Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett follow.
“Hey look, everyone! It’s Mando!”
The response of Peli Motto’s droid entourage is strangely muted. But, if ‘Return of the Mandalorian’ had been filmed in front of a live studio audience, the crowd would have gone wild when Din Djarin arrived at her Mos Eisley hangar bay.
Indeed, when she celebrates his arrival – “what an entrance!” – she’s echoing what the rest of us were thinking half an hour earlier, when he strode into the Klatooinian abattoir in the episode’s very cold open.
Bringing in a special guest star for a headline-grabbing cameo is something of a TV cliché – especially when the show itself may be floundering. But The Book of Boba Fett's Mando-centric episode is more substantial than Cheers veterans Sam, Diane, Woody, Carla, Norm and Cliff showing up in episodes of Frasier.
This is The Mandalorian Chapter 17 in all but name, an instalment that does more to further Din Djarin’s post-Grogu story arc than that of the completely absent Boba Fett. It also provides an exciting glimpse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe -style joined-up thinking that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy promised at 2020’s Disney Investor Day, when she talked of “interconnected stories” culminating in a “climactic story event” .
More importantly, though, it’s the best and most joyous episode of The Book of Boba Fett by at least 12 parsecs. As it turns out, The Mandalorian isn’t just in town to help Fett out of a Pyke-shaped bind – he’s here to save a show that's proved divisive so far.
While the episode is technically one-long flashback – chronologically, at least – it feels much more essential to Star Wars lore than Boba’s bacta tank journeys down memory lane. This is storytelling designed to advance a character’s story, rather than simply filling in a load of blanks.
And the episode begins with plenty of gunslinger style, Mando appearing in iconic silhouette before proving his time with Grogu wasn’t quite enough to soften his dead-or-alive mercenary edge. The slaughterhouse smackdown is a wonderful reminder of the show we hoped The Book of Boba Fett might be. That was before the title character became fixated with sitting on his throne and ruling via respect – perhaps the biggest takeaway from the episode is that the guy in the Boba Fett cosplay is now significantly cooler than Star Wars’ most famous bounty hunter.
In fact, our only real quibble with the storytelling is that a few notes of the iconic Mandalorian theme last week ensured Din Djarin’s return wasn’t quite the surprise it could have been. Indeed, Disney Plus ’s “An unexpected ally emerges” tagline only works if you haven’t been paying attention thus far.
Aside from proving Mando hasn’t quite got to grips with the legendary Darksaber – the gash on his leg shows what happens when non-Force sensitives play with Jedi toys. The slaughterhouse skirmish is simply the means to an end, his decapitated bounty little more than a lead to help him locate the remainder of the tribe of Mandalorian purists he left behind on Nevarro.
The covert’s home on a stunning, artificial Halo -esque ringworld suggests they have an eye for the spectacular, but it’s also important to note that they haven’t turned their backs on their zealot-like interpretation of Mandalorian doctrine. The whole of Djarin’s encounter with the Armorer and fellow survivor Paz Vizsla could easily have felt like a colossal info-dump – which it effectively is – but everything she reveals feels both essential and organic to The Mandalorian story. It’s almost as if she’d anticipated the questions we all had about the Great Purge, Princess Bo-Katan Kryze and her claims on the Mandalorian throne, and what possession of the Darksaber means for Mando himself.
We’re also treated to an excellent Mandalorian duel for the Darksaber – a surprisingly tricky weapon to wield – with the evocative clink of beskar on beskar proving the perfect soundtrack to a wonderfully primal brawl. It feels cruel when Mando’s hard-earned victory quickly becomes a defeat of sorts, as the Armorer casts him out for the seemingly minor infraction of removing his helmet. As they’re so keen of reminding each other, however, “This is the way”.
When Djarin subsequently makes his way to Tatooine – paying for a ride on commercial transport in the absence of his own ship – ‘Return of the Mandalorian’ inadvertently highlights where The Book of Boba Fett has been going wrong so far.
Director Bryce Dallas Howard has already delivered a pair of standouts in her two Mandalorian episodes, and here she once again revels in showing us the man beneath the helmet. That’s partly a consequence of our long history with Mando and Baby Yoda – we know and care about those characters – but she also generates a sense of humor and humanity that hasn’t always been visible on the mean streets of Mos Espa.
Here, the brief moments explaining the secret lives of Jawas feel fun and self-aware, unlike the show’s clunky efforts to rehabilitate the Tuskens. Meanwhile, the pain Mando still feels about handing Grogu to Luke Skywalker is tangible. Amazingly, a brief moment where he realizes his beskar-filled handkerchief resembles Baby Yoda is far more moving than anything this show has previously delivered.
