I’ve said time and again in my season finale reviews that a good finale doesn’t offer up a million twists and turns – it should take the story to the natural conclusion the preceding episodes have hinted at. And if that’s how one judges a finale, “In the Name of Honor” was a pretty solid season one (possibly series?) finale for The Book of Boba Fett. We were given the gang war with the Pyke Syndicate, the battle was resolved, and Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are now officially the main power brokers in Mos Espa (and, potentially, all of Tatooine, considering some of the muscle that was taken out and the amount of badassery shown by Fennec in her own solo mission). But the problem with this finale – as we all could anticipate – is that after spending so much of the last two episodes focused on Mando’s season 2.5 journey to reunite with Grogu (which, again, I enjoyed – but I would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more in his own TV show), much of the momentum surrounding the characters on Tatooine was lost.
While I certainly remembered the various characters Fett and Fennec recruited to their cause once I saw them on screen, I have to admit I had actually had forgotten that Krrstantan was still in the picture. Although, I did remember there was Chekhov’s Rancor still waiting to make an appearance (and I suspected we would see a Deus ex Grogu in some form once he was confirmed back on Tatooine). It was cool to see Fett and Mando fight back to back, and it was fun watching Grogu use the Force to crush those who threatened his dad (and to lull the Rancor to sleep). But I can’t help but think spending 2/7 of the series’ runtime without Boba Fett uttering a word meant the finale didn’t sing as brightly as I had hoped it would.
Take, for instance, the showdown between Cad Bane and Boba Fett. For fans of the Star Wars animated series, this was likely a super cool feature of the episode. But for those who haven’t watched any of those, it felt, well, like watching a fight scene that we were missing a heck of a lot of context for.* Yes, the dialogue did some heavy lifting (and a TON of heavy exposition lifting throughout the episode – telling us a host of things that, again, had we had more episodes, could have been shown to us) in letting us know that there was a mentor-student relationship between the pair in the past, but without any real understanding of how deeply connected the duo were, the fight was just another fight. Which was a bummer.
*Having taken on the task of reviewing shows with character histories that go beyond the confines of the series at hand, I’m fine with personally doing the extra legwork to educate myself about those things I don’t know. But this was the first time in the Star Wars live action shows where I felt the series was solely catering to those fans who had watched the previous series/had taken the time to do the homework at the cost of losing key character beats for those who didn’t. I’m firmly in the camp that an audience shouldn’t be required to do additional homework to understand key moments in a show, so I was disappointed with the choice to make the key character sequence for Boba Fett one which only fans with an understanding of his past with Cad Bane would truly get.
That being said, I wasn’t all that impressed with the major battle itself. It felt strangely segmented and relatively without much forward momentum. The betrayal of the Fett allies was pretty easy to see coming, but the protection of all characters with speaking roles by their plot armor was, well, lame. Unleashing the Rancor was fun – I’m assuming all that time we spent away from Boba Fett was when he was training that beast to obey his command? It was cool to see Grogu save the day (although, again, why not let us see more of Fennec’s work or even that of the Freetown gang than more Grogu). As for the assassin sequence of Fennec’s? Well, that was perhaps the coolest aspect of the entire episode – and it only lasted a minute or two. That’s the kind of thing I was hoping to see a heck of a lot more – Fennec and Boba Fett teaming up to clean up Tatooine. Instead, we ended up with Fennec and Boba Fett occasionally show up in the back half of the season of their own series while their Super Friends get the A plots.
All-in-all, The Book of Boba Fett was less about giving us original stories about our favorite Star Wars bounty hunter (since Mando is no longer one, I think Boba Fett now owns that title again), and more about slotting the character into the wider Mando-verse of Star Wars. I was hoping to get deeper into who Fennec Shand was and is – how she got so good at what she does and why she is willing to tie in her lot with Boba Fett (beyond him saving her life – there has to be more keeping her there now). And I wanted to see more from Boba Fett regarding his historically great skills. A future for Star Wars live actions series that is ultimately centered around Mando and Grogu isn’t a bad thing – but continuing to spend so much time fleshing out their story to the detriment of others within this universe could result in diminishing returns. The Book of Boba Fett certainly wasn’t a failure, but it was a warning to Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau that there must be balance in their Star Wars storytelling moving forward – as there is in all things. Too much Mando means other characters get shafted. And that isn’t the way to build a new universe.
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