The Book of Boba Fett, Episode 2

CONTAINS SPOILERS 

The Book Of Boba Fett Episode 2

Boba Fett has clearly had a tough life.  Living in the desert in his Long Johns is no mean feat - at least his armoured suit probably came with air conditioning.  

We join him in Episode 2 picking up the pieces of his awkward and disjointed attempt to develop a working relationship with the mayor.  You will recall from the first episode that the mayor's representative did verbal gymnastics to persuade Boba the he should be the one paying tribute to the mayor, not the other way around.  This was always going to be a problem, and the story wastes no time in developing this further.  Boba visits the mayor (armour and helmet on, blaster in hand), and the mayor explains that the territory of Mos Espa now belongs to the Twins.

The Twins are Jabba the Hutt's twin cousins, who are (somehow) carried around by a troop of seat bearers.  There's a comedy moment where you realise that the seat bearers really are suffering in the heat, struggling to hold up the Hutts.  Boba and the Hutts trade some not-so-veiled threats and you know that this could develop into a long-running feud.  "Sleep lightly, bounty hunter."  

The flashback period in this episode deals with the Tuskens' struggles with a hover train that periodically travels through their territory, taking pot shots at them and randomly killing the Tuskens or their Banthas, or both.  The rest of the episode is a series of stitched-together cliches from a number of genres:  Boba goes to the local bar (call it what you will) where a biker gang are trashing the pool table and the jukebox, making a nuisance of themselves and intimidating the regulars.  Boba beats them up and steals their bikes - in this case, speeder bikes.  Great to see speeder bikes in the series, they really help set the story in the Star Wars galaxy.  

Boba trains the Tuskens in the way of the speeder bike (this is go, this is stop, this is backwards).  You almost wonder how Luke and Leia got to grips with them so quickly.  Comedy moments follow as the Tuskens learn which control is forwards, and which is reverse.  It's genuinely funny, but it's generically funny, as physical comedy tends to be (it's not a 'laugh it up, fuzzball' or 'who are you calling scruffy' moment).

Forwards!  No, the other forwards!

There then follows the pursuit of the train by Boba and the Tuskens on their trusty steeds.  This is classic cowboy western material, with blasters instead of shotguns and speeder bikes instead of horses.  Again there are some funny comedy moments, in particular the point where one of the Tuskens gets into the train and fights his way through it.  He engages one of the Pykes who's climbed through one of the train's skylights, drags him down, then a few seconds later replaces him with an unmistakeable message - all clear.  Physical comedy is often based on entrances and exits (think of any farce set in a hotel or a long corridor - people entering and exiting through one or more doors... it's a classic) and the exit of the Pyke and the entrance of the Tusken are in that genre.

Sure enough, the train driver (a droid, and a surprisingly shiny droid at that) tries to outrun the Tuskens... that doesn't work, Boba arrives in the driver's compartment; the droid makes a comical exit and Boba brings the train (yes, he even yells, "Stop the train!") to a grinding halt.

The Tuskens sieze the cargo - this is a classic train robbery - and tells the train owners that they must pay a fee to travel through the Tuskens' territory from now on.

One of the Pykes, evicted from the train.

This happy ending means that Boba is accepted into the tribe.  He is welcomed into the tribe with a fire-side dance, where is given a gift - a newt or a lizard or something, which jumps into his face and up his nostrils.  Peter Parker was bitten by a spider; Bruce Banner was zapped by gamma rays:  Boba Fett gets a newt up the nostrils.  It sends him off into a trance and he ends up wandering the desert, having flashbacks of the Sarlacc pit and finding a tree in the desert.  He siezes a branch from the tree, and returns to the Tusken camp, weary, dehydrated and still wearing his trusty Long Johns.  But no more, for the Tuskens now give him several layers of dark itchy material (in the hot weather?) and carve the branch into a stick.  He is now welcomed to the tribe as a fully paid-up member, complete with dark clothes and big stick.

It's a by-the-numbers story, where the 'present' is far more interesting than the 'flashback'.  Here's hoping for some progress in both timelines.