The Bad Batch, Episodes 5-8 Review
Credit to: Disney, Lucasfilm, and all associated entitiesJust keeps getting better and Better
Welcome back Star Wars fans and casual fans alike! We’re back for another 4 episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch! This time, we’ll be taking another deep look into episodes 5-8, giving a pretty long recap with a few spoilers, and finally giving a review at the end of each episode. Alright, now with all that out of the way, let’s just get straight into it.
Episode 5: Rampage
This episode was yet another wonderful addition. While it is filler. this is still a fun episode. The Bad Batch starts off with Tech calibrating Omega’s new communication device as they head to a planet called Ord Mantell, a planet not given too much insight in current Star Wars canon. Echo explains that the reason he recommended Ord Mantell, was so the crew can find a contact named Cid, who Echo identifies as a person whom the Jedi frequently went to, likely for information. He hopes that Cid can give them information on the bounty hunter who they were recently in conflict with (Episode 4), Fennec Shand. Upon their arrival, we see that the planet shares an environment similar to the underground areas of Coruscant, a place that frequently finds trouble. They walk into a basement cantina, where they see an elderly Trandoshan female (a reptilian species in this universe), and two other aliens arguing while likely intoxicated. The crew approach the Trandoshan asking for Cid’s whereabouts, only to get a response full of attitude. As the woman walks away to have a seat at the bar, Omega approaches her and immediately points out that she’s Cid, to which the woman smiles while complimenting Omega on her correct assumption. I have something to say about this, but I’ll save that for a bit later. Not long after, Cid properly introduces herself, and Hunter states their business. Cid of course only offers to give up information on the bounty hunter if the crew does something for her, specifically a rescue for a kid named Muchi from a bunch of slave traders. The crew accepts the job, and we see them off.
The crew eventually makes their way to the planet that the slavers operate on, but we also see Wrecker’s headache get a bit worse. He shrugs it off once again, but it has gotten more severe. The crew lands, but they leave Omega on the ship. They stealthily scope out the area, seeing a settlement and the slavers with a few of their captives chained up. Before they can properly head down to the slavers, they’re all surprised by a giant flying creature called a brezak, who knocks down Echo and distracts the crew long enough for the slavers to stun them all, capturing them right after. The slavers eventually make their way to the Bad Batch’s ship with Omega on board. Omega of course realizes there’s a problem, and sneaks out of the ship with some gear to save her crew. She sneaks her way above the slavers who don’t notice her until she stumbles upon a rather large cage. When she’s grabbed by one of the slavers, she’s questioned before she herself reveals that she’s unlocked the cage, unleashing an adolescent rancor. For those of you who don’t know what a rancor is, watch Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The beast causes a large enough ruckus for Wrecker to free himself and the rest of the team, then freeing the other slaves. As they free the people, Omega believes the young girl she’s freeing is Muchi. The girl’s father corrects her, pointing at the rancor while saying, “Muchi,” repeatedly. Long story short, the slaves are freed, Omega finds a bow-like blaster weapon, Wrecker has a hilarious, tiring fist fight with Muchi, and the crew takes Muchi back to Cid. Before Muchi is delivered, we see Cid in her office talking to none other than Bib Fortuna, Jabba the Hutt’s right hand man. Bib is extremely happy to see the young rancor, and takes her back home with his bodyguards. Cid calls in Hunter, reveals Fennec Shand’s identity, and pays the him and the crew’s share of the bounty. End of episode.
That was a lot to get through. Alright, two things to take away from this episode. Number one, I personally believe that Omega may be Force-sensitive. There’s been a few occasions where Omega has shown her potential as a Force user, like when she managed to calm Crosshair by outwardly pointing out his frustration in an interesting manner, the way she got the dragon to suddenly be passive towards her in episode 3, and now, when she managed to identify the Trandoshan woman as Cid when the Bad Batch clearly didn’t. I won’t say too much because I could be wrong, but it’s something to think about. Number two, Cid is associated with the Bounty Hunters Guild. This isn’t saying much, but if you look around her office, she has a few knick knacks and objects that are rather interesting. She actually has a white Mandalorian helmet displayed, complete with an antenna on its right side. Now, I might be reaching here, but I believe that this a hint towards Cid’s past interactions or future interactions with none other than the man himself, Boba Fett. I say this because this helmet is exactly like Boba Fett’s, but in white. We’ve actually seen Boba with this helmet, but it was only behind the scenes as a prototype, where he was originally envisioned as a “Super Stormtrooper”, but we know that’s not what happens when the Original Trilogy eventually released. Not only this, but she also has a collection of blasters, some of which are EXACTLY like the pistols used by Boba’s father, Jango Fett. In some behind the scenes footage of The Clone Wars, Boba Fett is wearing an early version of his iconic Mandalorian armor, but instead of his usual weapon, he's wearing the same type of blaster pistols on his hips. I could be looking into it too much, but I believe these two little easter eggs are hints towards Boba eventually appearing in the show. I won’t say how just yet, but if I’m right, then I’ll be one happy fan. Overall, a pretty good episode. Not too much to look at, kinda boring, but it does have some fun moments.
