Recap / The Book of Boba Fett S1E4 "The Gathering Storm"

Boba Fett prepares for the war with the Pykes and has flashbacks of how he saved the life of Fennec Shand and recovered his ship with her help.

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Tropes:

• 1-Dimensional Thinking: The Kintan Striders all flee from the Slave I in a tight formation, neither turning or scattering in an attempt to get away. Boba is able to strafe them with ease because of this.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: Invoked (with a dash of Nightmare Fetishist) by the mod surgeon Boba goes to in his attempt to rescue Fennec: when asked why he did not cover Fennec's new cybernetic digestive system, he says it would be a waste to leave his mechanical handiwork unappreciated. This is in contrast to standard artificial limbs, such as the cybernetic hand Luke was fitted with at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, which are constructed to look as lifelike as possible (at least after the wiring is tidied up).
• Animal Lover: Boba is kind and affectionate to both banthas and rancors.
• An Arm and a Leg: Krrsantan rips a Trandoshan gambler's arm off.
• Artificial Limbs: The modder puts on an artificial limb containing all sorts of hooks, saws, and a blowtorch.
• Ascended to Carnivorism: Boba's bantha accepts a piece of roast meat for dinner, despite her body structure being otherwise suited for a herbivore.
• Back-Alley Doctor: What the Mod Parlor surgeon amounts to. Although perfectly capable of installing life-saving cybernetics, he normally caters to the Modder cyborgs subculture, and is treated more like a tattoo/piercing artist. Although at first refusing his services without an appointment, Boba Fett pays him handsomely to change his mind. Boba admits this was the best he could do under the circumstances, being pressed for time and lacking the ability to find a reputable surgeon, but he got the job done and did save Fennec's life.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: "Die" is questionable in this case, but when a cornered LEP droid learns that the man cornering it is Boba Fett, it chooses to switch itself off rather than face Boba's wrath.
• Bloodless Carnage: There's no visible blood when Krrsantan rips the Trandoshan's arm off, or when the surgeon installs cybernetic mods in Fennec, despite the latter using what looks like a buzzsaw.
• Bowdlerize: Boba refers to his starship as "a Firespray gunship", sidestepping its official designation of "Slave I". "Firespray" was established years ago as the class of ship it is, but Lucasfilm grew uncomfortable with its specific name.
• Call-Back: The cyborg modification gang culture was introduced in the preceding episode, and this episode's flashback sequence elaborates that Boba used one such modder shop to save Fennec from her fatal gut-shot.
• Call-Forward:
  • Boba's extensive search for his armor in the Sarlacc Pit has left him covered in Sarlacc acid again, causing Fennec to remark that he needs a bacta tank treatment since he no longer has his armor to protect him from the worst effects.
  • Boba is ultimately unable to locate his armor during the flashback sequences. Its whereabouts during this time period had previously been explained in The Mandalorian episode "The Marshal", with the Jawas having traded it to Cobb Vanth.
  • During the raid on Bib Fortuna's palace, many mooks get mowed down during the hangar gunfight. Notably, this does not include a pair of Gammoreans, who close in to fight Fennec hand-to-hand and thus get to live when she just knocks them out.
• Campfire Character Exploration: After killing the Saarlac and failing to find his armor in the corpse's entrails, Boba and Fennec conclude the day talking aside a parked Slave I eating by a campfire, with Boba explaining the reason why he wants to start a criminal empire of his own, based on Pragmatic Villainy in the face of all the Stupid Evil he perceives in other crime lords.
• Chairman of the Brawl: A Trandoshan whacks Krrsantan across the head with a cantina chair. It doesn't faze Krrsantan at all.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Boba and Fennec arrive at the hangar, you can see a GNK power droid waddling about, gonking as it goes. Minutes later, after the guards are more alerted to the pair's intrusion in the palace, Fennec shoots the poor thing, resulting in a mook-tossing explosion.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Boba has to find his beskar armor not only for practical reasons, but because no-one recognises him without it. Which is good when you're playing dead, but not so much when you want to intimidate others with your reputation.
