The Book of Boba Fett provides further evidence that a familiar villain is waiting in the wings. At the end of The Mandalorian season two, Boba Fett took over Jabba the Hutt’s criminal empire, but if the former bounty hunter thought being king of the Tatooine underworld was going to be easy, he’s been proved wrong over the first two episodes of the new spinoff series. Various threats to his power have arisen, but it’s possible they all come from the same source.
In Chapter 2, an unknown enemy sent an assassin from the Order of the Night Wind after Fett, at the same time as Jabba’s cousins, the Hutt twins, arrived on the scene looking to take back their family’s seat of power. Likewise, flashbacks revealed that Boba Fett had once had a run-in with the Pyke syndicate, successfully intercepting their spice-running operation across the Tatooine desert.
As pointed out by ComicBook.com, it’s likely the leader of the Pyke syndicate in the flashbacks is the same person who is trying to kill Fett in the present. And there’s one major contender for the identity of the culprit. It’s Qi’ra, Emilia Clarke’s character from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
That movie ended with her becoming Darth Maul’s number two in the Crimson Dawn organization and we know from the comics that she became the boss herself by the time of the original trilogy. So it’s easy to imagine she’s still the queen of crime in the galaxy following the Empire’s fall.
Fans even spotted a very sly reference to Qi’ra in the show back in episode one — The Book of Boba Fett theme tune appears to contain a flavor of the Crimson Dawn’s theme from Solo. And with episode two providing more links back to her criminal enterprise, the odds are looking better and better that Clarke could be on her way back to the Star Wars universe — though there’s also a theory about a different villain waiting in the wings.
We’ll be sure to see how things play out as The Book of Boba Fett continues Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
