We’re in the backroom of a butcher’s shop, watching a load of dog-faced mobsters sit around counting their cash. It might look like The Sopranos, but this is The Book Of Boba Fett – or is it The Mandalorian? This week’s episode crosses back over into the series that spawned it, picking up Mando’s (Pedro Pascal) story instead of Boba’s and filling in some of the blanks that will bring the two shows together int he future.
Getting a great entrance as a blurry silhouette behind a doorway hung with plastic strips, Mando returns to Disney+ with twice his old western swagger. Now that he’s seen Baby Yoda safely off with Luke Skywalker, he’s back collecting bounties – and he’s in the butcher shop for Kaba Baiz (Ardeshir Radpour). “I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” he says, just as badass as ever. Picking the “cold” option, Kaba’s struggle kicks off what might be the most violent scene that’s ever been shown in Star Wars, with Mando whipping out his new Darksaber to slice everyone into grisly chunks – walking out holding Kaba’s head in a dripping sack. However cool Boba Fett might be, he’s still got nothing on Mando.
Wounded by his own saber burn, Mando limps back to his employer (in one very impressive tracking shot – courtesy of this week’s director, Bryce Dallas Howard) and trades the head for information. Following his new lead through a secret passage on the floating city planet he’s now on, he finds Paz Vizsla (Tait Fletcher) and The Armorer (Emily Swallow) – the two Mandalorian elders who helped him out during his own series.
Anyone who’s been following The Clone Wars and Rebels doesn’t need all the Mando-myth backstory here, but The Armorer gives it to us anyway – giving us a lot of big hints about what storylines are going to come back around for The Mandalorian season three. In short, the Darksaber is really powerful, whoever has it can unite the warring tribes of Mandalore, and it can only be won in combat. A flashback to the Imperial genocide on the planet (“the night of a thousand tears”) and a brief mention of Bo-Katan’s claim on the Darksaber also get thrown in here, but all that will have to wait for the sequel series.
Now that Mando has the weapon, he doesn’t need his beskar spear anymore, so The Armorer melts it down in her plug-in BBQ and asks him what he wants her to make with the metal. “Something for a foundling…” he says. “Something for Grogu.” With confirmation that Baby Yoda is coming back, and with the suggestion he might soon be wearing a cute, metal bounty hunter hat, everyone cheers (especially the toy manufacturers).
Watching Mando train with The Armorer, Paz Vizsla gets jealous and asks to fight Mando for the saber. Obviously he loses, but the fight ends up revealing that Mando has previously removed his helmet – making him an outcast from the tribe (and technically making him not a Mandalorian).
Boarding a commercial flight back to Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) on Tatooine, the rest of the episode plays out a bit like one of those Channel 5 mechanic shows. Peli and Mando hang out in the garage fixing up an N-1 Naboo fighter jet. Once just cannon fodder in the prequel trilogy, the beaten-up old starfighter is now a vintage roadster, and Mando takes it out to for a spin as his new ship.
“Dank farrik she’s fast!” he almost shouts as the ship flashes through space, instantly getting a speeding ticket from two old X-Wing cops. Docking back in the garage, Fennec is waiting for him to jump back into Boba Fett’s storyline.
“Tell him it’s on the house” he says. “But first, I gotta pay a visit to a little friend…”
Under the helmet
- Series composer Ludwig Göransson adds so many nice audio cues from his own Mandalorian score here – from Mando’s signature tune, to reworked strains of the series theme.
- Mando’s test drive takes him to Beggar’s Canyon – the place where Luke Skywalker learned how to “bull’s-eye womp rats”, seen here in a neat nod back to birth of Luke’s training to blow up The Death Star.
- The X-Wing cops are Captain Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and Lieutenant Reed (Max Lloyd-Jones), cameoing here after their turn in season two of The Mandalorian.
‘The Book Of Boba Fett’ releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+