Regular writer Jon Favreau also ups his game on the script: Peli Motto wheels out the starship technobabble with all the flair of Han Solo, while lines like “that’s a lot of engine for a little ship” leave you wondering why the exchanges between Boba Fett and Fennec Shand have been engineered to be so stiff.
Where Fett’s mission to recover his Firespray gunship last week felt overlong and unnecessary, Mando and Peli Motto rebuilding an old Naboo starfighter has all the energy of a DIY montage from The A-Team or MacGyver. As soon as Mando takes to the sky, his new ship grabs you the way only the best Star Wars ships can, making you want to give the same nod of approval Djarin exchanges with the Rodian kid on the star cruiser. And, as if the vessel’s appropriate brushed metal appearance wasn’t already perfect enough, the glass dome left behind by the droid port looks the ideal size for a diminutive child skilled in the Jedi arts.
In offering up the next chapter of Din Djarin’s story, The Book of Boba Fett has given us the first episode of The Mandalorian season 3 a little earlier than expected. On the evidence of this, we can’t wait to see what happens next.
Our verdict
On one level, it’s a bizarre decision to devote the fifth episode of a new TV show to the established star of another, But it pays off spectacularly in this glorious piece of Star Wars storytelling – a huge leap forward after last week’s disappointing offering.
Featuring essential lore, X-wings and even some fun bounty hunting action, ‘Return of the Mandalorian’ contains plenty of classic Star Wars ingredients that The Book of Boba Fett has been missing up to now.
Its most important legacy, though, may be proving that the team behind The Mandalorian hasn’t lost its magic touch. As well as showing that Lucasfilm’s Disney Plus offerings have the potential to interweave in the seamless manner of the MCU, the episode provides excellent launchpads for the next instalments of both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Best of all, Din Djarin doesn’t even want paying for his services when he comes to Fett and Shand’s aid.
If “little friend” Grogu is due a comeback as well – as is strongly hinted – the internet may well have exploded by the time the end credits roll on next week’s instalment…
Force facts
New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett debut on Disney Plus every Wednesday.
Google attacked over latest plan to replace tracking cookies
The company behind privacy-centric web browser Brave has hit out against Google’s latest plan to replace third-party cookies, which it says will do little to minimize the opportunity for violations of privacy.
Introduced earlier this week, Google Topics (a substitute for the controversial FLoC proposal) offers a way to serve up ads to people based on broad interest categories, such as travel or fitness, instead of using granular and often sensitive data hoovered up by cookies.
The system relies on three weeks’ worth of browsing data, which is stored locally on-device, to place people into a variety of different buckets, which in turn determine what types of ads the person will receive. Web users can opt out of any particular topic via their browser at any time.
According to Brave, however, Topics “only touches the smallest, most minor privacy issues in FLoC, while leaving its core intact”. The new proposal pays “lip service” to protecting the open web, but in reality is yet another tool designed to preserve the Google monopoly, the company claims.
The post-cookie era
Google is set to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome (by far the world’s most popular browser) by the end of 2023, in the face of a backlash from critics who say the technology enables flagrant breaches of privacy. Many alternative browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, have already blocked third-party cookies outright.
However, given the Google business model is predicated on collecting vast quantities of data to facilitate targeted advertising campaigns (also called surveillance-based advertising), the company faces a race against time to develop new systems for supporting its customers' marketing efforts that do not compromise user privacy to the same extent.
The first proposal, FLoC (which stands for federated learning of cohorts), was a system designed to preserve the anonymity of the individual by aggregating data, while still providing advertisers with the ability to target people based on their interests. It worked in a similar way to Topics, collecting users into cohorts based on browsing activity.
However, FLoC attracted plenty of criticism when it was unveiled last year from organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which dismissed the system as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Essentially, privacy advocates claimed FLoC would simply give advertisers a different arsenal of tools to play with, it would just be about learning how best to harness them.
Google Topics backlash
As noted in the Brave blog post , the Topics proposal differs from FLoC in two ways. First, Topics only provides advertisers with interests data from sites on which they are present, instead of all sites the user has visited. Second, Topics makes fingerprinting-based identification more difficult by adding a level of randomness to information shared with advertisers.
However, neither proposal does anything “to address the core privacy harms”, says Brave. At the heart of the company’s objections is the idea that Google shouldn’t get to decide what data is classified as sensitive.
“Google says it will take care to share only ‘non-sensitive’ interests with sites. But there is no such thing as categorically non-sensitive data; there is no data that’s always safe and respectful to share,” wrote Peter Snyder, Senior Director of Privacy at Brave.
