Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett.
In its first few episodes, The Book of Boba Fett has received a mixed response from Star Wars fans. The parallel storylines – simultaneously following Boba’s post-Sarlacc “Dances with Tusken Raiders” adventure and his present-day takeover of Tatooine’s criminal underworld – have made each episode somewhat disjointed and unevenly paced. And after he decimated legions of Stormtroopers with an arsenal of gadgets in The Mandalorian’s second season, fans have been disappointed that Boba hasn’t had a lot to do in his own series.
But the ending of the latest installment, “Chapter 4: The Gathering Storm,” teased a pretty high-profile cameo in the show’s future: the Mandalorian himself, Din Djarin. When Fennec Shand assured Boba that they would recruit as much help as possible to combat the rising threat of the Pyke Syndicate, the form that this help will take was suggested by a few notes of Ludwig Göransson’s Mandalorian theme on the soundtrack.
While Boba’s character predates Mando’s by four decades, The Book of Boba Fett is technically a spin-off from The Mandalorian. When The Simpsons satirized TV spin-offs in the season 8 anthology episode “Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase,” the Chief Wiggum, P.I. segment joked about spin-offs featuring obligatory cameos from the stars of the show they were spun off from, as the Simpson family happens to show up in New Orleans where Wiggum has become a private detective. By the laws of TV spin-offs, Mando is required to appear in Boba’s series at some point. Mandalorian fans will undoubtedly be excited to see Pedro Pascal’s badass bounty hunter return to screens, but it might not be the best thing for The Book of Boba Fett itself.
The Mandalorian Took The Air Out Of Boba Fett’s Tires
One of the pitfalls of The Book of Boba Fett has been its need to differentiate itself from The Mandalorian. The Mandalorian already gave Star Wars fans the Boba Fett show of their dreams – high-octane bounty hunter action with a revisionist take on the Star Wars myth – so The Book of Boba Fett has suffered from having to avoid that. This is the catch-22 faced by the creative powers behind Boba’s spin-off: if he’s a lone-wolf gunslinger, he’ll skew too close to Mando – but if he’s anything else, it underutilizes the character. Since The Book of Boba Fett is already struggling to carve out an identity of its own, separate from The Mandalorian, incorporating the Mandalorian himself into the show doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Following the cliffhanger ending of The Mandalorian’s second season, The Book of Boba Fett would have a lot to explain just to get Mando involved in the story. The last time audiences saw Mando, he’d accidentally claimed the Darksaber, made a mortal enemy out of Bo-Katan, and given up his little green sidekick to be trained as a Jedi by Luke Skywalker. In order to follow up on all these plot threads, The Book of Boba Fett would need to become The Mandalorian season 2.5.
Ever since Marvel Studios made ambitious franchise crossovers the norm, a lot of scene-stealing supporting characters barging in from other stories have become a detriment to the stories at hand. Marvel’s own Loki told its own story about the trickster god and his variants for five episodes before the season finale put Loki in the backseat so it could introduce the MCU’s next big bad, Kang the Conqueror (or at least a multiversal version of him). If The Book of Boba Fett features Mando, it might cease to be The Book of Boba Fett and become The Book of Din Djarin.
Mando Could Liven Up The Show
While an appearance by the Mandalorian might distract from Boba himself and the ongoing storylines that The Book of Boba Fett is dealing with, Mando might liven up the show with some much-needed gadget-laden thrills. If Mando turns up in The Book of Boba Fett, he’ll steal the show – but it’s a show that needs to be stolen. Boba and Fennec are a compelling pair with a great dynamic, but the series has been moving along at a snail’s pace and the nods to gangster movies don’t gel as well with the Star Wars universe as the franchise’s previous influences from the western, samurai, and war genres.
Since the tease in “The Gathering Storm” was pretty overt, it’s no longer a question of “if” Mando will appear in The Book of Boba Fett; it’s a matter of “when.” In the first half of its run, The Book of Boba Fett has gotten off to a pretty slow start. Pascal’s rumored return as Mando will either be one of the last nails in its coffin or the saving grace that turns it into a must-see Star Wars show. It all depends on how the creatives behind the series utilize the character. It could work if he supports Boba’s ongoing storylines, but it’ll detract from the spin-off’s own identity if it becomes a precursor to The Mandalorian’s much-hyped third season.