Mando's back!
This was one of the longer episodes of The Book of Boba Fett. It's also basically the one with the least Boba Fett, an omission which maybe can be forgiven with the impact this episode will eventually have on the trouble brewing in Tatooine and Mos Espa. Or maybe not. We'll see.
Mando, or Din Djarin, has been doing quite a bit since Mandalorian – and we get to catch up in this episode. He's bounty hunting, and seems fairly relentless without Grogu and with the powerful Darksaber and the beskar spear – but his journey brings him to a remnant of his people in the Armorer and Paz Vizla, whose ancestor created the Darksaber.
I loved The Mandalorian, so watching this episode was a geeky treat. I loved the extended glimpse we got into the mythology of Mandalore. I didn't like the instafight between the two Mandalorians. There's only three of them, so you'd think their lives would be highly valued to each other, right? But no. "This is the way." Still, it's what makes Mandalore so fascinating – the code that makes them so rarefied and which defines the warriors they become.
In the end it isn't the Armorer or Paz Vizla which defeats Mando, but Mando's own past catching up to him even as he keeps running to find Grogu again and bring him the mysterious, but beautifully wrapped, wrought gift. Mando leaving in defeat – but with the Darksword – made me wonder about that bad luck the sword is supposed to bring with it.
Amy Sedaris is borderline hilarious in this episode as Pell Motto, a character I was prepared to dislike but which won me over. At times the character felt almost cartoonish, but she was a great foil for Mando. The ship and droids were fun, as was the return of Captain Carson Teva.
So now Boba has his army, in a single and very damaged man. What's next?
The Droid Projector Shows...
The Book of Boba Fett features a... RINGWORLD! And beautifully detailed, too. Ringworlds were the invention of Larry Niven, and were a way to maximize the use of the goldilocks zone around a sun.
What IS in that package for Grogu, made of beskar from that deadly spear?
The special effects and cinematography throughout this episode were amazing. I liked the longer shots as it helped place me in a different story – it really didn't seem like Boba Fett, though. I do not, however, like or get the whole magic-sword-Darksaber thing. It seems outside of the regular Star Wars mythology. The training was awesome, though.
The story of Bo-Katan was really alarming.
I'm actually a little worried the story of Boba and Fennec Shand is going to get swallowed into The Mandalorian.
Overall
This was a great episode, barring my concerns above. I'm totally open to the show folks doing incredible things and weaving this strongly back into the main storyline. Four out of five Darkswords.
This episode was good.
ReplyDeleteIf it was an episode of The Mandalorian.
But this was an episode of Boba Fett, and so I was impatient and almost a little annoyed through most of it. Again, the issue is pacing. For such a short series, did we really need to spend an entire episode on what was essentially just a prologue to the next season of the Mandalorian? It had literally nothing to do with this series until the last 30 seconds when he got hired.
So many scenes could be so much shorter too. Did we really need that very long montage of rebuilding the ship. All I could think was "Now this is pod racing!" Although, admittedly, it was nice to see the references and Episode 1 to not be entirely forgotten. I suppose I also just didn't like Pell Motto at all, which made those scenes more grating to sit through.
The ring world was gorgeous, though, and the pod racing scene did feel like it had speed and excitement to it. And I did like the stuff involving the mandos. (Even if the duel made literally zero sense.)
Ah well. We'll see what happens next week.
I completely agree, Honest Fangirl. I could kind-of accept it if the episode was half Mandalorian, half Book of Boba Fett. In fact that's what I first thought they were going for - replacing the flashback scenes, which now seem to be finished, with Mando. But to have a whole episode replaced with one of Mandalorian, especially with so many unnecessary scenes, that was very annoying. Excuse me, doesn't the Mandalorian have his own show?!
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