By: “The Watchman”
“Fate sometimes steps in to save the wretched.” – a fitting first line for the second episode of a show that had such a bad opening. If you read last week’s review, you know I didn’t think much of the show’s premier, but hoped things would turn themselves around. Good news: The episode was, overall, much better than last week’s, and I actually enjoyed it! Bad news: The show still has a long way to go to be worth watching outside of hardcore fans like me.
[MOSTLY SPOILER FREE REVIEW]
This is what I call a “Mostly Spoiler Free Review”, so I will try to talk about elements of the show without discussing any specific plot points. Now that we are in Episode 2, though, you may encounter spoilers for Episode 1 as I set the stage for this week’s episode. If you have not watched last week’s premier yet, you may want to do that before reading this review. You have been warned!
Last week, the show left off with Boba Fett standing triumphantly on the outskirts of a Tusken Raider camp with a big crap-eating grin on his face like he had accomplished something of value. (He had not.) This week, we jump back to the present day, and continue to follow Boba Fett’s efforts to establish himself as the new Jabba the Hutt. This starts with an interrogation scene where, of course, no one is really interrogated.
As we saw with Episode 1, the first half of this week’s outing is very boring and predictable, with watered down Disneyfied ideas of criminality and cheesy, unintimidating “tough guy” lines that make the entire affair feel like a kid’s show. The “twists” are visible a mile away, and Boba Fett is still refusing to kill anyone ever. I am happy to report that one person is allowed to fire a gun (once) during this sequence, however, which is a 100% improvement from last week’s Taekwondo lessons. Still, I found myself saying over and over, “Why doesn’t he just shoot him?” “Why doesn’t he just shoot her?’ and seeing Boba Fett as kind of a whitewashed (cowardly?) copy of himself for constantly letting people push him around and put him down when he is supposed to be some kind of shadowy criminal overlord. (Compare this to a show like “The Blacklist”.) Why would anyone follow such a leader?
When the show shifts back to Boba Fett’s memories of the past, I nearly lost it. I hated almost every aspect of the whole Tusken Raider affair last week. None of it made any sense, nor did it have any real dialogue to help explain it. It was mostly just Boba Fett walking silently on sand and it was horrible. That is how I felt this week, too, until… things suddenly took a turn for the interesting a few minutes into the flashback. Before I knew it, different characters were, at last, communicating with each other, interesting goals and stakes were being established, guns were now allowed to be fired, Boba Fett was doing something other than standing around stiffly like he got Botox on his whole body last month, and I was enjoying myself!
When he’s not getting constantly attacked, beaten up, and tied up by his enemies, this version of Boba Fett is a surprisingly interesting character! (Who knew?) Without getting into significant spoilers of what happens next, let me simply say that events in the past (“the dreams”) finally have some non-laughable action in them and the relationship build-up between Boba and the Tuskens begins to pay off for him. Even so, the plot still has a lot of coincidence, nonsensical motives, and cheesy dialogue that keeps even this interesting second half of the episode from being something truly special. If this were not a Star Wars show, I would not have cared enough to get invested in the story.
This is Star Wars, however, and the lead character is the amazing Boba Fett (more or less). As a result, I ended up liking this week’s episode more than I disliked it. The first half of the episode I would only give a 5/10 to, but the latter half is a solid 7/10. I must say I am surprised that the part of this week’s episode I liked the most (“the dreams”) was the part of last week’s episode that I hated the most. Overall, the episode was not terrible. Let’s hope it keeps improving!
Final Score: 6/10
“A divided episode, starting out boring like Episode 1, but ending on a high note that leaves a pleasant taste in the mouth, despite having more than a few lingering flaws.”