'The Mandalorian' Finally Redeemed the Ultimate Fan-Favorite Star Wars Character
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The Mandalorian knows a few essential truths:
1. Baby Yoda will always be Baby Yoda. Call him Grogu, call him The Child, but he is still Baby and he is still Yoda, and there's no moniker that you can slap on the cardboard box holding his plushie at the Disney Store that will make little Suzy and Billy and Timmy and Sally call him by any other name.
2. As long as there is a big space monster, Mando shall pull some bullfuckery off to defeat it, even if it's a literal rocket out of his ass, which, after seeing destruction by kneecap this week, is not far off.
3. There's nothing more satisfying than watching someone beat the living shit out a Stormtrooper.
4. Fans always have and always will love Boba Fett above almost all other Star Wars characters.
Season Two, Episode Six of The Mandalorian, "The Tragedy," demonstrates a well-above-average of number three. And, yeah, it does it in the coolest way possible, by having Boba Fett smash Stormtrooper faces with a big-ass staff like they're a porcelain toilet seat breaking to bits. But first, the episode: After Ahsoka Tano bails out of Baby Yoda training for fear that the kid will become Darth Baby Yoda, she tells Mando to sit his ass on a big Jedi rock to see if any Force-users will come running to sign up for foster parentage. "The Tragedy" sees the mission in action—Baby Yoda spends most of the episode in some kind of hot-yoga-ed meditative state—which, oh boy, is the exact same time a bunch of other Star Wars friends decide to pull up in neat little parking spots and blast and whack and yell at each other. Among them: Moff Gideon, Stormtroopers, Boba Fett. Antics ensue.
Let's focus on number four, and the very, very cool thing that happened this week: Boba Fett gets himself some redemption. But first, let's go back to the original trilogy. Even though he's barely in the original trilogy—first appearing in Empire Strikes back, before getting a pretty pathetic "death" in Return of the Jedi—he became an immediate fan favorite for no other reason than his armor was really cool. He then returned as the clone child of bounty hunter Jango Fett in Episode II, where his father is killed tragically in front of him. But, at least in the main movies, he's known as a vigilante bounty hunter working for Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt to track our heroes. He was, despite how cool he looked and fans loved him, a villain.
That all changes in the sixth episode of The Mandalorian Season Two, when he gets more screen time—and actual lines!—than he has in all six main Star Wars movies.
As we learn, the dude, apparently, has only been trailing Mando this whole time because he wanted his armor back. Can't blame him! The least he could ask for after nearly disintegrating in stomach acid is get his wardrobe back. After all, the armor makes the man. Then, once he sees the armor hanging around in Mando's ship (still too soon to talk about this episode's titular tragedy—the split-second loss of a season and a half's worth of memories on the Razor Crest), he takes it. Then he's pretty much set.
Boba Fett suddenly wrecks a ship's worth of Stormtroopers, backing Team Mando—andfinally getting the redemption the fan-favorite character deserves. We even learn a little bit more about Fett's family history: His father, Jango, was a foundling and fought in the Mandalorian Civil War. Plus, it turns out Boba isn't the biggest fan of the Empire now, so it looks like he'll even stick around to help Mando going forward, who's without a ship, and, yeah, considering what happens at the end. This all tracks with the character we've known for decades, considering how badly he was screwed over by Jabba and the Empire—having been following the money rather than the morals this whole time. Maybe a trip into the Snarlacc pit gives a guy a change of heart. The episode wraps up with Baby Yoda breaking free from his Force force-field. Mando, looking for some new content, asks Baby Yoda to do "JuJu on That Beat" for his TikTok. They both score a Goop sponsorship and the series ends.
(Forgive me, because anything is more bearable than what actually happened: Moff Gideon Amber Alerts Baby Yoda, then a Stormtrooper blasts him with Sleepytime tea and puts him in tiny little handcuffs. Hold your Baby Yoda plushie tight this week, Billy.)
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