Warning: The following contains spoilers from Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett “Chapter 7: In the Name of Honor,” streaming now on Disney+.
The whole premise of The Book of Boba Fett was Boba’s intent to take over Jabba the Hutt’s former territory and clean up Tatooine. Boba met a lot of resistance along the way, but for most of the season, there wasn’t a defined villain. The Hutt twins came and went; the Kintan Striders were wannabes; and the Pykes weren’t specific enough. None of them really fit the bill as a personal antagonist for Boba.
That all changed in Chapter 6. Most of the episode was devoted to Jedi business as Luke Skywalker and Grogu began their training together — that is, until Luke gave Grogu a debilitating ultimatum. However, the most important part of the episode (at least for The Book of Boba Fett’s plot) was Cad Bane’s introduction to live-action.
The personal vendetta between Boba and Bane gave the series a much-needed, primary villain for the finale; but early in the episode, the writers threw in an unexpected and unnecessary twist. When Cad Bane went to report that he “killed” Cobb Vanth, he questioned the Pyke leader and the Mayor of Mos Espa about Boba’s potential allies. The mayor mentioned that Boba had once lived with a tribe of Tuskens, but the Pyke leader ensured that they would not be a problem. The Syndicate had personally eliminated them and framed the Kintan Striders.
Cad Bane was impressed when he heard about the slaughter. While the Pyke leader called the actions pragmatic, Bane described them as ruthless, and that’s saying something coming from a career gun-for-hire who made a living hunting, killing and kidnaping Jedi. However, none of that made up for that fact that the whole dynamic and the timing felt weird.
It was probably supposed to be a big reveal that the Pykes killed the Tuskens, but it simply wasn’t. Back when the Tusken massacre first happened, most fans already suspected that someone else had killed them. So, hearing that they Pykes were behind it was simply a confirmation of expectations. Additionally, the fact that they did it was probably supposed to add an extra layer of villainy to the Pykes, but it was too little and too late.
If the Pykes were supposed to be the series’ “Big Bads,” the Tusken reveal should have come much earlier so that Boba’s conflict with them would have been much more emotional. As it happened, though, “the Pykes” was too vague of a villain from the onset, and Boba not knowing about their heinous deed only added to their ambiguity and undercut the possibility for an emotional pay-off.
Then, the series introduced Cad Bane. It was as if he would become the main villain, but finding out that the Pykes killed the Tuskens in the finale only took away from his personal conflict with Boba. In fact, it felt like the writers couldn’t quite decide whether the Pykes or Bane was supposed to be the series’ ultimate villain, so the series ended up not putting enough time into developing either one of the villains. Regardless, Boba ended up predictably vanquishing both parties and securing relative peace on Tatooine.
To see Boba take on the Pykes and Cad Bane, watch The Book of Boba Fett. All seven episodes are streaming now on Disney+.
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