“Things that are safe to share about one person in one context will be closely guarded secrets to another. Meaningful privacy is inherently specific to both context and person. People should decide what they consider sensitive. Not Google.”
The only light in which Topics can be considered an improvement is in comparison to the standard set by Google today, Snyder argues. He says Topics represents a grievous violation of individual privacy by any other definition.
“Both FLoC and Topics are unambiguously harmful. Both systems are designed to share information about you with advertisers and organizations that you don’t know, and that are outright hostile to web users’ privacy, without active permission or consent,” wrote Snyder.
“Google’s proposals are privacy-improving only from the cynical, self-serving baseline of ‘better than Google today’”.
Google claps back
In a statement provided to TechRadar Pro , Google has responded to the accusations levelled by Brave.
"We agree that people should decide on what they consider sensitive; this is why we’ll introduce a control for users to remove topics or disable Topics completely within their browser settings. The topics revealed by the Topics API should be significantly less personally sensitive about a user than what could be transmitted using cookies or covert tracking," said Vinay Goel, who heads up the Google Privacy Sandbox project.
"The taxonomy is human-curated and does not include topics generally considered sensitive. For instance: health, race, and sexuality topics are not permitted in the taxonomy. The full list of eligible topics is publicly available, and is continually under discussion. The list is based on our taxonomy and the IAB’s content taxonomy, which is a recognised industry list."
Goel also noted that the eventual intention is for the list of topics to be curated and maintained by a neutral third party "acting on behalf of the web ecosystem", although he did not provide a timeline for this transition.
With respect to claims that Google Chrome is the "most privacy-harming popular browser on the market", Goel had the following to say:
"Other browsers have taken a blunt approach to prevent [third-party] cookies, which could lead to to other intrusive techniques such as fingerprinting."
"Google's approach is addressing the privacy concerns with innovative proposals that not only protect users as they browse the web but supports publishers, advertisers and the business models that keep the web healthy by making content free and accessible online."
Something tells us Brave and Google will never see eye-to-eye with respect to these issues.
How to watch Resident Alien season 2 online from anywhere
After growing attached to the rural town of Patience, where the locals are just as curious as the alien doing a pretty poor job of pretending to be a human doctor, it suddenly dawns on Captain Hah Re that his people are still hell-bent on the total annihilation of the planet, including Asta! What's an alien mercenary with a soft side to do? Read on to find out how to watch Resident Alien season 2 online wherever you are in the world.
Okay, so he talks to an octopus from time to time, almost always says the wrong thing, and is at war with a child... but overall Dr Vanderspeigle seems to have successfully assimilated.
Deputy Liv has her suspicions, but after the memory wipe there's no way she's unmasking his true identity now...
With police and psychotic government activity increasing in town, Asta decides it's best to whisk Harry away to New York City, where the sight of an alien prancing down the street wouldn't elicit a second glance.
However, while evading detection on Earth, he also needs to find a way to assuage the appetite for desctruction that has consumed his home planet.
A fish-out-of-water comedy that'll stir your feelings when you least expect it, read on as we detail how to watch Resident Alien season 2 online where you are.
How to watch Resident Alien online from outside your country
If you’re abroad when Resident Alien season 2 airs, you won't be able to watch the show as you normally would at home, because of annoying regional restrictions.
Luckily, there’s an easy solution. Downloading a VPN will allow you to stream it online no matter where you are. It's a simple bit of software that changes your IP address, meaning that you can access on-demand content or live TV just as if you were at home.
Use a VPN to watch Resident Alien season 2 from anywhere
How to watch Resident Alien season 2 online in the US
How to watch Resident Alien season 2 online in Canada
Can you watch Resident Alien season 2 in the UK?
The first season of the show aired on Sky at pretty much the same time it came out in the US, but at the time of publication the Resident Alien season 2 UK release date has not been confirmed.
There are rumours that it will come out in February, but nothing concrete from the channel itself.
If you're not already a Sky customer but fancy dipping your toe in the water, there are plenty of Sky TV deals and packages that might just take your fancy.
Alternatively, you can grab a Now Entertainment membership, which costs £9.99 a month.
Can you watch Resident Alien season 2 in Australia?
It's a similar situation Down Under, where the Australia release date for Resident Alien season 2 has not yet been confirmed.
In the meantime, you can catch up on the first season of the show for free on the 9Now streaming service , which is compatible with laptops, tablets, mobiles and an array of streaming services such as Apple TV, Chromecast, Fetch, PlayStation, Amazon Fire and smart TVs.