From The Desert Comes A Whore
Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett but do you really care? Does anyone?
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I used to pray for times like this.
I’ve always said that if Disney+ were really about their money, they would bring Cock—I mean, Cobb Vanth back.
We last saw the Marshall of Mos Pelgo renouncing Boba Fett’s armor after defeating a krayt dragon alongside the titular Mandalorian of The Mandalorian and the people of his town. Audiences were dickmatized by Timothy Olyphant’s return to yee-haw television, and he did not make it any easier on us by throwing googly eyes in the reflection of Din Djarin’s shiny beskar.
In this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Tatooine, a group of Pyke Syndicate spice runners (what that means, I do not know) are thwarted by our beloved Sheriff Fruit, Cobb Vanth (Timothy Olyphant).
We meet him exhausted, rundown by the violence Tatooine and his town have seen, and a lot more dangerous than when we last saw him. He pulls his blaster on the Pyke goons, no problem, he only spares one of them as a warning. No longer is he the narrow-hipped cowboy galavanting around in Boba Fett’s sarlacc pit pajamas, he is a narrow-hipped sheriff only looking to protect his people.
Meanwhile, Din “The Mandalorian” Djarin (Pedro Pascal) is denied visitation rights by flop-era Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and leaves a special gift for his (our, his and mine) old green baby with Ashoka Tano (Rosario Dawson). He returns to Tatooine to convene with the titular Boba Fett and co. to talk about a gang war no one really understands. They need more muscle, and Din decides to pay Cobb a visit.
Love how when The Mandalorian thinks of ‘more muscle’, Mr. Steal Your Armor is the first person that pops into his head.
DinCobb (as they’re affectionately referred to) is relatively harmless. In fact, they’re kind of fun. I think they’re hilarious together. It’s a comedy of opposites. Mando is hardened and guarded, whilst Vanth is sociable and sarcastic. We don’t know much about Cobb Vanth but we do know that he cares a whole lot about his town, and he’s willing to die for it.
When they first reunite, the marshall notices Mando is without his (our) little green buddy, saying since he lost his armor that they both lost “something they’re quite fond of.” Vanth notices Djarin’s new ride, a tricked-out Naboo starfighter, and acts like a schoolgirl admiring her crush’s expensive new car, hoping for a ride to the dance.
Vanth is a position of authority in the newly renamed Freetown, and Djarin acts as an authority of his own—judge, jury, and executioner when whatever job he’s on calls for it. Vanth has a community that needs him, where Djarin lost the only child who ever would need him to a religious sword-fighting cult. People need Din Djarin as ‘The Mandalorian’; they require his services and not much else until these people do become friends with him. Vanth is the law and his people see him as such. Friends are few and far between for the both of them despite their fierce loyalty, and yet they’ve found each other.
When Djarin asks him to join Boba Fett’s fight against the Pykes, Vanth is reluctant at first, but hears him out anyway. I giggled when he said Mando could get away with anything because of “that big smile” of his. I buried the lede here, before he asks Cobb Vanth to join his crusade, Mando asks him if he can buy Vanth a drink. I screamed. Their mutual but distant respect for each other is so funny to watch because they clearly wish they could hang out all the time. Maybe I’m projecting. I would love to hang out with Timothy Olyphant all the time.
Olyphant is great because he walks that line of cheeky and committed. He doesn’t have to be Seth Bullock or Raylan Givens here. Cobb Vanth is a bit more Joel from Santa Clarita Diet, in that he’s been dropped into some pretty serious situations but all he has on him is, well, himself and his wits. Cobb Vanth has his Star Wars moments, but he’s also just a silly little guy that discovered a place and people he doesn’t mind being around.
What’s been really fun to watch this episode is how without the Boba Fett armor, Cobb Vanth can still command his own very earnest sense of respect from his townspeople, he even has a deputy following him around now that looks up to him. He was worried he needed the armor to command respect but learns he had nothing at all to worry about. I think killing a krayt dragon earned it. I’m reading way too much into a show this fickle. There’s a part of me that wants it to be “good”, perhaps for my own sake than anything else, which is ironic since I’ve made most of my “living” loving bad movies and television shows.
