The Season 1 finale of The Book of Boba Fett features plenty of big moments, but few are quite as massive as the episode’s climactic duel between Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and Cad Bane (Corey Burton). The charged confrontation sees two of Star Wars’ best and most iconic bounty hunters square off in the streets of Mos Espa, and culminates with Boba Fett defeating the Pyke Syndicate’s lead enforcer.
It’s a sequence that feels like an unspoken callback to one of Dave Filoni’s abandoned Clone Wars storylines, and it marks a fitting end for a villain like Cad Bane. That’s assuming, of course, that he’s actually dead.
Is Cad Bane really dead?
After being put flat on his back by Cad Bane’s well-timed blaster shots, Boba Fett manages to get the upper hand on his former bounty hunting rival. Using the gaffi stick he made during his time with the Tusken Raiders, Boba knocks Bane’s feet out from under him and unceremoniously plunges the spiked end into Bane’s chest.
The wound appears to be fatal, and Boba is shown victoriously standing over his fallen foe. A later aerial shot shows Bane still lying in the sandy streets of Mos Espa, unmoving. Combined, those two moments suggest that Cad Bane has finally met his end.
But is the character really dead?
For now, the answer is: Yes, Cad Bane is dead — unless he isn’t.
While that might be frustrating for Star Wars fans, The Book of Boba Fett Season 1 ends by heavily implying that the fan-favorite Clone Wars character has met his fate at the hands of Temuera Morrison’s reformed bounty hunter. There is, however, reason to believe he might come back.
During the episode’s final shot of him, a faint beeping can be heard and a red light can be seen flashing on a panel on Bane’s chest. While we don’t know what the light’s purpose is, one of the leading theories is that it’s a distress signal calling Bane’s trusty right-hand droid, Todo. So there’s a chance Todo shows up on Tatooine to nurse his master back to health.
That’s nothing more than a theory, and whether Cad Bane should survive his confrontation with Boba is a different question. But the Star Wars franchise is full of characters who have survived a whole lot worse, so there’s no reason to believe Cad Bane wouldn't be able to recover from the injuries he sustains in The Book of Boba Fett.
The Inverse Analysis — As is always the case with characters as wily and capable as Cad Bane, we won’t know if he’s actually dead unless his body is shown again in a future Boba Fett episode, or if someone at Lucasfilm comes out and unambiguously confirms his demise. As far as Star Wars fans are concerned, Cad Bane is dead until the exact moment he isn’t anymore.
While viewers have seen him survive numerous deadly encounters in both The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, getting taken out by Boba Fett is an undeniably great end for him. Now we just have to wait and see whether The Book of Boba Fett really does mark the end of his story, or just another chapter in it.
The Book of Boba Fett is streaming now on Disney+.
