The Mandalorian Returns in an Episode That Highlights Everything Wrong with ‘Book of Boba Fett’

Roughly twenty seconds into this week’s episode of The Book of Boba Fett, a very specific Tom Servo joke from Mystery Science Theater 3000’s riff-fest on “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank” rang in my head like an alarm: “Man, never show a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie.” The context: barely three minutes into that low-budget D-movie sci-fi movie from 1983, lead character Fingal (Raul Julia!) “scrolls up a cinema” — Casablanca — to distract from his braindead office job. And by the halfway point, the entire movie turns into a Casablanca pastiche… which just forces the viewer to think about how much this made-for-PBS feature is nowhere close to being Casablanca.

Twenty seconds into The Book of Boba Fett Episode 5, a very familiar silhouette John Waynes his way up to the plastic strips leading into an alien butcher shop. It’s Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, or at least his voice), star of the acclaimed, beloved, Emmy-nominated Star Wars series The Mandalorian. To paraphrase Tom Servo, “Man, never remind us of a good Star Wars show in the middle of your crappy Star Wars show.”

That’s exactly what The Book of Boba Fett did this week, even going so far as to title the episode “Return of the Mandalorian.” Why they didn’t just go all the way and throw The Mandalorian logo after the cold open, we’ll never know. But what preceded and followed that misleading Book of Boba Fett title card ended up being the hands down best episode of the show to date — and it was an episode of this show in name only.

The Book of Boba Fett has been noticeably off from the jump. Even a Star Wars super-fan like myself — someone who really gives the franchise a lot of leeway, someone whose entire day can be made just by noticing that Matt Berry is voicing a specific torture droid — has found this series wanting. I grew up with a to-scale cardboard cutout of the Fett in my bedroom, and even I agree with my colleague Meghan O’Keefe when she says that Boba Fett sucks. I’m still having fun with the show — anything that puts Stephen Root in Star Wars is, bare minimum, okay by me — but it’s not living up to expectations. And that’s because Boba Fett is not Din Djarin, and The Book of Boba Fett is not The Mandalorian.

There’s one very crucial, very telling way that my MST3K metaphor doesn’t track: unlike “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank’s” embarrassing version of Casablanca, The Book of Boba Fett Episode 5 is actually a very, very good episode of The Mandalorian. That wasn’t a given! I was incredibly nervous when Djarin showed up, worried that they’d somehow water down his character like how the series has watered down the already shallow Boba Fett (reminder: Boba Fett was barely a character before his return in 2020!). That didn’t happen. Instead, “Return of the Mandalorian” is such a good episode that it just makes me mad about the rest of The Book of Boba Fett.

That opening scene? Djarin collecting on a bounty by blasting his way through a bunch of Klatooinian butchers and leaving the butcher shop with his bounty’s head in a bloody bag? It’s better than almost anything we’ve seen in the show because Din Djarin did something. We’ve watched nearly four hours of Boba Fett staking his claim on Tatooine and I am struggling to think of anything he’s done in the show’s present-day storyline. After spending time recuperating with the Tuskens, Boba’s spent his time on the throne… and just vibing in a bacta tank? Talking to cool teenz? He pet a rancor calf — oh, and he intimidated a teeny tiny rat catcher droid (the show’s best character so far, IMO).

The Boba Fett we’ve gotten in this Boba Fett show isn’t the bounty hunter who had to be explicitly told not to disintegrate his bounty, and he isn’t even the warrior we saw wreck a whole squad of stormtroopers in The Mandalorian Season 2. This Boba Fett is a stoic-yet-jolly old man who sits on a throne and determines if people are naughty or nice. Oh god, I think Temuera Morrison is playing Santa Claus.

Anyway — instead of cutting back to see what jolly old Fett is doing back on Tatooine, the show becomes The Book of Din Djarin and follows him as he experiences some major life moments. He reunites with the armorer and Paz Vizsla, two Mandalorians who were part of Din’s found family back on Nevarro. He’s ultimately rejected by them because he broke one of their extremist beliefs — a belief he broke so he could save his adopted son. But to a bunch of religious zealots, faith is above all else, including family. Din’s learning that, to his surprise, he’s no longer about that life. Now he’s alone.

