Review: The Book of Boba Fett – The Gathering Storm s01e04

With its overall slow pace still evident, The Book of Boba Fett continues a slow grind through its story.  Gladly, with episode 4, ‘The Gathering Storm’ the separate timelines begin to merge and instil a bit more focus.  *Warning! Some Spoilers Ahead!*

The Book of Boba Fett has been a strange series so far, as all of the areas it has covered are interesting ones. You would have thought therefore that it would be as successful as The Mandalorian was, especially as it has a fan favourite at its centre.  The problem has been though that not enough has happened, the slow pace has let it drift too much, and what could have been particularly good avenues have been squandered.  The whole Tusken subplot for instance was short-changed and could have been much more substantial.  This looked like it was going be a nice subplot where we would learn a significant amount about an old element of Star Wars Canon, but that never materialised.  This makes it all the more galling when it is referenced in this episode as having been of great impact, while that just isn’t the case.

What we do get is ‘The Gathering Storm’ tying parts of The Mandalorian to events here, as Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) finds the injured Fennec (Ming Na Wen) in the desert.  After saving her life, she agrees to help him reclaim his ship from Jabba’s Palace, which is now controlled by Bib Fortuna.  This gives us a bit more action than usual and cuts down the amount of wandering across Tatooine we have to endure.  They’ve tried to make this a mixture between a straight up heist and a more comedic sequence by shoehorning in a cutesy robot and it makes this section grate a little.  While Star Wars has always had its humour, it definitely worked better when delivered by Han Solo’s dry wit, or C3POs flustered quips.  Here, the ‘ratcatcher’ just seems like an effort to create a character that can be exploited as merchandise.

Aside from that little hiccup, getting Boba back into Slave-1 and moving things along definitely helps get things back on track.  With the two timelines converging it feels like there is now a much improved impetus and narrative drive.  This push forward is also helped by the implications of the Pyke Syndicate moving across the planet, which could mean a much more dramatic pacing is about to propel the show.  While local politics aren’t always the most exciting development in a show, it does at least show the dynamics between the different factions and prepare us for the moving parts in what is to come.

So, while ‘The Gathering Storm’ is a patchy affair, much like the other recent episodes, it seems to herald a shift in this series.  If this is the case, then it will effectively turn this into a series of two halves that would have been much better served by combining these first few episodes into two large ones.  As it stands, there is a well of goodwill that is being used up as each episode passes, and The Book of Boba Fett needs to start delivering more substantial fare, before it runs dry.

Where to watch The Book of Boba Fett