The following article contains spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett.The final episode of The Book of Boba Fett is finally here and unfortunately, the use of "finally" here is more a sigh of relief that this disjointed enterprise is over than a term denoting delivering on the buildup of excitement that could have happened throughout the first six episodes. The Star Wars' series season (and almost certainly series) finale offer plenty of laser blasters and explosions. It offered up a few cameos, including one that was certainly rather cool to see for the first time in live-action, but it also showed that whatever the people behind the Disney Plus show were trying to do over the seven episodes is still a bit of a mystery. The final episode was a ton of Star Wars action, but there wasn't the heft that some of the best movies and shows have managed to capitalize.
In the end, the way the show runners handled this season of The Book of Boba Fett made sure that the audience simply wasn't emotionally invested in any of the people who were put into peril in the season finale. The biggest reason for that is because other than Mando and Boba, the people who were put in peril had a total of about half an hour of screen time over the course of the season. The hopping back and forth between different stories didn't allow any character to really get established. It didn't allow anyone to really win over the audience. That includes the main characters like Fennec Shand, who seemed to be little more than window dressing for the season.
Why Does The Audience Care Who Lives And Who Dies?
If The Book of Boba Fett had spent the entire season building up the war between the former bounty hunter and the Pyke syndicate, the big battle between the two sides in the finale could have been compelling. That doesn't mean that every second of the show needed to focus on the buildup. There's a way to go on "side missions" and still have a payoff that makes people care about who is fighting where. The show runners needn't look any further than The Mandalorian to see how the script can play out. That show didn't have its main villain pop up all that often, but the buildup was handled well enough that people actually cared about the characters.
While it is extremely hard to care about characters like Black Krrsantan because of the fact that they simply haven't been on screen enough to really be fleshed out, the other thing that drags the show down is that the writers of The Book of Boba Fett seem to care a bit too much. One of, if not simply the best Star Wars movie ever made is Rogue One. And the reason it's so good is that literally everyone that the audience comes to care about throughout the film is put in real jeopardy. More than that, they're all killed. Other Star Wars movies have done this as well, and done it correctly. They are willing to kill off key characters in order to advance the plot. They are willing to make people sad to see someone die.
To some degree, The Book of Boba Fettdid that with Cobb Vanth, but that wasn't in the series finale and it wasn't during the big "war." Of course, it seems in carrying things out the way they did even the show runners knew that there simply aren't enough characters in this particular show that have managed to really reel in the audience. A character death in Episode 7 that could really move the needle, other than Mando, didn't really exist. Because no one is attached to anyone because of how little time the audience spent with any of them. In fact, there were a few characters that people were likely rooting to see take a laser blaster in the chest.
Stop Trying To Be Funny
There are some unintended consequences of an episode that relies on the audience to be emotionally invested in characters they don't really know or care about. Obviously, the battles have less impact, but other aspects of the show also fall very, very flat. That was never demonstrated more strongly than the scenes that included Amy Sedaris's Peli Motto. The character, a mechanic that first appeared in The Mandalorian has had far too much screen time in the last few episodes of The Book of Boba Fett. Every time she appears, she's less funny and more grating. Amy Sedaris is nothing short of a comedic genius, so the fact that her character is so bad simply has to be a combination of the material and the lack of investment or need for such a character.
It's clear that Peli Motto is supposed to provide comic relief. Generally, in these kinds of shows, that relief is to make people laugh and raise the tension a bit. However, because the show didn't do a very good job of setting the tension, there isn't much to ease. That's why in one scene, where she and Mando do their own version of an Abbott & Costello bit, it falls incredibly flat. Flatter than Sedaris's delivery of most of her lines. By the end of the series, it's hard to tell which "funny" character is more annoying. Peli Motto or Jar Jar Binks. The "funny bits" in the series never really landed, but in this episode especially, it was entirely clear she really didn't need to be there and was involved entirely for "the laughs" that never came.
Twists And Turns Were Far Too Easy To See Coming
Finally, perhaps the biggest problem with this week's episode of The Book of Boba Fett is that the twists and turns the episode tried to deliver were just a bit too easy to sniff out from a mile away. Every other problem the episode had played a part in making it too easy. Credit does need to go to the show runners that one of those twists wasn't "surprise! Cobb Vanth lived!" but other than that, the twists simply weren't compelling or interesting or really twisting. Even the biggest reveal of the show, likely the surprise that Temuera Morrison hinted at earlier in the season fell sort of flat. Mainly because after the initial surprise, it just made too much sense that it was going to be coming. It had to be coming, or else why have any buildup at all earlier?
Not everything was bad in the season/series finale for The Book of Boba Fett. Boba and Mando kicking the crap out of an entire battalion of Pyke Syndicate goons was certainly fun. There simply wasn't enough "fun" in what could have been a dynamite ending to the run.