What Happened on ‘The Book of Boba Fett’? Not Much.

The following post contains SPOILERS for the season finale of The Book of Boba Fett.

So right off the bat: If you started watching The Book of Boba Fett in the middle of the season, that image above might be a little confusing. Just to be clear: The guy on the left up there is Boba Fett, former bounty hunter turned benevolent boss of Tatooine. As hard as it may be to believe based on the series’ last two episodes, The Book of Boba Fett is actually about him. Weird, right?

Yes, The Book of Boba Fett finally remembered it was a show about Boba Fett and (mostly) returned its focus to him for the season finale, “Chapter 7: In the Name of Honor.” After a two-week digression that followed Din Djarin from The Mandalorian and his supporting cast, Boba and his tenuous batch of allies fend off an attack by the spice-running Pyke Syndicate. Although the odds are not in their favor, they manage to emerge victorious thanks to help from Din Djarin, his Baby Yoda pal Grogu, Din’s mechanic buddy Peli Motto, the residents of Freetown, and Boba’s pet rancor. (Did you remember Boba Fett said he was going to ride that guy? It’s okay if you didn’t; he mentioned it once weeks ago then vanished from the show entirely.)

When the dust settles — and this is Tatooine we’re talking about, so there’s a lot of dust that needs to settle — we see that almost nothing has changed for Boba Fett. He is more fully entrenched as the “daimyo” of Tatooine. And he has made a few new buddies, like the robotically-enhanced “mods” and his Wookie enforcer Krrsantan. But where Boba Fett ends and where it began — especially as it pertains to Boba Fett himself — look almost identical. Boba hasn’t gone on a journey, literally or metaphorically, and he learned nothing about power and leadership. His philosophy and even his title remain unchanged from Episode 1 to Episode 7. This isn’t circular storytelling; this is a TV show going in circles.

The only changes of note on The Book of Boba Fett occurred to Din Djarin, a character who only appeared in its final three episodes. In short order, he trains to wield the Darksaber, and gets rejected by his Mandalorian brethren. He also reunites with Grogu after having left his widdle buddy in the care of Luke Skywalker at in the finale of The Mandalorian Season 2. Tellingly, the very last shot of The Book of Boba Fett before the closing credits wasn’t Boba Fett and his space consigliere, Fennec Shand; it was Mando and Grogu venturing off into space. That felt like a tacit admission that they were the most important characters on The Book of Boba Fett, regardless of whose name was actually in the show’s title.

True, a few other minor characters came and went over the last seven weeks. Book of Boba Fett introduced a live-action version of ruthless bounty hunter Cad Bane and, in the season finale, Boba kills him in a duel. Theoretically that’s a pretty big change to Star Wars’ status quo. But does anyone believe he’s really dead? Last week, we watched Timothy Olyphant’s marshal Cobb Vanth “die” and this week he’s seen healing in a bacta tank in the show’s final post-credits scene. Luke Skywalker “died” in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and in Book of Boba Fett he appears as a young man, de-aged with impressive digital effects. Heck, this entire show was about a mercenary who “died” almost 40 years ago, eaten by a giant monster buried in a sand dune. If death ever meant anything in Star Wars, technology and fan service have conspired to ensure it doesn’t anymore.

Cad Bane’s appearance added a little menace to The Book of Boba Fett’s final act, and the show remained visually impressive throughout; no show that features a rancor wrestling a monstrous battle droid and then scaling a tower like King Kong’s alien cousin can be all bad. Ultimately, that’s all this show was, though: A series of cool moments in search of a purpose, all made in the interest of killing time until The Mandalorian Season 3. The Book of Boba Fett never seemed to find a compelling story for Boba Fett beyond revealing what happened between his “death” in Return of the Jedi and his return in The Mandalorian, After that, The Book of Boba Fett wound up being anything but a page-turner.

The full season of The Book of Boba Fett is now available on Disney+. Sign up for Disney+ here.