All of that deep emotional stuff is coded into a duel between Din and the hulking Vizsla over a scary black lightsaber. I cannot, for the life of me, even contemplate how to begin to analyze any scene involving Boba Fett with that much insight. And that’s the problem: we’re five episodes into Boba Fett’s show and we still don’t know who he is. I just compared him to Santa Claus and, y’know what, it doesn’t feel inappropriate. That’s how little we know about him and what motivates him! It took us four weeks to even figure out that he wants to rule the crime world because he’s sick of bounty hunters being treated as disposable weapons. But why does he want that? Fett’s a character of very few words. So is Din Djarin. The problem is that Fett’s also a character of very few actions.

Following that disastrous family reunion, Djarin flies coach to Tatooine to answer a call from his mechanic and de facto best friend Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris). She has a ship for him: a Naboo starfighter! But first she’s got to convince Din that this hunk of junk is a solid investment, and she also has to convince him to help her put the whole ship back together. This entire sequence is a damn delight, punctuated by Sedaris’ most likely ad-libbed, bizarro humor. She dated a Jawa! Of course she did!

Din’s pretty humorless, but he knows that all eccentricities aside, Peli’s trustworthy and good at what she does. Peli, who has never left Tatooine, definitely enjoys working with Din Djarin. All of his epic drama helps break up the grim monotony of life on Tatooine. They have a fantastic dynamic and this episode, more than any episode of The Mandalorian proper, makes the case for Peli Motto actually going on an adventure or two with Din in Season 3 of his show.

So… uh… what’s Fennec Shand and Boba Fett’s dynamic? He’s quiet and she’s severe? Shand does what Fett tells her to do because he saved her life, and also because Fett’s probably the first person who treats her well out of respect and not fear. I’m really stretching to infer that because these two almost have an anti-dynamic. They’re joined at the hip, but they never really interact. The show has yet to give Fennec a clear point of view; she’s just the muscle. I’m not saying that Fennec needs to be an off-the-wall weirdo like Peli Motto, but it would help if she had just one unique character trait. At this point I’d even settle for her being a McFly and hate being called a chicken, or I guess a tip-yip.

And throughout this episode, we’re reminded of what Din Djarin lost in the Mandalorian Season 2 finale. He returned Grogu to his kind, the Jedi — or rather a Jedi, the only Jedi. Now he’s alone, back to bounty hunting, shunned by his religion — but he still has hope. Before the shunning, he has the armorer forge a piece of armor for Grogu from his beskar staff. The armorer ties it up in a little sack that subtly resembles Grogu. And every time Din speaks about reuniting with Grogu, you can hear hope in Pedro Pascal’s delivery. It’s so well done.

The Book of Boba Fett has no dynamic that comes close to what Din has with Grogu, and that’s been a problem from the start. Fett could have this with Fennec; he could see her as the sister he never had, or remind him of an ally from way back when. Fett could have this with Krrsantan, but the show doesn’t want to play with the fact that the comics have established that these two know each other extremely well. Fett could be haunted by visions of his dead father. Temuera Morrison played him too! He’s right there! Sheesh, I don’t know — Garsa Fwip could be Boba Fett’s ex-girlfriend! I’d even settle for Boba Fett being a Max Rebo superfan at this point. Just give us something. There’s no heart, no emotion, no connection between any of these characters. Nothing on The Book of Boba Fett breaks my heart the way Din and Grogu do, and we need that.

The Book of Boba Fett snuck a great episode of The Mandalorian in after a streak of so-so to frustrating episodes of a lesser Star Wars show. Devoting an entire episode to Din Djarin was a strange risk to take, and the comparison did The Book of Boba Fett no favors. But there’s one upside to this tangential chapter: at least this episode reassured all of us that these creators still know how to make a great episode of TV.

Stream The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+