Re:cap - Last episode we had the stranger coming out of the desert from the title, it was the gunslinger, Cad Bane, he was introduced in the Clone Wars episode, “Hostage Crisis” (2009). This was the most watched ep since the premiere and had the bounty hunter taking on Jedi to free Ziro the Hutt. He returned in “Reunion” (2021), the Bad Batch episode. Bane captured Omega and had to take on Fennec Shand. This was his first live action appearance and he says to the people of Freetown, “Tatooine belongs to the Syndicate.” Some Pykes enter Sanctuary, Garsa Fwip’s cantina, they leave behind their camtano, this was the famous device carried by an evacuee in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The device explodes and destroys the Mos Espa cantina!
Mos Espa, the aftermath of the explosion, Fennec and Boba Fett (of course carrying their helmets) survey the damage. The Mandalorian enters. The Mod gang is also there. He explains that the bargain was that Freetown wouldn’t have the spice trade going through it. Boba Fett agrees, he is quite agreeable. Mando believes that Cobb Vanth will arrive with the “foot soldiers”, uh-oh. The Mod, Skad, disagrees with Boba’s idea of holding up at the palace. He wants to play defensive at the cantina ruins. The other Mod, Drash, agrees and says they need to protect the people of Mos Espa. Boba Fett agrees, see?, very agreeable. Night, Jawas are scavenging parts from a speeder, in walks Cad Bane. Not epic, like last ep, just casually walks the Mos Espa streets. He walks into see Mok Shaiz, oh no, talking with the Pyke leader. The Pyke leader says that he destroyed the Sand People tribe.
Cad Bane wonders if Boba Fett knows if the Pykes were behind the massacre and the leader says the blame was shifted to the Nikto gang. The mayor’s voice still feels out of place. Bane says he knows a way to lure Boba Fett from Sanctuary. An X-Wing flies over Mos Eisley, this signal activates the pit droids in Peli Motto’s hangar. She rushes over to try to convince the New Republic pilot that she was just getting her certification. Then, we see R2-D2 and a familiar green head pops up! I love the reunion of Peli and The Child! R2 tells Peli that his name is Grogu. Like Boba Fett unhelmeted, everyone seems to know his name, not a great way to be anonymous. Peli doesn’t like it! She checks out his chainmail hauberk, the gift from Mando, and sends the pit droids to get him a dung worm meal? It is obvious from her first episode that Peli knows droidspeak. R2 is in a rush. We actually never see where he goes.
Morning, Fennec goes over the plan to send scouts, the Mod gang, to watch for any Pyke presence. Drash and Skad ride their bikes to watch arrivals at the Mos Espa spaceport. There are also the Gamorrean guards, still unnamed, looking out for the Pykes. Black Krrsantan watches over city hall. Fennec explains that the Mod gang are watching over the Worker’s Quarter and the Aqualish district. Annoying Mayor’s majordomo is also there listening to their plans. I think this one will only be a good episode if he dies in a firefight. 8D8 announces the arrival of a stranger. It is Cad Bane. The streets are empty. Wow, either that security is weak or they are all dead. He says that he took care of Marshal Vanth. Fennec and Mando have Bane covered. The bounty hunter says that he has back-up. Fennec alone is a match for Bane. Boba says he will only negotiate with the Pyke leader. Bane says he was the one that slaughtered his tribe. Flashback to Boba at the massacre. Fennec tries to warn him. Bane is ready to draw.
Fennec says that they have to choose the battleground, not Bane, or the Pyke Syndicate. Boba rests his hand on his EE-3 carbine rifle and says there is no negotiations. Bane walks away. Threat, no threat, the show is back to its usual routine. The majordomo comes out to babble again. Yup, not the great Mando episodes from the last two episodes, why do they keep him around? Oh, yeah, he amuses Robert Rodriguez. Drash contacts Boba about something wrong. The Aqualish start firing on the Mod gang, who are all in one area for some reason. “It’s a trap!” as Admiral Ackbar would say. Boba tries to warn “Santo”, Rodriguez bringing in a Southwestern US word for a wooden holy symbol (I don't think it will stick), Black Krrsantan sees the Trandoshans drawing blades. The spice hover train leaves and the Gamorreans, can see the Nikto warriors. Black Krssantan is easily struck by a vibro axe, not much of a gladiator. The Nikto back the Gamorreans to fall off a cliff. We never get their names through the entire series, so farewell Gabby (Frank Trigg) and Gammy (Collin Hymes).
