon Favreau (and descendent of both the Mandalorian Jedi Tarre Vizsla and Favreau’s The Clone Wars character Pre Vizsla). Also returning is Amy Sedaris as Peli Moto, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Carson Teva, the Republic pilot who was previously crash landed on an ice planet with the Mando in season 2. With him is a pilot named Reed, named for Mandalorian director Peyton Reed, likely, but played by a really interesting choice. Max Lloyd-Jones isn’t a name you likely know, but he was the stand-in and body actor for Luke Skywalker in the Mandalorian season two finale. This is somewhat akin to Matt Lanter, The Clone Wars voice of Anakin Skywalker, appearing in season one of Mandalorian.
Continued belowWe also get to see Beggar’s Canyon, a place originally referenced by Luke in A New Hope and the first (I think?) live action footage of Mandalore, including its siege. This episode was chock full of Star Wars nostalgia, even for shows that are only a few years old.
Also, my bet on a cameo in the next two weeks: Daniel Logan, the kid who played Boba in Attack of the Clones and who voiced him on The Clone Wars . Mark my words.
5. Was this the plan all along?
If you think about The Book of Boba Fett as a series of films, with a year of production after each one, “”Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian” makes a lot of sense: the series is flailing, and they need a pick me up, so they return to the well with a much beloved character, essentially rebooting the series in the process. But that’s not how these shows are made; all of these episodes were shot, filmed, scored, and edited before a single frame was released into the wild. So that means one of two things: Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Robert Rodriguez knew that their story was stretched too thin for 7 episodes, and so decided to make it only 5, and have two Mandalorian episodes in the middle, or they had such an inflated view of the material that they wanted to build tension and anticipation by pausing Boba’s story for two weeks.
As much as I can know anything, I know it isn’t the second one. I have to believe that the folks at Lucasfilm realized that the story they constructed – Boba as the daimyo of Mos Espa – wasn’t quite the epic they thought it might be. There are a lot of places to point the blame for what Boba has been, but I still, perhaps naively, believe that the show could have a decent continuation in the future. Ditching the flashbacks is a huge help, as is giving Fennec a larger role, as would be getting Boba to actually do some stuff instead of just walk between three locations. All of that could be improved with a second season, but the first has been so universally panned that I wouldn’t be so sure about its fate.
From a strictly Mandalorian perspective, these two episodes are acting as a coda for the first two seasons, and allows season three to do whatever the hell it wants to do. And next week may be even more of a jumpstart: Is this the backdoor Ahsoka pilot? Will Luke show up again?
The only way I can see this episode having ANY bearing on The Book of Boba Fett is if Din recruits some extra help for Boba to fight the Pykes. That’s it. Otherwise, this is just a two-parter Mando interruption. And after four weeks of boredom, I’m more than OK with it.