• The Comically Serious: After Fennec hits a switch to drop a seismic charge down the Sarlacc's gullet to finish it off once and for all, Boba just gives Fennec a deadpan "Next time, don't touch my buttons."
• Continuity Nod:
  • Boba Fett sees the flare Din Djarin sent up to blind Fennec in "The Gunslinger", showing how he was able to find her in time to save her life.
  • This isn't the first time Slave I has come barreling at the camera POV guns blazing. Obi-Wan got a helping of being the ship's prey back in Attack of the Clones.
  • Krrsantan proves that Han Solo wasn't exaggerating when he warned that Wookiees have been known to rip arms out of people's sockets when sufficiently enraged. Of course, he's seen it himself too.
  • We get to see the remains of Jabba's pleasure barge near the Sarlacc.
• Cranial Processing Unit: The chef droid collapses after Fennec beheads it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The episode features two.
  • It takes little more than a single pass for Boba to wipe out the entire swoop gang, who are no match for a starship.
  • Krrsantan absolutely demolishes half a dozen Trandoshan gamblers without most of them getting in so much as a hit. The only one that does ends up very much wishing he hadn't.
• Death by Irony: The Sarlacc had spent years eating people. It's killed when Fennec drops a seismic charge in its mouth, which it swallows whole and is killed by when it goes off.
• Death from Above: Boba gets his revenge on the swoop gang by strafing them from the air in his ship.
• Discontinuity Nod: When first seen, the Sarlacc resembles the toothed pit in the original release of Return of the Jedi. Then when it attacks, it reveals the beaked maw and tentacles added in the Special Edition re-release.
• Dramatic Irony: Boba returns to the Pit of Carkoon because he believes his armor is still there. But it was taken by Jawas in episode 1, and shown to be in the hands of Cobb Vanth at this point in time in The Mandalorian.
• Emergency Transformation: Boba is forced to visit a mod shop to save Fennec, as it's all he could afford. Since he can't repair flesh, the modder simply swaps out her guts for cybernetics.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Boba had thought for years that his armor stayed in the Sarlacc, and thus comes back to the beast to reclaim it (the armor is made of beskar, one of the rare few things it couldn't digest). The armor was in fact stolen by Jawas shortly after he emerged from the pit, but since at the time he was likely delirious from the ordeal (not to mention getting a concussion thanks to said Jawas), it is no surprise that his memories would be jumbled. He also believed to have killed the Sarlacc by firing his flamethrower inside it, but apparently all it did was give it a stomach burn.
• Evil Counterpart: While not exactly evil, Boba now has a Wookiee companion, much like a former enemy of his.
• Evil Power Vacuum: Quote Boba: "Power hates a vacuum." He reasons he needs to show his face in town just so the people know he's still around.
• Expressive Ears: The ratcatcher droid has ear-like appendages on its head that convey lots of expression, especially while Boba is holding it in a Neck Lift.
• False Flag Operation: Fennec voices her doubt that Nikto speeder-bike gangs could wipe out an entire Tusken camp, rather prominently seeding the possibility that someone else killed them off, then just tagged the Tusken camp with the speeder-gang's graffiti as a frame-up, accurately hoping that Boba would then kill off the Niktos for them. The Tuskens were indeed better armed than they used to be, after stripping the Pykes' train for blaster guns. All signs point to the Pyke Syndicate itself: they were already paying the Niktos protection money for traveling through the Dune Sea, and in the preceding episode said they didn't care if they had to pay off the Niktos or the Tuskens, just so long as they didn't have to pay both. What's better than having to pay the Tuskens instead of the Niktos? Having to pay neither.
• Fantastic Racism: Krrsantan hates Trandoshans to the point he's willing to tear their limbs off in a public brawl for the sheer audacity of having fun. Not even the promise of wiping out his debts would deter him from getting his vengeance. This is a bit justified as Trandoshans, after all, prize hunt Wookiees and collect their pelts, though Krrsantan himself is no stranger to killing Wookiees for the fun of it.
