Spoilers Ahead for The Book of Boba Fett!
We’ve finally made it to the season finale of The Book of Boba Fett. Although the series has thus far been decent, but nothing excellent, the season finale was full of some great moments and some no-so-great moments. The final battle between the Pyke Syndicate and Boba’s side was exciting, with some great action sequences featuring Din Djarin and Boba Fett.
The Good
There were plenty of great moments in this episode. Firstly, we finally got to see some great action from Boba Fett, which we’ve been missing out on plenty throughout this show. Finally seeing Boba in his awesome armor utilizing his weapons was a great way to bring his character to some light.
Din Djarin and Boba Fett teaming up and fighting against the Pykes, using their jetpacks and brutally destroying the enemy out of the sky was probably one of the best moments of the show. It was certainly something I was hoping to see. Plus, seeing the Dark Saber again–although not as prominently as in previous episodes–was great too.
Grogu’s return was also anticipated, and I had a pretty strong feeling that he would choose to return to Din after Luke gave him the ultimatum. It was also nice to see them reunited, as their father-son relationship is just great. Having Grogu use the Force and work with Din was also fantastic. Especially when Grogu was able to tame the Rancor–that was a pretty great moment.
Cad Bane’s return was obviously welcomed, but his death was quite shocking. Although it’s not 100% clear if Cad Bane was truly killed off or not, his fight with Boba was pretty good. It wasn’t the best of the episode, but it wasn’t bad at all either. Boba Fett using the staff given to him by the Tusken Raiders was very symbolic in my eyes, as I saw it as some sort of revenge play by him.
The Rancor’s entrance reminded me all too much of a game I used to play as a kid: Star Wars for the Kinect. Now, the Kinect for Xbox 360 wasn’t the most beloved piece of hardware, but I couldn’t forget the times I spent playing Star Wars on it. There was one mode in particular where you could play as a Rancor and essentially just go on a rampage and destroy everything. It was a very welcome memory for me.
Boba Fett riding on the Rancor and attacking the droids was wild and probably the highlight of this episode. It certainly made sense then why he was being nice to it. The writers were probably leading up to this moment.
Overall, there was quite a good amount of things to come from this episode and moments that filled the young Star Wars fan in me with excitement and joy.
The Bad
Now, there were plenty of cringe-inducing moments in this episode. It wasn’t all bad by any means, but some of it was just unnecessary or downright annoying.
Firstly, the blaster fights felt lackluster in a sense. There was a lot of it and a lot less time dedicated to the more important parts, like the Cad-Boba fight that I was anticipating in this episode. I also felt like, despite that scene being great, there could have definitely been more time dedicated to fleshing out that fight scene. Boba Fett and Cad Bane don’t seem to like each other at all, so one would think that more time would be spent honing in on such a powerful fight between the two. However, we didn’t really get that at all.
The–as I like to call them–cyberpunk vespa gang was also annoying. It wasn’t like they did anything particularly bad, but their presence in the show doesn’t seem to work in my eyes. I feel like there is a complete disconnect between their style and the idea of Star Wars. Especially on a planet like Tatooine, which feels more like it should be a Western cowboy style place. The Freedomtown citizens were basically what I’d expect from the planet, but the cyberpunk vespa gang just feels extremely out of place.
And then there’s the more glaring issue for me: Boba’s character. From the beginning of the show, he has felt like the weakest piece of it. Despite the show being named after him, Boba’s actions and development were less than stellar. He was consistently needing other characters to help him figure things out and counsel him into doing anything. Not only that, but he doesn’t fit in my head with who he was. Sure, people change, but Boba Fett was a bounty hunter. Clean and simple, he’s not a hero. He is an antihero at best. But still, they did little to make him a likeable antihero or even a decent hero. Boba Fett’s character was wasted, despite there being plenty of potential in such a show.
The best moments were either with other characters or when Boba was fighting alongside other characters, and even then…it was mediocre at best for him. Boba Fett is clearly a fan-favorite, and one would expect that the writing would reflect such expectations for him. Boba was portrayed in the films as being a more ruthless bounty hunter, but I felt like Din Djarin was significantly more ruthless than him.
The show felt like it was only trying to hype up Season 3 of The Mandalorian and not really develop Boba Fett at all. Aside from that, the show was basically boring up until Episode 5, when Din was introduced. Fennec Shand felt like she had a more compelling character than Boba Fett did, up to the point where my friends and I joked that it was the Book of Fennec, Mando, and sometimes Boba.
The Ugly (not really ugly, but Western theme going on here…)
The Book of Boba Fett was a lackluster show with a fairly predictable ending episode. Although the final episode did enough to keep me entertained, if you’re just looking at it from a baseline, it was a good episode for sure. However, if you want to deeply analyze it, the episode had its flaws, but its glaring flaws were its predictability.
I could pretty much detect what was going to happen and I knew that the episode would end in a more positive light. However, I felt like there should have been more done to create a more suspenseful and intense air to the episode.
At this point, I’m assuming that Disney didn’t allocate much of a budget to this show and rather just wanted it to be a way to bring back the hype around The Mandalorian instead of Boba Fett. Spin-offs are a hit and miss when it comes to TV shows: They’re either great or they’re absolute garbage. I’ve seen some good and even great spin-offs before, but The Book of Boba Fett was unfortunately just not a good spin-off.
The writing felt mid-tier at some points, with Oblivion NPC-level dialogue occasionally, and some boring moments sprinkled in with very little action. Star Wars has always been about story and action, but when you lack in both, you’ve really got yourself dug down into a shallow grave.
Unfortunately, I can’t see The Book of Boba Fett renewing anytime soon, and I don’t think that we’ll see much of his character for some time. I honestly don’t want another season; I felt like one was more than enough. I’d much prefer having more Mandalorian content with cameos from other characters instead.
Conclusions
Overall, I feel like this episode had its wonderfully exciting moments and its boring or even annoying moments as well. I would rate it an 8/10, just because it felt predictable and had some bad dialogue and action in it at some points. However, there was more than enough action and excitement to keep me interested.
Let us know what you think in the comments below. Remember to keep all discussions polite and respectful.
Zainah Yousef is a writer for The DZSH Group. She is also the author of “The Fallen Age Saga.” Her areas of focus are on psychology, politics, public security, and war. She is also a frequent contributor in articles on video games and entertainment news.
