The season finale for The Book of Boba Fett, aka, “In the Name of Honor”, has arrived, so we have broken it down to give fans insights into its Easter eggs, Star Wars references, and of course the key moments that helped put a close to Boba’s series, as well as potentially setting up plot points for the Mando-verse moving forward.
Head on down below to check it out.
Easter Eggs and References
Hey now fans and haters of Boba’s Book, it’s that time to deal with another Star Wars live action finale thanks to the arrival of S1E7, aka, In the Name of Honor, which quite frankly felt a bit anticlimactic, but overall serviceable to the Mando-verse as a whole.
Let’s start with breaking down the episodes eggs, Star Wars references, and lack of new cameos.
Up first, in which many of us thought would be the arrival of Luke and Grogu, but rather we just got some glamour shots of the most iconic X-Wing in all of Star Wars, Red 5, so there’s that.
Cad Bane then uses a line Boba used on Koska in mando S2 when he utters something along the lines of A Quacta Calling a Stifling slimy, a play on our own pots calling kettles black saying.
The major domo drops a Coruscant reference when talking about going to finishing school and learning the art of negotiation.
The Freetown fights roll up in a v35 speeder, the same model seen in Mos Eisley briefly as Luke and the gang head to Challum’s cantina. It was also featured in the Lego cantina set that released in 2020.
If you were like me and thought the Scorpenek droids looked like Droidekas, then you weren’t wrong as they were developed by the same group who made the smaller rolling balls of shielded death. This droid also appeared as concept art for Attack of the Clones, so Jon and Dave officially made it canon in this episode.
I’ll speak more on the Cad and Boba duel, but it clearly was an homage to their deleted scene duel from Clone Wars, and a follow up to the mission that led to them dueling in said scrapped episodes of TCW. Cad even mentions how he’s gotten one over on Boba before, which has to be a reference to the deleted arc that led to their duel in TCW. If anything we get to see the plate on Cad’s head, which was introduced in Bad Batch as an offscreen nod to the deleted duel, signifying where Boba landed his shot. Cad landed one too, which is supposed to explain the dent on Boba’s helmet.
Anyone else get some King Kong vibes after the rancor broke loosed and started climbing towers? We just needed Mando to put on a white dress and a blonde wig and the full Empire State scene would have been remade in Book of Boba.
And our last reference is the return of the shifter knob, Grogu’s favorite toy and the last remaining part of the Razor Crest.
Key Moments and Speculations
And now for the key moments, or for this breakdown, maybe the fun moments, because there really wasn’t a ton of world or character building in this episode in addition to clarity on what may be in store for Boba and the gang next.
Also, how about hitting that subscribe button down below if you dig what we do.
I guess this counts as key for those who may not be paying attention, but we did get confirmation that the Pykes killed Boba’s tusken tribe and not the Striders. One would have thought having the warrior return to payoff on this slaughter would have been ideal and a great moment for Tuskens and Boba, but I guess she is dead after all, and his ties to the Tuskens and any future stories with them ended back in Episode 3.
The way Grogu’s choice was handled was not what I expected at all. It was surprising to see that they dealt with it off screen and simply had Luke ship him back to Mando in his X-Wing. It just felt like a lackluster way to handle the extreme choice laid before Grogu, so unless we get to see how the choice went down and how it affected Luke in a future flashback moment, it alll seems like a bit of a wasted moment at this point.
Did Luke try to change his mind at all? Why did he send him alone? Did Grogu promise to come back and finish his training or did Luke play hardball and effectively block any chance of him being trained down the road? Who knows, because we were fully kept in the dark and given the Din and Grogu reunion a bit too early in my humble opinion.
Don’t get me wrong, my Star Wars heart smiles every time they are together, but this early reunion and the end of the episode seems to have lessened the impact of Mando’s season 2 finale and the prospects of Din and Grogu being separated forever, or at least for a good period of time. At this point we are heading into Mando Season 3 with them paired up again already, which again to me seemed a bit early and will take some focus away from the inevitable Mandalore and unification of Mandalorians narratives that was hinted at in Episode 5 of book when Din gets exiled.
I guess you gotta sell that grogu merchandise, but I was hoping for much more emotional weight to be added to Grogu’s choice and the reunion of Father and son.
The exchange between Boba and Mando on the merits of the Mandalorian creed was a solid moment. If anything it reinforces Din’s belief in it and its tenants, and Boba’s utter disdain for his Father’s culture. Boba is still very far from every buying into the way, he calls it bantha crap, but if anything he understands honor and loyalty now, which Din helped him with greatly by coming to his aide even when it looked like Boba’s reign was finished before it really even started. I don’t think these two are done working with each other, but I also don’t think Boba is fully ready to get mixed up in any Mandalorian uprising or hangouts anytime soon.
For those complaining about Boba not looking like a badass, I hope the team up with Din makes you all feel a bit better, because it was pretty glorious to see. It was technically the first time we got to see these two armor wearing badasses fight side by side, because in Mando Boba did all the fighting to save Din and Fennec, so this was truly the first time he and Din battled enemies together, and it was quite the spectacle. It showed how dangerous beskar wearing warriors can be, and is hopefully a tease for more Mandalorian action in Mando Season 3. Can you imagine what it would look like to see a battalion of Mandos banded together for a common cause? Glorious, even more so than the Covert save from Mando S1.