• Feed It a Bomb: Fennec drops a seismic charge into the Sarlacc's mouth when it ensnares Slave I with its tentacles.
• Finger Wag: Fennec gives one to the rat catcher droid after she cuts off its escape.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Fennec makes it clear she'll help Boba get his spaceship and then her debt is paid, but changes her mind after fighting alongside him.
• Foreshadowing: Fennec talking about buying muscle at the end of the episode is punctuated by the loud wail of a brass recorder, the same musical sting that heralded the appearance of The Mandalorian.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: A Trandoshan gambler tries this on Krrsantan. Key word being "tries".
• Heroic Second Wind: By a non-heroic character; one of the Gamorrean Guards knocked out earlier comes to and rushes at Fennec just after she'd dropped her gun. She dispatches him again after a brief scuffle.
• I Choose to Stay: Fennec's debt is considered paid after she helps Boba retrieve his ship, but she decides to stick around because his plan to take over Jabba's empire intrigues her.
• Implied Death Threat: When the representatives from Mos Espa's families rather brashly ask why they shouldn't just kill him and take his territory, his new rancor roars and pounds on the ceiling of his pit while his claws pop out of the grate in the floor, revealing that the dining table is right over the rancor pit. Boba then feeds it some of his table scraps and quips "I think he's a little hungry."
• In-Universe Catharsis:
  • After stealing back his ship, the first thing Boba does after some repairs is to use the ship to gun down the Kintan Striders, the swoop gang that massacred his adoptive Sand People tribe as revenge. The raiders are powerless as Boba massacres them with the gunship's starfighter-grade weapons in one pass, a brutal, stiff-lipped cold wrath on his face the whole time.
  • Downplayed with the Sarlacc, as while Boba does get to deal it payback by blowing it up with a seismic charge (though that was Fennec's idea), he thought he had killed it the first time and was just looking for his lost armor.
• It's Personal:
  • Krrsantan attacks the Trandoshans, presumably due to their love of hunting and skinning Wookiees. It's why even when Garza makes a convincing plea for him to stand down in exchange for writing off his tab, he refuses.
  • Boba taking down the Kintan Striders for killing his Tusken Raider tribe.
• Jump Scare:
  • It's revealed that the Sarlacc is Not Quite Dead when its beaked maw suddenly lunges out of the darkness, right at the camera.
  • Boba gathers the crime bosses of Tatooine in the throne room for dinner... right above the Rancor pit. Lil' rancor puppy lets Boba know it's getting close to feeding time at just the right moment in a conversation, momentarily terrifying the crime bosses before Boba assuages them in a subtle Good Side/Bad Side display of power.
• Karmic Death: The reveal that the Kintan Striders were under the employment of Bib Fortuna, and thus him being the one responsible for the Tuskens being massacred, makes his death this trope retroactively.
• Leitmotif: The distinctive woodwind flute of The Mandalorian is heard as Boba sees flares in the night, signaling that Din Djarin is nearby and Boba is witnessing the events of "The Gunslinger". It returns near the end when Fennec mentions that credits can buy muscle.
• Made of Explodium: Fennec shoots a power droid as it tries waddling out of the hanger during the battle. It explodes like a bomb and takes out a bunch of nearby guards.
• Made of Indestructium: Boba is confident his beskar armor is too tough to be dissolved by the Sarlacc's stomach acid and should still be intact even after all this time. Little does he know the armor made it out with him, before the Jawas mugged him.
• Metaphorically True: When Fennec expresses her disbelief that her rescuer is Boba Fett, stating that the legendary Bounty Hunter is supposed to be dead, Boba replies that he was dead. For him, the old Boba died when he fell into the Sarlacc pit. Even though he escaped the Pit of Carkoon, he didn't want to resume the old life anymore. Instead, he plans to build a new kind of community on Tatooine, one inspired by his adopted Tusken family.
• Mook–Face Turn: It didn't take much persuading for Krrsantan to accept Boba's offer of a job, mostly because he was abandoned by the Twins and left to rot in Boba's dungeon, while Boba freed him with no hard feelings.
