Boba Fett faces new challengers on Tatooine.
He’s off to a rough start, but what will they learn from their captured assailant?
Original Air Date: 5 Jan 2022, Stream on: Disney+
Fennec enters the palace with her prisoner. Boba Fett questions him, but he remains silent until threatened with death. He utters only a curse, so it is up to 8D8 to identify him as a highly paid assassin that will never talk. They decide to throw him into the Rancor pit.
As the gate rises, the assassin suddenly speaks perfect English to reveal that the mayor sent him. Surprise! There is no Rancor.
The Mayor
The whole crew, with assassin in tow, marches to the mayor’s office where the mayor’s staff receives them quite dismissively. Boba Fett brushes past the majordomo and addresses the mayor directly.
The mayor orders the assassin killed and offers Fett a bounty. There’s sufficient reason to believe that the mayor was not involved, but there is also sufficient reason to suspect that he’s a filthy liar.
Taking heed of the mayor’s words, Fett, Fennec, and the gang head to Garsa Fwip’s lounge. She looks uneasy, nervous, and warns Boba Fett that “The Twins” are coming to claim Jabba’s territory.
The Twins
Two Hutts appear, carried by a small army of humanoid servants, and confront Fett. As things get tense, they directly challenge Fett’s claim as Daimyo, and a dark-haired wookiee marches forward. It’s Black Krrsantan!
Fett, undeterred, reiterates his claim after Jabba’s cousins not-so-vaguely threaten him. The Hutts back down… for now.
Fennec and Fett know it’s not over.
(Flash)back in the Bacta Tank
Boba Fett receives some hand-to-hand combat training from the Tusken warrior who whooped him in Chapter 1. It looks more like choreography than training, but it’s broken up by weird scene with a scared animal.
A train appears in the distance, and the sand people scatter, preparing for an assault that many do not survive. While the survivors mourn, Boba Fett sees what is presumably the gang that raided the moisture farm in Chapter 1. He bargains with the elders for a rifle and a stick, promising that he will stop the train. The elders agree, and he marches off into the night.
He comes upon a pub where the gang is treating people poorly. He single-handedly ruins the night for each of them before stealing their speeders. Fett plans to teach the sand people to ride the speeders and eventually stage an assault on the train.
Cue the training montage.
The Spice Heist
The train is on its way, so the settlement springs into action. Fett and three sand people are able to board the train.
The Tusken warrior leaps onto the train as her speeder explosively crashes into the train. The train is unharmed, but she makes sure the passengers aren’t. The conductor droid recognizes trouble and accelerates to top speed.
After a protracted battle, Boba Fett breaks into the engine room, and the conductor droid jumps out of the window. The engine appears to be at critical mass, but Fett shuts it down and stops the train.
The Afterglow
In the aftermath, the settlement elder gifts Fett a small lizard that climbs up his nose. It will “guide” him, perhaps through the ensuing hallucinatory nightmare inspired by his own memories, perhaps not.
The following morning, he returns to the settlement carrying a large branch. The lizard jumps out of his nose, and the elders nod in approval of his branch.
It appears that he is now an honorary Tusken, and the audience gets a rare second montage of Boba Fett, the warrior, and the chief carving the branch into a gaffi stick.
What do I think?
There’s a brief shot when the spice train moves past a herd of banthas that, when taken with the earlier shooting from the train, really clued me into some of the undertones — or perhaps overtones — in this episode.
Specifically, the relationship the Tatooine natives have with this train is not entirely unlike the relationship between natives and trains in the 19th century United States when American bison were shot en masse, including from trains, as a way to starve natives.
The following line, uttered in the immediate aftermath of the train raid by the Pyke leader, seems to confirm this intent.
We thought you were uncivilized raiders.
The parallel is not perfect, but this episode is in stark contrast to how Tuskens were presented in A New Hope and Attack of the Clones.