'The Book of Boba Fett' Returns Our Favorite Bounty Hunter to Tatooine
It's time to see what the galaxy's most infamous mercenary is up to.
After reintroducing him into the Star Wars universe in the last few episodes of The Mandalorian Season 2, it was inevitable that Disney+ would give Boba Fett, the galaxy's original coolest bounty hunter (sorry Mando) a place to shine all by himself. It is, after all, exactly what a guy like Boba Fett would want. That Fett is a popular character at all is funny in itself: he barely did anything in the original movie trilogy, but he looked so cool, and his toys and costumes sold so well that he became an instrumental plot device in the prequels, exponentially more screen time in the animated television shows, and redeemed himself twice over during his stint on The Mandalorian. It's time for Boba Fett to get his due, which is exactly what The Book of Boba Fett intends to give him.
The first episode of the show (which, incidentally, is all anyone, including critics, has seen so far) takes more cues from the first episode of The Mandalorian, pacing its beats slowly and deliberately to integrate its characters into a world we already know so well. It picks up where the final moments of The Mandalorian season finale leave off: Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and his assassin deputy Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) have taken the seat of power on Tatooine, previously owned by Jabba the Hutt and managed in his absence by sharp-toothed Twi'lek Bib Fortuna. The problem is… basically no one knows or cares that he did that—a crime boss is a crime boss is a crime boss after all—and Fett and Shand have their work cut out for them proving their worth to Mos Espa's local hive of scum and villainy.
We're also treated to flashbacks of what happened to Fett in between being devoured by a Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi and showing up with a Tusken gaffi stick in The Mandalorian, some much-needed context given that Fett has basically returned from the dead. I won't go into specifics about all the little Easter eggs and returning background characters that even casual Star Wars fans will recognize in this first episode but suffice it to say that this feels like a Tatooine we never left.
The show is good, so far, and given that it's made by many of the same people involved in The Mandalorian (the first episode is directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Jon Favreau), there's plenty of reason to believe that it will remain so. The first episode is a bit slow compared to the guns-blazing, saber-swinging final episodes of The Mandalorian, but I much prefer a slow start to too much information and flashing lights at once. Like its title character, the show is patient and deliberate, willing to spend as much time as necessary setting up all its dominoes before knocking them down.