Disney+’s latest live-action ventures into the Star Wars universe have something in common with one another - besides, of course, being part of the same franchise. Both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett focus on beskar armor-wearing mercenaries trying to make a living outside the limits of the law in a galaxy far, far away. While The Mandalorian focuses on the traditionalist Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarinn (Pedro Pascal), frequently referred to as Mando, The Book of Boba Fett follows the trajectory of the fan favorite titular character (Temuera Morrison) after the fall of the Empire. While Fett’s adventures take place exclusively on the desert planet of Tatooine (at least, so far), Mando’s journey takes him to many different corners of the galaxy. The two do eventually run into one another, and even get into a fight and then team up to face a bunch of Imperial soldiers in Season 2 of The Mandalorian. But how exactly do the shows line up with one another? Episode 3 of The Book of Boba Fett offers an answer to this question.
Just like both previous episodes of The Book of Boba Fett, “The Streets of Mos Espa” is divided in two timelines. In the crime lord part of the episode, Boba Fett keeps on trying to establish himself as Daimyo of Mos Espa. He recruits a gang of unruly teenagers that enhance their bodies with droid parts, reaches an apparent truce with the Hutt Twins, and finds out Mayor Mok Shaiz has been working with the Pyke Syndicate.
The crime family from Oba Diah connects the present timeline with the past one, in which Fett goes up to the Syndicate’s leader in Mos Eisley to negotiate their passage through the Tusken Raider-controlled Dune Sea. The Pyke boss (Phil LaMarr) informs Fett that they don’t mind paying the Tuskens for protection, but that the family already has another group of alleged lords of the Dune Sea on their payroll: the Kintan Striders speeder gang, whom Fett watched terrorize the people of Tatooine in the two previous episodes. The ex-bounty hunter vows to take care of the gang and make sure all payments are made to the Tuskens that took him in, but, when he returns to the Sand People's village, he finds it completely destroyed, with no signs of life.
Fett’s brief passage through Mos Eisley offers a clear connection between what goes on in at least one of the timelines of The Book of Boba Fett and Djarinn’s journey. Riding into Mos Eisley on his bantha, Fett passes a line of stormtroopers’ helmets on spikes, as well as a curly-haired woman followed by three tiny droids. Fans of both shows certainly recognized both the scenery and the woman from The Mandalorian’s Season 1 episode “The Gunslinger.”
In “The Gunslinger”, Mando arrives at Mos Eisley with baby Grogu in tow and leaves his ship at the spaceport under the care of curly-haired mechanic Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris). Though he’s adamant that he wants no droids near his ship, and Motto eventually complies with his request, the woman is usually aided by - you guessed it! - three tiny droids. It is no stretch to say that the person Boba Fett passed by in “The Streets of Mos Espa” is none other than Peli Motto herself, especially when we consider the other evidences.
After dropping his ship (and Grogu) with Motto, Djarinn goes looking for a job at the Mos Eisley cantina. On his way there, he passes the same line of stormtroopers’ helmets as Fett, which suggests both bounty hunters were in the city around the same time. Things get even more interesting when Mando arrives at the cantina and finds himself a gig.
Though the droid tending the bar swiftly informs Djarinn that the Guild doesn’t do business there anymore, a man sitting alone at a table calls him over. He introduces himself as Toro Calican (Jake Cannavale), a rogue bounty hunter who needs to capture a target to be accepted into the Guild. He promises Mando can keep the reward all to himself just as long as he aids him in taking down a certain woman: the much feared mercenary Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), who will later become Daimyo Boba Fett’s right-hand person. Initially hesitant to hunt down such a dangerous killer, Djarinn informs Calican that Shand has worked for all of the galaxy’s main crime syndicates, including the Hutts, and that she won’t be easy to apprehend. Eventually, though, he concedes and sets out to help the aspiring Guild member on his quest.
However, things don’t go exactly as planned, and Mando finds himself turned from hunter to prey. The pair of bounty hunters travels to the middle of the Dune Sea looking for Shand and, after nearly getting killed by one of her traps, finally manage to capture her. The problem is that they don’t have enough speeders to take her back to Mos Eisley. While Mando goes back to retrieve the dewback that had served as bait for Shand’s trap, the elite assassin manages to convince Calican that he should turn his partner in instead of her, telling him the story of the Mandalorian that shot up the Guild on Navarro and took a high value target away with him.
Shand’s goal is to convince Calican to let her go, but, once again, things don’t go quite as expected: before setting off to hunt down Djarinn by himself, Calican shoots down his previous target and leaves her for dead in the Tatooine desert. At the end of the episode, however, a mysterious figure appears and kneels beside her body. Later in the show, it is revealed that this person is none other than Boba Fett, who rescues Shand and helps her recover from her wounds. Was he the one she was supposed to meet up with in Mos Espa in the rendez-vous she mentioned to Calican before being shot? We may still find out.
Right now, let’s line up what we’ve learned from these two episodes: Boba Fett went to Mos Eisley to negotiate with the Pykes at about the same time that Djarinn was in town. This means that Mando’s first trips with baby Grogu take place during Fett’s captivity and later partnership with the Tusken Raiders. Since we also know that Fett was the one that helped Shand get back on her feet, it’s not a stretch to assume that the two bounty hunters became allies shortly after the events depicted in the Tusken Raider timeline of “The Streets of Mos Espa”. Maybe the next episodes of The Book of Boba Fett will devote some of its runtime to showing the first steps of Fett and Shand’s partnership. And perhaps we will even see the battle for Fett’s armor and the fight against the stormtroopers from The Mandalorian Season 2 from a different point of view sometime in the future.
New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett come out on Wednesdays, on Disney+. Seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian are also available for streaming on Disney+.