An attack that knows all of the positions that were listened to by the majordomo? How could that have happened? Through this whole time, Mando is just silent, watching. This is not The Mandalorian. I’m suspecting that he is just the stunt double filling in space. The majordomo says the Pykes are at the Desert Survey Office. Didn’t Boba go to the Pyke leader? Boba sends Fennec there, she heads off on her speeder bike, another trap? The Trandoshans bring down Black Krrsantan in a gang pile, the Wookie doesn’t seem too strong, shouldn’t he not be knocked down by three Trandoshans, and instead be ripping off Trando arms?, a Trandoshan covers his head and he can’t bite it? Yup, typical ep of Boba’s Book, nothing makes much sense. Another Mod is blasted, they fire back and their cyborg modifications don’t seem to help them to be accurate with their shots. Skad is worried, but Fennec tells them to take cover. The Aqualish is blasted away by Fennec’s rifle.
She flips down and tells them to head to Sanctuary before getting on a speeder bike. Skad thanks her. Pyke gunman start to walk outside of the former cantina, in slo mo, to give them gravitas? Mando tells Boba of their arrival. No explosives to the sniper positions that they just saw when Bane was there? Boba tells Mando to leave, he has faced hordes of stormtroopers led by Moff Gideon, this is less of a threat. The dialogue here is really clunky. Plus, we have the majordomo has a contribution! This is a weak episode, but he wants to negotiate for them. I would just use his body as a shield. So he gets an extended scene. We also never get the majordomo's name, he seems to be favored by Rodriguez, so good luck J'rk von Clerrrk. He is actually saved by Mando and Boba flying in on jetpacks! Um, they have Beskar armor, he should shrug off blaster bolts. The two warriors in Mandalorian armor fight back to back, kinda cool. They are pummeled with blaster bolts when the Freetown people arrive in a hovercraft with the bartender, his name later is revealed as Taanti, manning a blaster cannon. They use the speeder as cover and blast the Pykes.
Then, the Mod gang rides in, Drash is blasted from his bike, Skad hovers in and fires her peashooter? A tiny hold-out blaster like the scout troopers use would be bigger. A roar and two Pykes are thrown. It is Black Krrsantan who seems to have his strength return enough to head to the Sanctum showdown. He is hit several times, there are about fifteen townspeople, Mod gang members, Boba and Mando, yet they can’t aim at Pykes while he is hit? Boba runs out to carry the Wookie back as Mando gives covering fire in front of them. He promises a bacta tank soak to Black Krrsantan. The bartender shouts out that the Pykes are retreating to a cheer from the last line of defense. Fennec is missing and Cad Bane is still out there. Mando uses his helmet’s vision to see droids with four legs and blaster cannons approaching. They have shields like the Destroyer Droids. Later, Peli calls it a Scorpenek droid. Boba targets two of the Destroyer Droids and sends his rocket at them. Boba and Mando hold them off as the others run and then take off in their jetpacks. Doesn’t Mando have an N-1 starfighter and Boba, Slave-1?
No, what’s more important is to have a gunfight on a street? Mando takes out his Darksaber and somehow the Destroyer Droid’s shield deflects it. Lame. Nothing can stop a Darksaber. Mando seems clueless about what to do, again not the Mandalorian, and Boba has him cover the others as he flies away. Rancor time? We see Mando blast at a Destroyer Droid who chases after him and then the camera pans to an empty street? The survivors start running from the Destroyer Droids who have caught up to them for some reason. The wounded Black Krrsantan can run for some reason. He blasts the Destroyer Droid several times with his rifle and then tries to pierce its shield with his gauntlet. The droid knocks him against a wall. Drash and Skad go to help him and manage to blast some Pykes while doing so. Mando is running as Peli pulls up ricksaw pulled by a RIC-920 droid. She says she has a surprise, but can’t hear the battle, but somehow can hear droids? Peli has the ricksaw droid take off down the streets with Mando hanging on to the side.
