The Book of Boba Fett’s Best Episode Probably Shouldn’t Have Been This

This week’s episode of The Book of Boba Fett has an power fairly in contrast to something the present has delivered up to now. It additionally has a narrative fairly in contrast to something the present has delivered up to now. And a forged. And a premise. Because, as sturdy because it was, it wasn’t an episode of The Book of Boba Fett in any respect—and being pretty much as good because it was solely served to spotlight a few of the present’s largest issues.

Last week I advised that by shifting on from its flashbacks—having informed the tales it wanted to inform for its protagonists—The Book of Boba Fett had nowhere else to go however ahead, progressing the inevitable battle between Boba and Fennec’s burgeoning prison forces and the Pyke syndicate. So think about my shock when Chapter 5, “Return of the Mandalorian,” determined there was in reality really someplace else to go: Season 3, episode 1 of The Mandalorian.

With The Book of Boba Fett’s titular protagonist nowhere to be present in its runtime—the one connective tissue being a ultimate scene between Fennec and the collection’ shock visitor protagonist, Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin—“Return of the Mandalorian” pays off on final week’s musical stage setting in a means that maybe few may’ve anticipated. Instead of bringing Boba to The Mandalorian, it brings The Mandalorian to Boba by giving us an episode that fully observes Pascal’s bounty hunter within the wake of the defeat of Moff Gideon in season two’s climax. Burdened with each the lack of Grogu and the unwieldy weight—each bodily and metaphorically—of the Darksaber he now possesses, “Return of the Mandalorian” sees Din, a person who we final noticed opening himself as much as these round him within the identify of defending his baby, shunned and remoted by the sacrifices he made to make sure Grogu’s security.

Fortunately, maybe like all good Star Wars, “Return of the Mandalorian” will get by on the gaping narrative wounds it inflicts upon its bigger self with numerous allure. Just as a result of it’s an episode of The Mandalorian and never The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t make it inherently dangerous—in reality, fairly the other, with returning director Bryce Dallas Howard arguably delivering her strongest live-action Star Wars up to now, which is saying one thing given her monitor file contains Mandalorian’s “Sanctuary” and “The Heiress.” From the opening bounty brawl to Din careening by means of Beggar’s canyon together with his new starfighter, to moments mild and grave in between, “Return of the Mandalorian” is paradoxically one in every of The Mandalorian’s finest episodes regardless of not being an episode of The Mandalorian.

There’s loads of Star Wars’ inherent love of the acquainted, after all, as Din checks in on characters just like the Armorer and Paz Viszla, on Pelli Motto and even a well-recognized New Republic X-Wing pilot, and see the visible iconography of every little thing from Jedi: Fallen Order’s BD droids to the long-lasting Naboo Starfighter of the prequels, repurposed for this new period (the latter shining, even in its beaten-down kind, as Din’s substitute for the Razor Crest in an exhilarating check flight). There’s additionally tantalizing explorations of worldbuilding for the Mandalorians at massive, as we see the aftermath of the Empire’s purge of the planet, and the lingering shadow of the dueling elements of Mandalorian tradition that continues to rattling the purge’s survivors.

It’s additionally a surprisingly emotional reflection on the loneliness Din Djarin faces after Luke Skywalker upended his life: Without Grogu, he lacks function, wandering the galaxy from job to job, and with the Darksaber in hand, he rapidly learns that the person he has change into in elevating the kid has left him an outcast of the clan that raised him. He’s with out his former folks too—ostracized for abandoning “The Way,” even when in doing so Din turned a greater individual, his former friends within the Covert too blinded by warrior zeal to concentrate on simply how few of them stay. There is a tragedy how really alone Din is right here. If Din Djarin has nowhere to go however lengthy to see the kid he raised as his personal as soon as extra, The Book of Boba Fett posits, then maybe he can discover a temporary sense of function in reuniting with Boba Fett, one other outcast of the remnants of Mandalore attempting to hunt his personal path.

But for all these strengths, it’s laborious to not escape the straightforward incontrovertible fact that “Return of the Mandalorian” shouldn’t be an episode of The Book of Boba Fett. Sure, Fennec reveals up on the finish and affords Din the possibility to seek out some function—however not with out first, because the latter teases, a possible go to to a sure Jedi-to-be. But all that does is excruciatingly inch the collection’ narrative ahead. It does so whereas promising extra in service of Din’s private arc—a personality that The Book of Boba Fett was arrange as its personal present to get away from, to provide house to The Mandalorian after a season of indulgent connections to the broader Star Wars universe, so it may spend time rebuilding and re-examining who Boba Fett is in a post-Return of the Jedi world.

The incontrovertible fact that “Return of the Mandalorian” is so exuberantly kinetic compared to the tone Book beforehand established smacks of a scarcity of readability of function that has lingered all through the collection up to now. If The Book of Boba Fett can ship a good episode that balances constructing satisfying character work with enjoyable Star Wars motion, why is it solely doing so by ejecting itself fully to change into an episode of The Mandalorian? Why can it discover the time to navigate and provides that means to the aimlessness Din Djarin feels with out Grogu, when it’s nonetheless not fairly positive the way it feels about Boba Fett as against the law lord who’s, all issues thought of, fairly dangerous at being against the law lord?

With two episodes left, The Book of Boba Fett finds itself more and more out of time to deliver its myriad lingering plot threads to any form of satisfying narrative answer, and even discover precisely it desires its imaginative and prescient for Boba Fett to be. The stage is ready for one thing grand as Din Djarin and Boba Fett reunite—however that stage has been set for a number of episodes now, as The Book of Boba Fett has clunkily jammed the brakes time and again. As good as this newest indulgence might need been, for it to in the end matter—and for Boba Fett himself to return out of this collection stronger than he got here into it—the collection has loads left to show… and little time to do it.

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