‘The Book of Boba Fett’ Recap – ‘Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger’

Written by Joel T. Lewis

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 6 of ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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​This series… I can’t help you if you don’t like it. I can’t offer any insight on the pacing, which continues to confuse, I can’t make you like the Mod gang, I can’t make you un-cringe if you hate that Djarin used “Wizard” as an expression of excitement. What I can do is nerd out about every frame of fanservice in ‘Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger’ and hope your heart is open enough to have smiled at least once before the credits rolled. 
 
The episode’s cold open reintroduces us to blaster-toting lawman, Cobb Vanth as he confronts members of the Pyke Syndicate transporting spice through his territory. Vanth comes out on top though outnumbered and sends the surviving Pyke back to his superiors with a warning. 
 
We then catch up with the Mandalorian who touches down his newly souped up Naboo Starfighter on a forest planet and disembarks, looking for Grogu. He is met by R2-D2 who leads him to the site where Luke Skywalker has a team of ant-like droids assembling his new Jedi Temple. Here he encounters Ahsoka Tano, who advises him not to disturb Grogu’s Jedi training and offers to pass along the Beskar gift Mando had forged for his little foundling. Ahsoka reinforces the words of the Armorer, advising Mando that the path of the Jedi is not the Creed of the Mandalorian. She tells him that while Grogu misses Djarin very much, seeing his helmeted face would only serve to make his training more painful. 
 
Meanwhile, Grogu is training with Master Skywalker. From levitating frogs, to stone hopping backpack rides in the style of Luke’s own training, to dodging the red lasers of the all too familiar remote training device, this sequence is one of the most joyful I’ve ever gotten to see. The rendering of Mark Hamill’s de-aged face is so eerie good, so damn close to perfect its startling. It’s so close, and while there are little issues with how the lips move with dialogue (I’m reminded of 60’s era ADR) it feels like Luke right after Return of Jedi. His voice, how he moves, how he goes about teaching Grogu; it’s plucked right out of my 12-year-old head reading the Jedi Academy Trilogy and other expanded universe novels. He’s real. He’s really a Jedi Master, and he’s building his school. And I’m not crying, you're crying. Watch this episode, if only for this sequence. Please treat yourself to this because it is so pure, it’s the most gratifying wish fulfillment and you’ll kick yourself if you sleep on it. 

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Mando returns to Tatooine, joins rank with Boba Fett’s Magnificent 7-esque crew, and leaves to recruit an old acquaintance in Cobb Vanth. Uneasy at first, Vanth agrees to round up a militia in support of Fett’s bid against the Pyke Syndicate. But as Mando leaves the newly christened Freetown, who, you ask, is the stranger who comes from the desert as the chapter title foretold?  You’re not ready for it. I sure wasn’t. It's Cad Freaking Bane!!! Live action, lone gunslinger, notorious bounty hunter, lifelong rival, mentor, and enemy of Boba Fett. Bane blaster duels Marshal Vanth in the middle of the town in a sequence that evokes similar stand-offs in The Good (Vanth) The Bad (Bane) and the Ugly (undoubtedly Vanth’s green new deputy). Bane is left standing and declares ownership of Tatooine for the Pyke Syndicate, teeing up a long-awaited reunion between Boba Fett and his former mentor Cad Bane. 
 
Back on the forest planet Luke offers Grogu a choice, the lightsaber of Jedi Master Yoda, or the Beskar chainmail shirt given to him by Din Djarin. This binary of thought is so much at the core of the failure of the Jedi Order; loyalty, community, attachment led to the downfall of that Order, but without them, without family, loyalty, friendship, attachment Luke would have never prevailed over the Emperor with his redeemed father beside him. 
 
No one criticizes Star Wars like Star Wars fans, and though this episode is in the running for my favorite exploration of the franchise’s universe, the incompatibility of attachment with the Jedi tenet of balance in all things has never set well with me. Grogu has to make a choice because of dogma and that’s really frustrating. My heart tells me if Grogu doesn’t knock Skywalker out cold and take the lightsaber and the armor we riot, but I know that’s not the point. And I know this is pre-Ben Solo massacre Luke, so he’s not developed any of the jaded rejection of the Jedi philosophy that I empathize with so deeply in The Last Jedi. It’s just so fundamental a flaw in Jedi teaching to ignore connection to other people and it's frustrating to see Luke fall into the same binary that spelled such disaster for his father. 
 
My hope is for a third way forward for Grogu, maybe some sort of Gray Jedi training down the line (perhaps at the hands of Ahsoka Tano, whose status is still unknown in terms of what her relationship with the Force has become), but I predict that Grogu will be bidding Master Skywalker farewell to return to Din Djarin, choosing his surrogate father, and deciding once and for all that, “This is the way.”

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