The Book of Boba Fett Is Already Messily Wiping Its Own Slate Clean

If the first few episodes of The Book of Boba Fett have been excited about contextualizing the person its titular former bounty hunter turned after escaping the Sarlacc, its third, “The Streets of Mos Espa,” is the primary to essentially study what he’s up towards within the current. But like drivers on the titular streets of that Tatooine city, this episode doesn’t care what it crashes into in an effort to attain its vacation spot.

“The Streets of Mos Espa” marks a turning level in The Book of Boba Fett’s stability between a concentrate on flashbacks of Boba’s journey and the story of him changing into Mos Espa’s daimyo within the current. Much extra time is dedicated to that current timeline, as Boba finds himself swept up within the metropolis’s muddled political panorama. New allies seem out of nowhere, and previous threats vanish earlier than they’ll go away a lot of a mark, all in an effort to lay the groundwork for the most important battle of the season. But in realigning that stability, the present feels prefer it’s haphazardly slicing over itself, truncating a number of the potential it arrange in earlier episodes.

The episode opens with one thing that feels a jokingly ripped out of its sister collection The Mandalorian’s playbook: somebody involves Boba to get him one thing he needs, however in an effort to get that factor, he’ll must do a job for them. The factor in query is tribute and management over one of many few water suppliers in Mos Espa, and the job is coping with a gang of cybernetically enhanced youths (lead by Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher!) which were stealing his inventory.

But it is a new Boba Fett, and we be taught he’s a lot much less more likely to put a blaster bolt by way of somebody with out asking questions then he’s to listen to out all sides of a battle. In doing so, Boba learns that the gang’s belligerence is introduced out of hardship: With no work of their district and the watermonger gouging costs for his commodity, they’d little alternative aside from to insurgent. So Boba sides with the gang, recruiting them as his newest warriors—in a prison empire that consists of him, Fennec, two Gamorreans, and a torture droid voiced by Matt Berry—and intimidates the monger into decreasing his costs.

Things begin getting messy from right here. Another assassination try by the hands of final week’s “yes we’ve read other Star Wars material” character, the Wookiee Black Krrsantan, ends with Boba saved by his new biker gang besties and Krrsantan dumped into the empty Rancor pit. Then the Hutt cousins from final week present up on the doorstep. They’re not right here to escalate, it seems, however to grovel. They’re sorry for siccing a Wookiee on Boba, and they even introduced a housewarming Rancor, so perhaps one thing will truly occur the following time Boba and Fennec push somebody within the pit. They even received Danny Trejo to coach him!

All this sudden retreat after final week’s threats is as a result of the Hutts have found that one other prison syndicate have their eye on Jabba’s territory, and are working with forces inside Mos Espa to make it possible for they get their mitts on it. And so now, one other battle out of the blue defused, Boba’s empire grows once more: him, Fennec, two Gamorreans, some cyborg teenagers on the Star Wars equal of candy-colored Vespas, Danny Trejo, Chekov’s driving Rancor, and a torture droid voiced by Matt Berry.

All this feels quite sudden, and “The Streets of Mos Espa” does little to vary that feeling when it climaxes with Boba dispatching his newly-acquired teenagers on a chase of Mayor Mok Shaiz’s majordomo. It all feels classically Star Wars, in that it’s a little bit of mess, and there’s few issues fairly as camp as a Twi’lek in a speeder being chased by more-machine-than-teen bikers. But the mess the chase makes in Mos Espa’s streets is mirrored narratively with the deployment of a “twist” that’s laid out as such, even when it doesn’t actually really feel like one. It seems Mok Shaiz is extra concerned than they let on final week, and has been working with the Pyke syndicate to muscle in on Jabba’s previous territory—and now, make an enemy of Boba within the course of.

It’s a superbly advantageous establishment for The Book of Boba Fett to choose up going ahead, but it surely additionally appears like one unexpectedly thrown collectively at the price of truncating a lot of what had been arrange throughout its first two episodes. In hindsight, they now really feel like Boba naively being guided round his new empire, much less of a significant new power at play in Mos Espa and extra of a device for the individuals who already stepped into the facility vacuum Jabba left behind. This could be advantageous, too—fascinating even, contemplating Boba’s prior fame within the Expanded Universe as a grasp planner steps forward of his rivals—if it didn’t really feel like the viewers had likewise been performed round with, ready for the present to disclose its central battle. Black Krrsantan, the Hutts… all of them out of the blue really feel like their potential has been stripped away as the main focus turns to the Pykes.

But there’s andifferent component of potential being stripped away that hits even tougher. The minor period of time the episode spends in flashback is devoted to a horrifying revelation from Boba’s current previous: Upon returning to his life as a mercenary—this time to say work on behalf of his new Tuskan compatriots— Boba goes to the Pykes with a proposal of a safety association. He rapidly discovers that the Pykes haven’t solely already made an association with the Kintan Riders (the identical biker gang Boba went after at Tosche station), however in his absence, the Riders struck again on the Tusken settlement and wiped out its inhabitants, leaving little however their smouldering tents for Boba to find.

From the charred husks of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to Rey’s personal murdered dad and mom, Star Wars is not any stranger to leveraging this type of bloodbath for a personality’s pathos. It’s a blunt and acquainted device to engender a personality’s plight to the viewers whereas additionally liberating to maneuver on from these connections. But even when it’s an apparent transfer for this franchise, its deployment right here stings because of the nice lengths The Book of Boba Fett went to in its first two episodes including nuance to the portrayal of the Tusken peoples as Tatooine’s indigenous populace. To go away all that potential within the air, deeply tying the rebirth of one in all Star Wars’ hottest characters to it within the course of, solely to only instantly solid it apart for a barely-reflected-upon second of pressured tragedy is a pressured error for the present.

Whether or not this stumble is be price it stays to be seen. Yes, “The Streets of Mos Espa” has realigned The Book of Boba Fett’s central battle. But Star Wars didn’t want to re-tread this acquainted trope, at the price of pointing a highlight on one in all its most fascinating and mistreated cultures.

Wondering the place our RSS feed went? You can decide the brand new one up right here.