Review: ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Chapter 7 “In the Name of Honor” Delivers a Satisfying Finale
The season finale of The Book of Boba Fett doesn’t quite hit the heights of the previous episode, but it delivers a solid and entertaining finale all the same.
Fans will be glad to know that the focus is well and truly back on Boba Fett for the final episode of his own show, after the spotlight was taken away from him for the majority of the last two episodes. However, when that spotlight gets shone on fan-favorite characters like Luke Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, it makes the plight of characters like Boba Fett and Fennec Shand feel comparatively mundane. As such, it takes a little while to readjust to the smaller scale of Boba’s story after Chapter 6 explored matters relating to the future of the Jedi Order.
The final episode of the season focuses solely on Boba Fett’s war with the Pyke Syndicate, wrapping up pretty much every plot line from the series in a tidy fashion. Everything comes to a head here, with some crowd-pleasing set pieces and moments of levity to cut through some tense scenes.
Anyone who was eager to revisit Boba’s story should enjoy this episode, though there aren’t any major surprises. Certainly, there are payoffs for some moments and character arcs teased in previous episodes, but don’t expect any startling cameos like we’ve had throughout the show.
Spoilers ahead….
We kick off the episode with Boba and friends visiting the ruins of Madame Fwip’s establishment, which was bombed by the Pyke Syndicate in a brief scene. Boba confirms what we already know (that they’re at war with the Pykes), and the Mods make a case for them to hunker down in the ruins to fight them.
Admittedly, I did wonder why on earth they would stay there instead of holing up at Boba’s Palace, but their argument does make sense — in returning to the palace, Boba would be leaving the citizens of Mos Espa at the mercy of the Pykes. It’s been mentioned repeatedly this season that the locals have very little confidence in Boba Fett as daimyo, so it was important that Fett be seen defending his people from an organization that would only exploit them.
I’ve gone on record saying that I’ve not been enamored with the Mods this season, but I think this episode finally won me over (though Sophie Thatcher’s English accent was noticeably rockier here than it was in Chapter 3). They played an important role this week as representatives of the people of Mos Espa; not of the crime families or the businesses, but of the regular people who have been living in the city for decades. They serve as a reminder of who Boba is fighting for, and it finally felt like they had a place in the Star Wars galaxy.
We then cut to Cad Bane meeting with the Pykes at their Mos Eisley HQ, where we get the reveal that it was the Pykes who killed the Tuskens in the flashbacks, not the swoop gang. The reveal was well done, but really, it was to be expected. Having the Pykes kill the Tuskens was the missing piece of the puzzle required to make Boba’s fight against them personal, so it was easy to see this one coming.
Boba and Fennec make plans to cover the city and watch out for any Syndicate activity, and it’s here that their plan gets painfully exposed. The Mods are sent to watch over the Aqualish; Black Krrsantan monitors the Trandoshans; the Gamorrean bodyguards keep an eye on the spaceport. It’s immediately clear that Fett does not have the numbers to police the city, and the Pykes exploit that to their advantage just through crowds alone.
Cad Bane is sent to negotiate with Fett, and we later learn the Pykes had a plan in place to strike against him the moment those negotiations failed. As soon as Bane leaves, the Pykes order the three crime families to strike against Fett’s lieutenants. I expected the Klatooinians to betray him, but I didn’t think the Trandoshans and Aqualish would as well, making for a rare surprise. It was sad seeing the Gamorreans get killed by the Klatooinians; they were loyal servants to Boba, but they weren’t named characters with any lines and were outnumbered. Someone had to die in this initial attack in order for it to hit harder, and they were the logical choice.
It was also sad seeing Black Krrsantan get dogpiled by the Trandoshans. Perhaps this is because Star Wars has always taught us to root for the Wookiees, but knowing the species’ history with Trandoshans gave it an especially somber feel. I only wish we’d been able to see Santo get free and kill them all, because that must have been a badass moment.
Let’s return to Cad Bane for a second. I loved both of his interactions with Boba. Last week told you most of what you needed to know about Cad Bane, but this week it was important to acknowledge the two characters have a significant history together. They go back way further than Fett and Black Krrsantan do. In The Clone Wars animated series, Boba and Cad worked on multiple jobs together, when Fett was still in his late teens, and there was even a cut story arc in which the two of them ended up dueling each other. They know each other well, and this episode made that very clear, which feels rewarding to those of us who watched The Clone Wars. It was particularly satisfying to get that duel for real this time.
In their second encounter, Cad Bane explicitly says that he’s known Boba a long time, and even refers to his father Jango, who certainly was a cold-blooded killer. He uses that fact to state that he doesn’t believe Boba is capable of changing, that this new life isn’t for him. It’s another way of looking at the man Boba used to be, versus the honorable one he is trying to become in this series.
Cad Bane’s symbolic role in this episode shone through in both exchanges. Boba calls him a “gutless murderer”, the implication being that he is an honorless gun for hire (which we know to be true). Cad basically replies by saying “takes one to know one”, alluding to the fact that Boba himself was once a ruthless gun for hire who had no moral principles of his own beyond looking out for number one.