Skad says they should take cover at a walled area or they won’t have cover. She wants to go to the roof with Jo (Karisma Gideon) to snipe at the opposition. On the run, Peli shows Mando that Grogu is on the ride. The ricksaw droid is damaged and the ricksaw is flipped over. Mando grabs and protects Grogu while Peli is slammed to the ground. They move to cover while they hear a roar, rancor. For some reason, dumb Tatooine citizens look up to gasp, right in the middle of a firefight. The rancor appears with Boba Fett riding it, we have no scenes where Boba is learning to ride it, he just does. The rancor hops across rooftops and begins holding the Scorpenek droid’s shield. Mando sets Grogu down and takes out his Darksaber. The rancor is blasted by the Destroyer Droid and falls back. The damage the rancor caused allows Mando to fly inside its shield, sever the left cannons, and its head. He is thrown down and Grogu walks out. Mando is stabbed by the droid’s pincer leg, again somehow piercing Beskar armor, this really breaks the established canon of the new series. Grogu pulls off a piece of it, the leg falls, and the droid collapses. Not a Baby Yoda moment. The rest of the droid. Boba has the rancor shred the droid.
Back at the last stand, the Destroyer Droid has blasted the walls, what kind of concrete can withstand that constant blaster cannon fire? The Pykes are blasted, standing outside of the shield bubble?, and Drash sees that Skad has reached the roof. They blast the Pykes and then the rancor slams it into a building. The Pykes start to run because none of the survivors would shoot at gunmen who were trying to kill them. The proportion of Boba to the rancor is off scale. It’s a fight between mecha and kaiju, um, saw that in Pacific Rim. The shieldless Destroyer Droid stabs the rancor with its sharp pincer legs and Boba doesn’t shoot its central eye? The rancor defeats the Destroyer Droid. Mando and Peli appear blasting the Pykes who seem to have multiplied and come out of hiding? The rancor throws the pieces of the Destroyer Droid at a bridge and not at the running Pykes? The rancor slams a Pyke, holds one up for Boba to blast, and eats one. Then, Cad Bane walks out, where has Fennec been all this time? He hits the rancor with a flamethrower that knocks off Boba Fett.
This is the last showdown between Boba Fett and Cad Bane. Hinted at was the scene that Boba Fett had trained with Bane, but ultimately blasted his head. We see without his hat that the top half is cyborg. No spoilers to how this battle goes, but kinda predictable. We see the rancor is “out of control” according to the Mods. It heads up to a tower climbing a la King Kong. It is very active after having its side struck by blaster cannons and being skewered by the Destroyer Droid, but have we started making sense yet in this episode. Mando goes flying to take hold of its chains, but is thrown by the rancor. What will happen? And where is Grogu? At the Mos Eisley office of the Pyke leader, the heads of Mos Epsa, the Mayor, and the others have taken refuge. The scene is like Revenge of the Sith. We have a happy ending with Boba walking the streets with Fennec. The citizens bow to him. Then, we have Mando with Grogu in the lil’ hatch flying away in the N-1 starfighter. Plus, a mid-credit scene that is a nice touch. The Book of Boba Fett is fairly predictable finale, it has some off brand plot points and logic, but does finish this series.
Three Thrones of Boba Fett out of Five!
#BookOfBobaFett, #TemueraMorrison, #MingNaWen, #MattBerry, #FrankTrigg, #CollinHymes, #SophieThatcher, #JordanBolger, #CareyJones, #PedroPascal, #AmySedaris, #WEarlBrown, #KarismaGideon, #CoreyBurton, #PhilLaMarr
No comments:
Post a Comment