• Mouth Cam: When Boba returns to the Pit of Carkoon aboard his ship Slave I, we get a shot from the inside of the pit, framed by the jagged "teeth" of the Sarlacc.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The chef droid in Jabba's palace has several arms that it uses to handle multiple kitchen knives at once while preparing meals. It also uses them to intimidating effect when squaring off against Boba, spinning them around at high speed à la General Grievous.
• Mythology Gag: Shand's little spy drone is essentially a smaller version of Bao-Dur's remote, from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. We also see the return of Jabba's droid torture droid, the droid that, pointlessly, tortures other droids, as well as a GONK droid.
• Neck Lift: Boba grabs the small ratcatcher droid by its long neck to lift it up and threaten it. Rather easy in this case since it cannot weigh much more than a cat.
• No Honor Among Thieves:
  • Boba could walk up to the Palace and ask Bib Fortuna to return Boba's ship to him. However, he figures that Bib will decide to keep the ship and have Boba killed instead.
  • As Boba explains to Fennec, he is tired of this trope and has decided to form his own criminal organization that will operate on honor and loyalty.
  • Discussed when Fennec wonders if the other crime bosses will stay neutral as agreed. Boba thinks they will out of Pragmatic Villainy, as it's not in their interest for the Pyke Syndicate to win, even if they're not willing to take the risk of fighting them.
• No One Could Survive That!: Boba notes the advantages of still being presumed dead when Fennec suggests Mos Eisley as a place to get Slave I a once-over after the ship was sedentary for a few years, opting to do the maintenance work himself to avoid quashing the presumption that he's still dead.
• Not Quite Dead: When Boba and Fennec return to the Pit of Carkoon to locate Boba's armor, he angles Slave I so the cockpit is directly on top of the mouth of the Sarlacc, which he presumed to be deceased after he blew his way out. Turns out, the Sarlacc is still alive and latches onto the potential meal, nearly dragging the ship into its maw. It takes a seismic charge into the Sarlacc's beaked tongue to finally kill the beast.
• Off with His Head!: As the chef droid menaces Boba with its spinning arms, Fennec pops up behind it and cuts off its head.
• Oh, Crap!: One of the Trandoshan gamblers at Garsa's Sanctuary hits Krrsantan with a bottle during the brawl, and his expression absolutely screams this when Krrsantan slowly turns around, completely unaffected.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Methodically gunning down a swoop gang from on high in a space gunship, topping it off with shooting an anti-ship missile at the leader? Brutal. Because they mercilessly slaughtered Boba's adoptive Sand People tribe and are a terror to settlers on top of that? Well-deserved.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Fennec says "Fire in the hole!" right before the seismic charge in the Sarlacc's mouth goes off.
• The Reveal:
  • The Kintan Striders were under the employment of Bib Fortuna, and Boba spent several years trying to get his revenge on the speeder gang, only to be stopped by the heavy patrol surrounding Jabba's Palace.
  • Boba reveals why he wants to start a criminal empire rather than going back to the old bounty hunter life. He's tired of working for clients who are idiotic or cruel and nearly got him killed on the job. He believes that mercenaries like him and Fennec are smarter than them, and therefore, better suited to running such an organization.
  • Fennec's cybernetics were created by one of the Mod gangs. Boba couldn't afford actual medical treatment, so he had to settle for the next best thing.
  • Fennec is actually no longer in debt to Boba; he declared her debt to him paid when she helped him recover his ship, and asked where she'd like to be dropped off so he could give her a ride. Fennec is now serving Boba of her own choice (whereas "The Tragedy" led us to believe she was in a debt for life).
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Immediately after recovering his beloved Slave I, Boba sets out to annihilate the swoop gang that massacred his Tusken tribe with it.
• Rule of Symbolism: After the flashback ends with Boba discussing his plans to Fennec of starting a criminal empire, Boba wakes up from his bacta bath with a droid announcing that he's completely healed, signifying the end of his flashback story.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: When the Mod doctor states he will not operate on Fennec due to a lack of appointment, Boba points out that she's dying and offers him a bag full of credits. The Mod doctor changes his mind and simply asks why Boba didn't lead with that.