The episode uses Cad Bane to show us the kind of man Boba used to be, while we’ve seen how Boba has evolved and gained his own sense of honor through his time with the Tuskens. His gaffi stick then becomes symbolic of his own evolution, as with his blaster rifle out of reach, he knocks Bane down and uses it to impale him, a great way to display how his time with the Tuskens has allowed him to leave his old life behind and move forward as a new man.
If I had one nitpick about Cad Bane in this episode, it would be this: in The Clone Wars, he always came across as cool and calm, often with a sly grin on his face. In live-action, I don’t think they’ve really recaptured this feeling. While Bane still comes across as calm under pressure, he smiles with a sneer instead, and he seems to be constantly simmering, like he’s waiting for people to give him an excuse to kill them. Of course, he’s a lot older than he was in the animated series, and people do change, but while the character’s design is identical to the original, I’m not sure I appreciated this subtle change in personality. That said, on the whole, Cad Bane was very well utilized in this series, and I’m glad we got him back for a little while.
With Boba’s lieutenants indisposed, the Pykes decide to attack and pin him down inside the ruins with Din Djarin, while Fennec Shand heads off to Mos Eisley, helping out the Mods on her way out of town. The episode makes it very clear that the Pykes have far greater resources than Boba. I was repeatedly surprised at the sheer number of goons that the Syndicate threw at Fett; it was never-ending, to the point where I started to question Fett’s desire to take on an organization this huge. It seemed like there was only ever going to be one outcome, especially when the scorpion droids turned up, using the same deflector shield technology as the droidekas from the prequels.
I was impressed with the power and durability of the droids, though Boba and Din’s initial attempts to break through their shields just made them look dumb. First, Boba wasted his missile on them, then both of them tried their blasters and flamethrowers when it was clear they wouldn’t work either. I can forgive Din for trying the Darksaber, but they came across as shockingly slow learners. I was begging them to try slowly rolling a thermal detonator underneath the shield, like the tactic Ahsoka teaches Saw Gerrera in The Clone Wars, but alas, no one thought of it.
That said, the action in this episode was generally great. I loved seeing Boba make liberal use of his knee cannons, and watching him and Din fly around with their jetpacks in tandem was a genuinely cool moment. However, the best set piece was saved for later. Boba flies away to try one last thing, and for a while Din Djarin threatens to take over the episode once again as he leads the remainder of Boba’s forces in Mos Espa. I enjoyed his chaotic reunion with Grogu, which was touching and hilarious at once, as he bellows at Peli Motto to turn around and run, before Grogu leaps into his arms. It was a lovely moment of levity amid the action that kept ratcheting up the tension.
The show threatens to turn into The Mandalorian for a while, as with Fennec Shand off-screen, the show has no choice but to focus on Din and Grogu, until Boba belatedly returns riding a freaking rancor! Some of you may have seen this coming after we shared an illustration and description of Boba riding a rancor last year, but for those who didn’t, it must have been a pretty cool surprise. It was a good way to pay off the foreshadowing back in Chapter 3, when Boba mentioned that he’d like to ride his new pet someday.
We got some great kaiju-related action as the rancor was able to match the scorpion droids blow for blow, and to climb to the top of Mos Espa’s highest tower in a clear homage to King Kong. Though some might have seen this reveal coming, the action certainly didn’t disappoint. Then, Boba got knocked off, and Grogu had to come to the rescue again. I thought the most we’d get of Grogu helping was when he saved Din’s life by using the Force to pull one of the droid’s joints out of its leg, but it was great to see him use the Force to calm the rancor as well.
In that moment, you could see what Grogu might be like as a Jedi when he’s older, and you almost forget about his baby-like nature (though that returned instantly as he got tuckered out and snuggled up next to the rancor straight after).
With Cad Bane dead and the Pykes driven from Mos Espa, all that was left to deal with were the Pykes in Mos Eisley. We got a short little scene with Fennec Shand assassinating the leaders of the crime families, the Mos Espa mayor, and the Pyke leader, one after the other. It was a cool scene and a great reminder of what Fennec is capable of, but I do wish Boba had been the one to finish off the Pykes. That was his fight to finish, so having one of his lieutenants do it for him seemed a bit odd to me, but otherwise it was fun to watch.
And with that, everything was wrapped up nicely. Din and Grogu flew off into the sunset, and we got a post-credits scene showing Cobb Vanth recovering from his wounds in Boba’s bacta tank. If The Book of Boba Fett does get a season 2, I imagine Cobb will pop up there.
In hindsight, it would have been nice if the show had spent the previous two episodes focusing on the war with the Pykes rather than squeezing all of the conflict into one huge battle for the finale, but this was the situation the final episode found itself in, and it handled it quite well. Boba had some cool moments, and the finale served to cap off an interesting story for him, but I can’t help but wonder what it would have been capable of if the focus hadn’t been drawn away from Fett in chapters 5 and 6, perhaps turning The Mandalorian-related content into a special episode of its own.
Before you leave, make sure to check out “The Mando Minute”, James Baney’s one-minute reaction to Chapter 7 of The Book of Boba Fett, and come hang out tonight at 9 pm EST on SWNN’s YouTube channel with The Resistance Broadcast in their recap show The Mando Fan Show.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
