The Empire has Ryloth in its grasp. With Cham Syndulla framed for the attempted assassination of Senator Orn Free Taa, he, his wife and his followers languish in an Imperial prison while his daughter, Hera, must contact her only hope to free her parents and her planet. Can the Bad Batch free Ryloth from Imperial clutches? And how will this all affect the season’s upcoming finale?
Read on below to find out what we thought of Star Wars: The Bad Batch‘s “Rescue On Ryloth” down below! Oh, and spoilers, obviously
1. Liberation To Oppression
I mentioned this last week, but I still love the choice of setting for this story. Ryloth has been a pretty important piece of the puzzle for these animated Star Wars animated shows and this is a facet of that long-running story that genuinely hasn’t been seen before. There’s a lot of little things going on in this episode that I really loved, but most of them boil down to seeing the shift from the then Republic and now Imperial presence of Ryloth is staged. Even in the final episode of The Clone Wars, seeing the Grand Army of the clones and their massive war machines was seen as sweeping, heroic and romantic and here, only a slight shift in tone shows it in the oppressive, fascistic light it deserves.
It’s one of the first times since this show started that it’s felt like it’s picking up the pieces of The Clone Wars and telling new stories within that thematic storytelling playground that actually matter. As I said last week, this is a story that’s been told piecemeal and out of order so we’ve seen the glory days of Cham’s crusade against the Separatists, the uneasy alliance he forms with the clones and then, eventually, his desperate fight for survival, but we’re only just seeing the turning point. As Rampart calls him, here Cham is the betrayer of his people. A scapegoat ready to be strung up as a dissident to cement Imperial rule. And it’s only through the actions of the Bad Batch that keeps him going to fight another day.
2. What Soldiers Do
I’ve struggled with the motivations of the Bad Batch throughout this first season. Despite being fairly outgoing and active, if pretty one-dimensional in the broad strokes, characters in their introduction, the necessity of hanging an entire narrative on them has seemingly stretched them to their limit a couple of times. When left to their own devices, they’ve been pretty static characters with little to no inherent wants or needs to drive the narrative. It was only really once they met Cid that the show found some catalyst for it’s adventures even if they have seemingly outgrown that already.
What works for me here is that it’s not just a case of using the two-part structure to spend most of this story’s set up focused on Hera, Cham and the fight on Ryloth, but when Clone Force 99 actually become involved it’s because there’s a genuine bond established there. Our heroes aren’t just heartless mercenaries on a job, but are an active force in this episode. Sure, Hunter has to be convinced more than once to stay the course, but it’s through Omega’s connection with Hera and empathy for her situation that he is eventually convinced. This really works for me because it puts the onus of depth and character on the supporting cast of the story and allows the Bad Batch to be this transitory party, wandering through the stories and plights of others and helping where and how they can. It could be argued, sure, that this is what they were going for in prior episodes, but it’s never worked like it has here.
3. Old Friends
What really worked for me here, and I’m pretty sure I mentioned this last week, is that all of the major players we’ve met so far have some part to play in this story that, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the overall conflict we’ve seen thus far, but still allows pieces of that overall narratives to be moved around. Crosshairs was set up to be a terrifying villain, even getting his own elite squadron to hunt down the Bad Batch with, but has really only had a couple episodes in which he’s been an active antagonist. Even on Raxus, it felt like there was only so many ways the show could justify having Clone Force 99 outfox him to escape. Here, through, I really liked that he’s just around. There’s a nice sense of asymmetrical cat and mouse where neither parties are specifically going after each other, but are still actively working to thwart each other’s plans.
Continued belowThe same makes Rampart work here more than he has before because even just giving him something else to focus on fleshes him out just enough to be actually kind of interesting. Sure, he’s still a cartoonishly evil Imperial Officer whose every line sounds like it came from a dialogue generator, but giving him some sort of grand scheme that has almost nothing to do with the Bad Batch until they have a specific reason to get involved just makes all of the pieces fit a little better. It’s quite funny to think how many times this show has bent over backwards to set up episodes and find ways to get our heroes involved when it turns out that barely featuring them actually elevates everything else going on.
4. I Love It When A Plan Comes Together
There was a moment in this episode where I realised I was genuinely having fun and forgetting to take notes, it was around when Hera and Omega had to improvise their way through the rest of their plan, and it’s been a while since that happened to me with The Bad Batch. Sure, I’ll admit, some episodes I’ve been a little too harsh on, but this is exactly what I’ve wanted from this show. A solid set-up that uses Star Wars history to create thematic depth in order to make the Bad Batch doing what they do best feel like it means something in the long run. I don’t need much more than that, really, and this episode delivered in spades. It certainly benefitted from being the second episode in a two-parter with all of the set-up happening last week, allowing this episode to cut straight to the point.
From Hera and Omega operating on their own and being trusted to accomplish a key part of the mission by themselves to Howzer’s sacrifice, this was all really well paced drama and tension. Feeling more like a heist than anything else, that improvisational stealth is entirely to the show’s strength and shows the Bad Batch off as a the elite squad they’re supposed to be. I don’t know really know how many times the show can rely on this sort of structure without needing to break something in order to add depth, but it sure as hell worked for me here.
5. Crossing Paths, Living To Fight Another Day
I’ve been a little worried that we’re staring down the barrel of the last three episodes of this first season with no real sense of where any of this is supposed to be heading. The show has introduced a good number of story threads like the true nature of Omega and why the Kaminoans have been hiring bounty hunters to chase her, the ramifications of the clones’s inhibitor chips and their role in Order 66, the shift from the Republic to the Empire and what that’s meant for the galaxy and Crosshair’s grudge against Clone Force 99 in particular. With this episode and Crosshair finally getting permission (which, for some reason, he didn’t have before) to actively hunt down his former brother, I’m now a little more curious than I am apprehensive about these final episodes, but I can’t pretend like this season hasn’t been pretty hit and miss for me.
I can only hope this two-parter is that start of a great ending because I genuinely had a lot of fun with these two episodes and I think they’ve shown off just how good this show can be and how capable it is in standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of The Clone Wars and Rebels on its best days. Both of those shows had rocky beginnings that I really had hoped they would have been able to escape here, hence my frustrations with some of The Bad Batch‘s worst episodes, but this feels like they’ve been able to turn things around right in time to stick the landing.