Not to overly romanticize minutes of screentime between two men I’m obsessed with, or to assign different Kacey Musgraves and/or Taylor Swift songs to their dynamic, but I would much rather watch the exploits of this marshall and the Lone Wolf sans Cub than the disarray of overlapping flashbacks and unclear motivations of Tatooine’s new Daimyo. It’s all soy boy soft emotional stuff, not the Star Wars any of us are used to anymore. Not that Star Wars has anything new to say anymore, right? Star Wars is competing with the other emotionless, glossy franchises and all I have to show for it is the embarrassment that I’m still following along, and two space cowboys that are obsessed with each other.
The last few minutes of this week’s episode have been some of my favourite simply because it evoked the most Western the show had to offer. I was promised some yee haw and you bet your boots I’m gonna get some!
The episode’s title finally makes sense in these last few minutes; “From The Desert Comes A Stranger.” I thought at first it was referring to Vanth, which then I think it should more aptly be entitled “From The Desert Comes A Whore”. Vanth does face off with a stranger shrouded in dust. It’s none other than The Clone Wars’ Cad Bane, outdoing Vanth with his own cowboy drip. We get a stand-off. Bane threatens Vanth; betray Fett or you and your little town will feel the wrath of the Pyke Syndicate. Bane shoots Vanth, and then his deputy. The deputy is probably dead, but we’ll have to wait until next week to see if the 2nd most appealing part of these shows (to me) will live to fight and flirt another day.
I know the version of Cobb Vanth in the Star Wars novels is nowhere near as ridiculous (in the best way) as Olyphant is, but I’m glad (despite the tonal inconsistencies it caused on both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett) there are some really silly dudes on these shows. When you peel back both Vanth and Djarin’s wild west bravados, they’re just a couple of dummies that have wind whistling inside their helmets. And they get hit in the helmets too. A couple of ‘himbos’ if you will. As refreshing as they are, I’m not sure this aspect of them is all that intentional in what the shows are bringing.
I adore Boba Fett, I’ve always thought he was really fucking cool and I know this show is having a hard time exploring his iconography, but right now it feels like not even Boba Fett wants to be explored. I would love to see Boba Fett and Fennec Shand take on darker, Sons of Anarchy-like territorial disputes over Tatooine; or a Sopranos with all those dog and lizard-looking crime bosses. I wish it was a real gangster-space western instead of different directors’ trip down Star Wars Nostalgia Lane.
The Book of Boba Fett feels almost like an omen. Here we have a massive corporation bringing Luke Skywalker back to life with the help of Mark Hamill’s voice and the uncanny valley. Lord knows what they could do now, good job or not, with actors that have left us or actors that want nothing to do with the franchise. We have references, upon references, upon references to different parts of the Star Wars meta the same way those Marvel movies just keep setting up the next thing with a plethora of ‘easter eggs’. I’m scared that shit like this will dominate, and I can’t avoid them even if I tried. I’m scared stories will be reduced to cameos and surface-level exploration of ideas that just “sound cool” and nothing beyond that. I said almost like an omen because I fear all those fears are sort of already here.
The Book of Boba Fett also feels a lot like HBO’s euphoria, in that I want better for the performers in it. Temuera Morrison and Ming Na-Wen are awesome, and I’m not really sure what Boba Fett will be doing now that the Filoni Show blew into town this week. It’s been fun to see Cobb Vanth and Mando again, but that’s all this was to me: just seeing them again.
It’s got me thinking about how much a consumer—especially given how streaming and social media have changed the communal aspect of television—can actually be entitled to demand better. It’s a really libertarian perspective, isn’t it? Art is art, can we demand it to do better? We can talk about it, analyze it, and create some sort of community around it regardless of where we stand on the piece of art itself, but what can we really ask of it once it has been made? I love waking up to new euphoria memes we can run into the ground as much as the next person, but I also still remember a time when we didn’t engage with television in this way.
However, I can find one silver lining. I find solace knowing that at least I got to see Timothy Olyphant do Deadwood in space with Pedro Pascal in full body armour again. Even if it might be (hopefully not) for the last time.
That’s all for this week. I have Olyphant brain rot. It’s time to revisit Santa Clarita Diet. Good evening.
Men In STEM Joint Slays
New ADTLM alert! This month’s episode (really meant to be last month’s episode) is the third installment in our MCU miniseries. Naoshad and I have broken down the 11 films in Phase 3 into three phases of their own: the joint slays (big group movies), the solos (self-explanatory), and the sequels (also self-explanatory and not funny or clever).
Have a listen here:
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