4 Out of 5.
Episode 6: Decommissioned
This episode has the crew back in Cid’s cantina, where they chat, and Echo is training Omega to use her new bow. Her arms a super shaky since she’s just a kid with no experience besides shooting Crosshair’s blaster out of his hands. The same two cantina aliens from the last episode are watching Omega, and funnily enough, are actually betting money on her hitting a bullseye or not. She struggles to control the bow, and one of the aliens prays that it makes her miss so he can make some money. As this is all going on, Cid steps in to propose another mission for the Bad Batch, tasking them with the retrieval of a Separatist tactical droid from the planet of Corellia, the planet Han Solo was born on and grew up on. This type of droid is a droid we’ve seen many times in The Clone Wars, but for those who haven’t watched it, it’s essentially a droid that controls its assigned battalion of droids, giving the different orders on the battlefield. After the crew is essentially forced into the job by Cid, she explains to Omega that the reason she isn’t hitting her targets is because of the fact that her arms are weak, and proceeds to grab the bow from her and fire 3 bullseye shots in a row. Pretty badass old lady.
The clones head over to Corellia by mounting their ship onto a cargo ship to get past the planet’s sensors, making safe for them to land without being tracked. They all sneak over to a factory full of police droids and workers, and it’s here that we get a sense of what the Empire did to the Separatist Army. We see countless bits and pieces of battle droids and what I would assume would be pieces of broken down Separatist vehicles being smelted in these massive tanks of molten lava. Great to see this sort of thing, as I, alongside other Star Wars fans, am a huge fan of small details like this. As Omega stays on the lookout while her crew makes their way through the factory, she manages to spot the head of the target droid, but notices someone disguised as a worker snatch the head and run. As Omega attempts to track the worker, yet another worker reveals themselves before her, blocking the way, prompting Omega to pull out her bow. The worker, in an attempt to defuse the situation, takes off her mask, revealing herself to be none other than Rafa Martez, a fan favorite character from The Clone Wars Season 7, alongside her younger sister Trace Martez, the disguised worker who took the droid head. Of course, being as these two characters are a pair of good guys, we see them needing to team up with the Bad Batch in order to safely evacuate the factory due to a couple of unfortunate events caused by Omega. Needing a distraction, Tech programs the droid head to power back up, while one of the Martez sisters commands it to have all remaining battle droids in the facility to attack all police droids. The plan works, and we see the funny battle droids and their heavier super battle droid comrades attack the police, creating a big enough distraction for the crew to flee safely. The Martez sisters fly the Bad Batch back to their ships, and Hunter allows the sisters to keep the data the tactical droid has so they can rebel against the Empire. Before the episode ends, we see the sisters contact a mysterious figure, telling the mystery character that they met some clones and figured this person would want to know. End of episode.
Now, I’m not really sure how much people enjoy the Martez sisters, but to me personally, they’re not such a huge deal. I didn’t find myself caring too much for them in the previous animated series, but I will say that they are pretty enjoyable. I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing them return for another episode, because I think there’s a lot of great potential in them, especially now that they’ve made clear that they want to be rebels. Who knows? Maybe they’ll be the ones to convince the Bad Batch to properly join whatever rebellion they’re associated with. I think one thing that was fairly major in a sense, was seeing Omega suddenly be able to control her bow in the heat of battle. I think this is something else that hints to her Force sensitivity, because when we saw Obi-Wan Kenobi in a bounty hunter’s disguise in the previous animated series, he shows how capable he is with a blaster rifle due to his Force abilities. I won’t read too much more into it, but Omega definitely did remind me of Kenobi in the climax of this episode. Not too much going on here, so I’ll wrap up this section.
