Welcome back, fans of a galaxy far, far away. I am taking over recaps of The Bad Batch from my friend august (in the wake of) dawn, and I want to thank her for her service in writing up season one. Will this season be a little more satisfying? Let’s find out together!
1. Second verse, same as the first
On paper, The Bad Batch should be an absolute win for me, and the Star Wars fans like me. We are the folks who fell in love with The Clone Wars, who re-evaluated the prequels because of that series, and who suddenly had empathy for the clone troopers because of seven seasons worth of stories. But for a lot of us, The Bad Batch felt like a procedural show set in the Star Wars universe, rather than anything that had an unique place in the greater mythos.
The second season kicks off with two pretty action packed episodes, designed to remind us who these characters are and what they’re all about, but this feels very much the same. I think it comes down to the fact that this show doesn’t really have a thrust or purpose behind it, nor is it the result of fan clamoring for more. This show was announced shortly after the Bad Batch episodes of The Clone Wars season 7 came out, and it was met with a collective “huh” and a shrugging of the shoulders.
Now, Dave Filoni and co. could have a secret mission for the show that we fans don’t know about yet, but as of now, the show just feels less substantial and special than the other Star Wars TV we’ve been getting. And so, the reason I’ve wasted 250 words on this already, is that I want us, as a collective, to temper our expectations for this season. Let’s try to take it as it is and not get too worked up when it isn’t what our brains have decided it could/should be. This will be harder for me than anyone else, but let’s see if we can do it together.
2. “We should be doing more”
The best part of these two episodes comes from the internal struggle of the Batch realizing that their lives aren’t exactly living up to their expectations. When they rescued Omega, they threw their chance at normalcy away. But by constantly doing jobs for Cid, they also aren’t living the lives of liberation and defiance that they want to. This is a very relatable feeling when scaled down to our regular lives. How many of us feel that our jobs aren’t what we hoped/thought they would be? We are all living lives of compromise, to various degrees, and I really like this line of thinking for the clones.
That said, and hopefully this happens more down the road, there needs to be more discussion of this and tension tied into this conflict of survival and purpose. Right now, it was more or less a throwaway line that Omega overheard and then internalized. But her guilt around costing the clones a more lucrative or meaningful life is a plot point that could turn into something.
3. Phee Genoa
Introducing a non-Cid broker of deals, right now, looks like a weird decision. If Rhea Perlman wasn’t available for much of the season, I suppose I get that, but the way that animation works seems like they’d find a way to either make her schedule fit or maybe recast the role. But instead, we get Phee, voiced by Wanda Sykes who, as of now, seems like just a louder, more abrasive Cid. I don’t really understand it yet, but again, maybe this will be addressed down the road. Of all of the Star Wars properties, this is probably the one that least needs celebrity stunt casting, so hopefully there is more to it than just that aspect.
4. Re-contextualizing Separatists
I really enjoyed the conversation between Romar, the Serreno citizen that helps out the Batch in “The Ruins of War,” and both Omega and Echo. He helps to point them in directions that they are not usually used to exploring. For Echo, Romar shows him that he is was Serrenian first, a Separatist second, if he ever considered himself that at all. Echo is able to reject the part of his programming that puts everything into military terms – us vs them – and look at things more deeply.
Continued belowThis episode also digs into Count Dooku a little bit retroactively, showing that he was not just using other systems for his own good, but also stealing from his own people. Dooku is one of the richest and most nuanced characters in all of Star Wars, and so showing his more crooked side, just a few months after showing his (flawed) morality in Tales of the Jedi, is quite interesting.
Romar is also able to help Omega be a kid and see something outside of the mission as a life worth exploring. He shows her a toy, a concept that is totally foreign to her, and it shows her that there is something besides just the here and now survival to consider.
Both of these intersect when Omega is forced to, like Indiana Jones before her, ‘let it go‘ when reaching for some treasure. [Note: it is not fair for The Bad Batch to evoke one of my favorite film scenes of all time to get in my good graces.] This is a nice moment of connection between the two points of Romar’s influence: both Echo and Omega are forced to look beyond missions and objectives and just live.
5. A new villain emerges
Vice Admiral Rampart is only a slightly more on the nose name than the clone trooper named Wilco who he kills, but it is interesting to see someone in the Empire using the bureaucracy and chaos to their advantage. It shows that the Empire isn’t as monolithic or obedient as it may appear on the surface. The murder of Wilco was symbolic for just how disposable these clones are, and how the Empire truly only sees them as tools, not people.
Rampart is likely to be a big part of this season, and I’m interested to see how he is used as the show moves forward.
Thanks for reading; see ya in Boomb Tube until the finale!
