Boba Fett reclaimed his show with final face-off in 'The Book of Boba Fett' Season 1 finale

War had been coming for many episodes of The Book of Boba Fett. We know this because Boba (Temuera Morrison) and Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) kept talking about it. War was brewing, it was coming, it was upon them. Finally, in the Season 1 finale, it came. War came to Star Wars.

Lord Fett may have had the previous two episodes of his series hijacked by other characters, but all of those storylines converged here. Din "The Mandalorian" Djarin (Pedro Pascal) proved vital as Mos Espa was overrun by the Pyke Syndicate. Though Mando (and others) were a big part of the finale, Boba made it very clear that his name is in the title for a reason.

***WARNING: From this point forward, there will be spoilers for Chapter 7 of The Book of Boba Fett. If you have not watched yet, then jetpack away right now.***

Is Boba Fett a changed man, or is he still just a selfish killer? Does he have any honor, or is he only out for himself? When everyone and everything is against him, how will he react? The man who was reborn out of the Tatooine sand has become a man of the people. He’s not the same little boy that Cad Bane (Corey Burton) knew so many years ago. He had many opportunities to cut and run in the finale, but he didn't take any of them. He did not abandon the people of Mos Espa, and he did not abandon his tribe.

He doesn’t run when the other three crime families betray him and join with the Pykes. He doesn’t run when he’s completely outgunned and outmatched. He also doesn’t let Bane get the better of him (in the first of two standoffs) when it comes out that the Pykes, not the Nikto speeder gang, were behind the massacre of the Tusken tribe.

Bane, like much of the internet, says that Boba has gone soft. If what Boba did after that is soft, then may the force protect everyone if he ever goes hard.

His new “negotiations” with the Pykes pretty much amount to, “You get nothing, you lose. Good day sir.” He jetpacks out with Mando and the two of them go crazy on the Pykes, with Boba using both of his hand blasters and his knee-blaster. The people of Freetown arrive (despite the apparent death of Cobb Vanth) and help out, but the Pykes unleash a surprise of their own. They have a bunch of “scorpenek” droids (giant lethal spidery-pincer things) that are heavily shielded.

Krrsantan tries to get through the shields mid-rampage, but fails. Mando can’t get through with the Darksaber, either. The only thing that makes a difference is a bond that the series set up back in Chapter 3; something we really hoped to see in this finale. We were not disappointed.

What were we hoping to see? Boba Fett riding the Rancor that the Hutt twins gave him. That’s exactly what we saw, and it was even better than we'd hoped. Boba and the Rancor smashed into Mos Espa and took out one of the shielded droids instantly, while taking a little more time with another one. For a few moments we had a full-on brawl, as the Rancor fought the giant droid with Boba on its back.

Once the other droid was down, the Rancor ate one of the Pykes and tossed one of them off into the distance. It is only Cad Bane’s return that knocks Boba off of the Rancor’s back, and we then proceeded to get the second stand-off between the two characters.

“I’ve known you a long time Boba. One thing I can’t figure. What’s your angle?” Cad Bane asks. Boba responds, “This is my city. These are my people. I will not abandon them.” This is something that Cad Bane will never understand, because he’s only ever been out for himself. Boba used to be like that, but not anymore. The gaderffii stick on his back reminds us of this.

Bane gets the draw on Boba and has him dead to rights in the street. He tosses Boba’s helmet off, saying, “You gave it a shot. You tried to go straight. But you’ve got your father’s blood pumping through your veins. You’re a killer.”

As he’s about to shoot, Bane adds, “Consider this my final lesson. Look out for yourself. Anything else is weakness.” The shot never comes, because Boba has his gaderffii out in a flash. He disarms Bane, and stabs him through the chest. It doesn’t look like Cad Bane is going to be reborn like Boba was.

Boba is still a killer, in that he kills when he has to. The bigger change in him is that he doesn’t believe that looking out for others makes him weak. As he said to Fennec in Chapter 4, his time with the Tusken tribe did not make him soft; it made him strong. It’s the harder path, and he may not live as long, but the alternative is ending up like the lonely old Bane did in the street.

He’s still hesitant when the fighting stops and the people of Mos Espa bow to him. “We are not suited for this,” he tells Fennec. “If not us, then who?” she says. Both of them lived selfish lives and were left for dead. Both of them were reborn in the sand. Serving these people may be the reason why. As Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris) once said, “the force works in mysterious ways.”

Photo: Lucasfilm

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-Though Boba (rightfully) dominated things, it was a big episode for Mando. He was reunited with Grogu, who apparently chose the armor. He arrived at Mos Eisley in Luke’s X-Wing, flown by R2-D2. We kept expecting him to take out Yoda’s lightsaber, but he never did. We don’t know if Luke Skywalker’s test was genuine or not, but for the moment, Grogu is back with Mando. Their reunion happened when Peli Motto revealed him to Mando while they were all speeding down the street in a droid-pulled rickshaw.

-Grogu used the force twice, and the second time stood out the most because he managed to calm the Rancor. The Pykes had been dealt with, but the Rancor kept rampaging, even climbing a Mos Espa tower like he was King Kong. Grogu managed to sooth him to sleep, before falling asleep right next to him.

-Fennec is obviously the most important member of Team Boba. She’s a voice of reason, she saved the lives of the mods, and she took out the mayor, the Pyke leader, and the heads of the traitorous families towards the end.

-Krrsantan got shot around 20 or 30 times, but he never stopped never stopping.

-The mods proved their worth as well, and ended up making friends with the people of Freetown. City folk and desert folk can get along after all.

-How the hell did the majordomo live through the season? He made friends with Peli Motto in the end, after she'd been thrown from the droid-pulled rickshaw and lost a tooth.

-The two Gamorreans who had Boba’s back all season did not make it out alive, however, so RIP to them.

-Madam Garsa (Jennifer Beals) is likely dead too, as she does not appear in the episode. This makes sense, because we saw the aftermath of the bombing from last week and there’s surely no escaping that.

-Is the legendary Cad Bane dead for good? He certainly looked that way. We hate to see him go, but he was the perfect character to challenge Boba’s new outlook. The baton was meant to be passed from Bane to Boba a long time ago, with the “final lesson” being taught along with it. It happened in a different way here, but we prefer it. A life of selfishness landed Cad Bane dead and hatless in the street. Happy trails, Hans.

-Someone who isn’t dead is Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant), who we thought may have been gone for good by the way the Freetown folk were talking. In a mid-credits scene, we saw the Marshal in Boba’s bacta tank. The modder who fixed up Fennec (Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner) was standing there, his mechanical gizmo arm at the ready.

-Boba’s terms to the Pykes (delivered to them by the majordomo) were our favorite lines of the episode: “If you refuse these terms, the arid sands of Tatooine will once again flourish with flowered fields fertilized with the bodies of your dead.”

Season 1 of The Book of Boba Fett is now streaming on Disney+ in its entirety.

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