3 Out of 5.
Episode 7: Battle Scars
Man, I sure knew this was going to happen. Let me just jump straight into this bit. Alright, so for this episode, we see the Bad Batch fleeing from hostile ships with a stolen creature in a small cage from a job we didn’t see on camera. We see the weird looking creature escape its cage when the ride gets a bit bumpy, latching onto Wrecker’s face, making him freak out funnily enough. Of course, they eventually get the creature back in its cage and make their way back to Cid, who later gives the crew a much smaller amount of credits than she told them. She explains that the rest of the credits are hers, and that they should be okay with getting anything considering how they messed up their last job and owe her a debt. While this is going on, we continue to see the same mysterious figure from the end of the last episode, wearing a hooded cloak. The person is eventually confronted by the usual two aliens, saying the person is in their seat. As we head back to Cid’s office, we hear a few blaster shots in the background making everyone run out of the office back into the cantina to investigate. We see the two aliens run out of Cid’s cantina, and Cid asks who the person is. The person puts their weapon back into its holster, and removes their hood, revealing themselves to be none other than Rex from The Clone Wars! It was so good seeing him yet again, but of course it makes me wonder where his friend Ahsoka Tano from the same series is during this time. The crew and Rex share a few drinks (minus Omega of course since she’s a minor), and we see Wrecker’s headache get really severe suddenly, prompting Rex to ask what was wrong in a worried tone. Tech informs him of Wrecker’s headaches, and also calms Rex by saying the inhibitor chips haven’t affected them besides Crosshair, making Rex extremely uneasy, putting his hand on his blaster until Hunter agrees to remove the chips. Rex tells them where to meet him next, and the crew heads out.
As they fly to the place Rex asked them to meet him, Wrecker rubs his head as he deals with his headache and says how he doesn’t like the idea of having his head cut open. Hunter states that they all agreed to meet Rex on a planet called Bracca. This planet is EXTREMELY important, as it’s actually the salvaging planet we start on in the game Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. In that game, you play as a Jedi named Cal Kestis, and that character works on Bracca as a scavenger, taking apart the massive ships used by the old Republic before the Empire was born. I highly recommend this game if you’ve never played it. Anyways, it’s also important to note that Omega actually doesn’t have an inhibitor chip. The crew eventually makes their way to the planet, meeting Rex who happens to be wearing his iconic clone trooper armor. They make their way through a crashed Republic ship, looking for its medical bay so they can perform the procedure that would remove the chips from each Bad Batch member. Evading the obstacles from the interior of the ship, they make their to the medical bay, and prepare Wrecker for his chip removal while his headache grows increasingly worse. Just as Tech prepares a syringe to put Wrecker to sleep, Wrecker grabs hold of Tech’s wrist and throat, telling him he’s in direct violation of Order 66. I wish I wasn’t right about Wrecker turning on the crew, but here we are. Wrecker throws Tech at the wall, grabs his helmet and blaster, and starts firing at the crew. Omega makes a run for it while Wrecker chases her down. She leads him to an abandoned section of the ship where she takes shelter from him, and he tries to find the poor girl. Wrecker eventually finds her and aims his weapon at her, saying the dreaded words just like Crosshair. “Good soldiers follow orders.” Thankfully, Rex finds the two, and stuns Wrecker, knocking him out. Wrecker has his chip removed and so do the rest of his team. Wrecker feels a terrible amount of guilt, and apologizes to Omega with a heavy heart, saying he tried to resist it as much as he could. Omega forgives him of course, and they share a snack together. Right after, we see Hunter and Rex have a conversation about the Republic, and Rex eventually bids him a farewell. The two shake hands, and Rex walks away, likely to meet up with Ahsoka. It’s revealed that the workers on Bracca are spying on the Bad Batch, and the episode ends.
This episode really didn’t have much going for it until of course we saw Rex, and later saw Wrecker go full on murder machine. This was definitely an emotional rollercoaster with quite a bit of filler, but this episode was still a good watch. Definitely not the best episode so far, but it definitely wasn’t boring to watch either.
3 Out of 5.
Episode 8: Reunion
Here we are at the final stretch, and we’re going out with a massive BANG. We finally get to catch up with Crosshair and his elite squad once again, with Crosshair interrupting a meeting between the Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su, and Admiral Rampart, who is becoming a lot more confrontational towards the cloner, telling him the Kaminoans will inform him of all things that goes on in the facility. Crosshair informs Rampart of the Bad Batch’s whereabouts, and despite Lama Su’s word of caution, explaining how useful the clones are, Rampart disregards this and send Crosshair and his team to wipe out the rogue clones. We cut to Bracca, where we see Wrecker teaching Omega how to disarm a grenade. He gives her a few seconds after teaching her only once how to disarm the explosive. She makes a mistake, tells Omega to run, and laughs when he reveals that it was only a smoke bomb. Way to teach your little sister, Wrecker. Echo steps in to tell them to head back into the crashed ship, and alongside Wrecker, casually notices the spies that happen to be watching them. Echo gives the signal to run after the spies. We see the two stun a few of the spies, but one of them tries to flee on some sort of flying vehicle, which Wreckers jumps onto. After a brief scuffle between Wrecker and the spy, Echo manages to get a clear shot of the spy and stuns him. They round up the knocked out spies, tying them up near the ship. The crew meets up, and Echo explains that they should just leave, until Hunter points out how much money could be made from the supplies and materials left behind in the ship. Interestingly enough, Echo explains his frustration, trying to remind Hunter that they’re all soldiers, not smugglers. He goes unheard, and the crew ventures back into the ship for some materials to sell. Tech heads to the bridge of the ship and gets the power activated while the crew looks for goods. We once again see Echo explain the fact that they’re all soldiers and they should’ve just left with Rex, walking off with a bit of an attitude. A bit later, we see Omega go meet Tech to help him, but finds herself in a trance when she sees the outside view, asking her friend what the Clone War was like. She points out that there’s a glowing red button that’s beeping, and we quickly find out that it’s Crosshair and a quite a few of his Imperial clones flying in to execute the crew.