Call me a sucker, or call me a dad in real life, but the Din and Grogu reunion tugged on my insides. I honestly didn’t see it going down in this manner, and I do think it cheapens the end of Mando S2 and the gravity of Din giving him up, but oh well, there is definitely some sort of magic when these two characters are together, so it’s hard not to smile when you see them together again.
I still would’ve preferred this to be a Mando S3 moment, or at least got more insights into how Luke took Grogu’s decision, but I guess for now we have to trust Jon and Dave to make this seemingly way too early reunion pay off down the road.
Even though we all knew it was coming thanks to a leak and the obvious foreshadowing in the show itself, but seeing Boba on a rancor was definitely a rad moment, and adds to his canon-based legend perfectly. I’m surprised how much the thing destroyed the city considering Boba’s concern for the town, but I guess that’s what you get when you decide to ride a walking howitzer into battle.
Alright, now for the Boba and Cad duel. I predicted this last week, but like many of you, I felt there was potential for both of them to make it out alive to setup a solid recurring rival for Boba and possibly Din moving forward, but they went ahead and finally gave us what seems like a resolution to their beef, which was initially supposed to play out in The Clone Wars.
I do like that Cad still got the upper hand in terms of pure dueling, but the fact that Boba relied on his new melee skills and the ways of the tuskens to take him out, especially after Cad tried to use his bond with them against him, seemed like a fitting way to seemingly kill of a big time character.
I will give Cad Nation some hope though, because as the camera pans over his motionless body, you can hear and see a sensor pinging on his chest, so one could speculate that it’s some sort of emergency healing function, or that its a beacon that went out to someone or some robot named TODO, to come and pick his busted ass up for another major healing job. I don’t think that sensor beeping was just for fun, so don’t sleep on the old blue guy quite yet.
Grogu busted out the force probably too many times in this episode, but you have to appreciate the visuals and the magnitude of him being able to tame a Rancor. He clearly learned more about his potential with Luke, but his two saves also were reminders of his love of Din, as he risked himself against two massive foes in this episode to save his big buddy. These two are bound together if you will, and it seems neither will late fate decided the other’s destiny.
So the death of Mok Shaiz, the Pyke leader, and the heads of the 3 backstabbing families put the nail in my Crimson Dawn theory, and really sucked some of the wind out of this finale. I don’t think anyone thought that the Pykes would truly be the big bads of the series, but here we are and they definitely were. It felt like a bit of a missed opportunity by not having a big reveal at the end that another force or faction was behind it all, which could have added to the show’s solid run at world building, but alas, Jon didn’t provide a single twist to surprise us and give us something to chew on for potential plot points down the road.
Some may have found Grogu in the ship a bit gimmicky, but we all knew we’d see him in the droid pod at some point, and they way it was presented with him forcing Din to hit the Go Fast button was a fun moment indeed.
I was hoping for another jaw dropping stinger scene that would either reveal a second season of Book, or setup a major narrative for Mando Season 3, but all we got was confirmation that Cobb Vanth lived and is healing in Boba’s tank with some mods in store for his system. I guess this could be setup for Cobb taking over Boba’s rule, which was hinted when Boba and Fennec were talking about how being a benevolent ruler isn’t for them after all, but it still felt a bit flat in terms of getting fans excited for what may come next.
There you have it friends. Boba’s book is finished, and based on the anticlimactic finale, who knows if another season is in store, or if Boba and the newly introduced characters will just bleed into future seasons of Mando or other Mando-verse shows like Ahsoka.
I am a fan of the series and thought it finally made Boba a real character, but I am a bit perplexed in how it all ended. Having the Pykes as the actual big bad seemed like a missed moment to expand the Mando-verse world even further to setup an enemy force powerful enough to worry if not beat our mix of heroes and anti-heroes, but that just wasn’t in the cards.
I also found Din and Grogu’s reunion to be lacking in terms of exposition on Grogu’s choice and how it impacted Luke and what it could mean for the future of the character and Din himself. It seemed too early at this stage, and if you think about fans of Mando who may skip the Boba series, seeing them together immediately in Season 3 will probably come as a shock considering how emotional their departure was at the end of Season 2.
In the end I’m ok with it because it’s hard not to smile and root for Din and Grogu, but it would have been nice to see Din grapple with his feelings of loss a bit longer, as well as to see how Luke reacted to Grogu’s choice and what it may mean for his academy moving forward and Grogu’s ultimate path in general.
Make sure to tune into the next episode of the Star Wars Time Show in which myself and my co-host Nick will fully breakdown this episode and give our thoughts on it as a whole.
Thanks for watching, if you enjoyed this video please considering liking it and subbing to our YouTube channel. We’d also love for you to join in with our weekly Star Wars podcast, so use the links in this video’s description, or head to StarWarsTime.net to subscribe to the platform of your choice.
There’s always time for Star Wars Time, and remember, if you listen to the Star Wars Time Show, the force will be with you, always.