• Shoo the Dog: In the flashbacks, Boba is seen riding around Tatooine on a Bantha he acquired from the Tuskens. Before he and Fennec make their attempt to reclaim his ship he releases the Bantha into the wild so she can be free.
  Boba: Go, find other Banthas. Make baby Banthas.
• Shoot the Rope: Fennec blasts the chain holding the counter-weight for the door in the hangar.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The flashbacks in this episode are taking place simultaneously with the events of the first season of The Mandalorian, with Boba finding Fennec immediately following the events of "The Gunslinger".
• The Stool Pigeon: Fennec reports that the mayor's majordomo, captured by Boba and company last episode, is "singing like a yuzzum" while Boba is wrapping up his final bacta tank regimen.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Krrsantan was once a famous gladiator, but his violence is shunned in the more civilized Mos Espa of the New Republic. Boba finds him a willing recruit when offered the opportunity to do what he does best.
• Surveillance Drone: Fennec has a small, repulsor-driven, spherical recon droid stored in the buttstock of her rifle. It slips in and out of Bib's palace unnoticed, mapping the entire place, and giving her and Boba a comprehensive layout and guard headcount in their bid to reclaim Slave I from the palace.
• Theme Song Reveal: The use of Mando's leitmotif at the end of the episode when Fennec suggests buying muscle with credits is foreshadowing her recruitment of Din Djarin at the end of the next episode.
• There's No Kill like Overkill: Boba decides to get payback on the Kintan Striders... by turning his newly liberated starship's weaponry on the pack of speeder bikes. He finishes off the leader with a concussion missile, an anti-ship weapon.
• Tranquil Fury: Aside from a grin as he starts gunning the swoop gang down, Boba is calm all the way through during his revenge-fuelled rampage on them.
• Triumphant Reprise: When Boba and Fennec succeed in liberating Slave I from Fortuna's palace, a segment of the title music's male choral melody is played in a triumphant crescendo as it emerges from the hangar, which then mellows into a softer lighter reprise as they leisurely cruise with their newfound freedom from the ground. It then segues into the most heavy-pounding reprise yet of the "Brutal Boba" leitmotif plays as he discusses his "debts to pay" and then mercilessly guns down the Kintan Strider swoop gang from the impunity of his newly reacquired gunship.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Krrsantan instigates a Bar Brawl with some Trandoshan gamblers at the Sanctuary. Everyone looks on in horror and amazement as Krrsantan thrashes them. As he's about to rip the arm off of the last one, Garsa makes an eloquent plea for Krrsantan to put the poor guy down. He rips the guy's arm off instead, pays his tab and leaves... and then Garsa just tells the band to continue playing and everyone's back to revelry. Like everyone in the cantina in Mos Eisley just after Ponda Baba also was left with his arm lying on the floor after attempting a violent confrontation on Obi-Wan.
• We Can Rebuild Her: Boba had no bacta tank at his disposal to save the life of Fennec so he brought her to a mod shop to fix her gut wound with cybernetics.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Boba guns his ship's engines as much as he can while confined in the hangar to bowl over a bunch of attacking mooks.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The first two-thirds of the episode show how Boba saved Fennec and hatched his plan to take over Jabba's empire.
• You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: After catching an LEP droid that spotted them during their infiltration, Boba pulls this on the unfortunate droid:
  Boba: Do you know who I am?
  Droid: [shakes its head, sobbing]
  Boba: I am Boba Fett.
  [the droid keeps sobbing for a moment, then switches itself off]
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Because Boba was barely conscious when the Jawas knocked him out and stole his armor, he doesn't remember what happened before his capture by the Tuskens and fruitlessly searches for his armor inside the Sarlacc's stomach. We aren't shown how he eventually learns that the armor passed from the Jawas to Cobb Vanth and then to Din Djarin.

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