We cut back to Kamino, where we see Lama Su speaking to Taun We about the Empire’s problematic behavior for the Kamino facilities. He reveals that he’s hired a few bounty hunters that are tasked with capturing Omega, revealing that it was them who hired Fennec Shand. Back on Bracca, the Bad Batch is figuring out a way to evade Crosshair and his troops, but Crosshair knows his old team like the back of his hand. He strategically issues commands to his troops to search and block off any exits the crew might take. With supplies in hand, the team sneaks their way through the ship while evading Imperial troops, hacking into their communications to know what Crosshair is ordering. Unfortunately, this does nothing, as they’re all eventually surrounded by Crosshair and his forces in an area with massive cannons used to fire at enemy ships. Tech being his witty self, has Echo hack into these weapons. He fires them when the hack is complete, Violently knocking back Crosshair and a few of his squad mates while causing the roof to fall down on the remaining forces in the room. They make their way into a massive area that’s actually where one of the ship’s gargantuan engines is located. Crosshair recovers and issues more commands to his troops, who eventually have the team pinned inside the engine. Suddenly, the engine is slowly activated by one of Crosshair’s troopers in the bridge of the ship, and the crew has to figure out what to do. They decide to take grenades from one of the crates they've taken as supplies to plant them around the engine and let them explode, so they can fall down and away from the scorching hot engine. The plan works, and the engine fully activates, blowing away Crosshair and his troops. Crosshair’s helmet falls off, and the engine starts to burn his face slightly, and he orders that the engine is shut down. He grabs hold of one of his troopers, weakly telling them the whereabouts of the crew, and the trooper attempts to make contact with another trooper who presumably was near the crew’s location.
As the trooper continues to try and make contact, it’s revealed that the trooper he’s trying to get a hold of is dead, alongside the rest of his men. Hunter and Omega reach these bodies, wondering who could’ve killed them if they didn’t do it themselves. Suddenly, a voice is heard in the background, and the camera pans over to a man in a fancy outfit complete with a pair of blaster pistols and a badass cowboy hat. It’s none other than Cad Bane, a legendary bounty hunter who pulled off all kinds of amazing things in the Clone Wars series. Alongside him is his little droid partner, Todo 360. After some back and forth banter between the protective Hunter and the smooth Cad Bane, the two engage in a classic Western style standoff, eyeing each other down. After some tense buildup, the two quickly draw their blasters, with Cad Bane easily landing a shot on Hunter’s chest, while Hunter misses before he can get a shot, accidentally shooting off Todo’s leg. Omega cries out for Hunter to wake up, and is stunned by the infamous Cad Bane. Hunter eventually wakes up, and we as the audience are put in Hunter’s point of view, looking out of his helmet as his crew carries him onto their ship while shooting back at the Imperials. The crew safely flees, but Hunter points out that Omega’s been taken by a bounty hunter. End of episode.
Hands down, this is definitely the BEST episode we’ve gotten so far. We finally see Crosshair again, we get some really great action, we see the Empire and the Kaminoans develop a much more strained relationship, and we get the legendary return of Cad Bane himself. This episode was just too great, I don’t even know what else to say about it. With Cad Bane in the picture, we just might get a scene with him and Boba Fett (if he’s in this show) having themselves a final showdown like we’ve seen behind the scenes. There is so much potential for Cad here, and I’m so happy to see him back again. Loved this episode.
5 Out of 5.
Final Thoughts
Alright y’all, that’s gonna do it for this article. What did you guys think of it? Feel free to hit me up on my Instagram or Twitter letting me know, I’d love to connect even more with you guys! If you guys watch this series, let me know your thoughts on it too! Me personally, I really am loving the direction and tone of this series. I really hope we have this show stick around for years and years, because this is just so fun and awesome to watch. Now that Cad Bane’s involved, this series is about to get waaay sweeter. Alright, that’s about it! I’ll have the episodes 5-8 rating right below, I hope you agree with it! Now, stay safe and stay blessed, this has been The Wolf Den!
