12 Predictions for The Bad Batch Finale

Sorting through my best guesses alongside my hopes and dreams.

I’ve been contemplating why I am not as excited going into tonight’s episode as I would normally be for a Star Wars finale, animated or otherwise. Because I have enjoyed every episode this season. I have very few complaints, if any. And yet, as I have lamented (perhaps unfairly) in past weeks, all of this has felt fairly predictable. I’m not as on edge as I thought I would be. I’m also not as worried. It feels as if we’ve been working our way towards a clear goal: to undermine Tantiss and save all he victims held captive there, which includes the clones, the Jedi younglings, and, as we saw this past week, creatures like the Zillo Beast who have been experimented on or, in some cases, been born out of genetic experimentation. 

The best way for me to process these feelings I’m having is to actually lay out all my speculative cards on the table. To sort out what does seem likely, what seems less likely, and what would genuinely surprise and delight me.

And yes, I am aware that I am posting this mere hours before the Finale drops on Disney+. So if you are reading this after you’ve seen it, then you can just laugh at how wrong I was with all of these reckless predictions.

[SPOILER ALERT: Some spoilers for The Bad Batch to date, as well as some discussion of the events of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Sort of The Clone Wars as well…I’m all over the place with this one!]

What I’m fairly confident will happen. 

1. Tantiss goes down in flames. 

This has been the most inevitable mission of the entire season. Omega has repeatedly said that she needs to go back to Tantiss to rescue those she left behind when she escaped before. She’s given up so much to go back there. It would strange to have her do all that and not actually accomplish her mission. Plus, we need a way for Hemlock’s Science Division to have a massive enough setback that they lie relatively dormant until we learn about Moff Gideon and Dr. Pershing in The Mandalorian. If Hemlock is allowed to continue his work, there would be too much progress made by the time we get to Gideon’s janky off-brand clones 30 or so years later. 

2. That cute little Tarlafar reunites with his mother. 

Image Credit: Wookieepedia

Watching Cad Bane kidnap a toddler named Bayrn and turn him over to Hemlock’s operation was, I think, a brilliant way to introduce us to how sinister Project Necromancer is and get the audience emotionally invested in Omega’s escape (I mean, it wasn’t exactly hard, they are innocent children, but still). Since we spent so much time witnessing Bayrn’s heartbreaking separation from his mother, Ailish, it only makes sense that at the end of this finale, after he has been rescued from Tantiss, that we see him leap back into his mother’s arms. 

3. Dr. Emerie Karr switches sides and helps Omega. 

Image Credit: StarWars.com

We were already speculating that Dr. Karr might, like Nala Se, form an attachment to Omega and try to help her. This season has spent a lot of time showing us Emerie’s moral conflict, especially once she gains access to The Vault and learns that Hemlock’s been experimenting on children there. And The Batch are going to need all the help they can get from the inside. Karr is in a prime position to turn the tide because Hemlock won’t see it coming. 

4. That Zillo Beast wreaks havoc. 

Image Credit: StarWars.com

Talk about Chekhov’s critter! There’s little reason for the series to spend a good chunk of last week’s episode tensely progressing towards Omega spying on a Zillo beast in captivity — unless her escape plan doesn’t actually utilize it in some way. And, as

Greg

and

Greg McLaughlin

noted on their episode of The Rebel Base Card Podcast this week, giant genetically mutated creatures let loose on Tantiss would make for a great action set piece while Omega and The Batch seize their opportunity. And, if I’m thinking about long-running storylines that need to pay off in this episode, I very quickly remember that creatures, including Zillo Beasts, have played a prominent role in this series.

What I’m less confident will happen. 

1. Crosshair sacrifices himself to save Omega. 

Image Credit: Star Wars News Net

I ultimately decided I didn’t want to speculate about the body count for this finale because even though I have entertained the Rogue One outcome in which everyone dies because they don’t appear later in the timeline, I am too attached to these characters to actually predict that here. I want all of them to live on and have other adventures, even if we as the audience never get to see them. I want them to all retire on an idyllic Pabu that will never be touched by the Empire ever again.

That said, if I were to have to choose which member of Clone Force 99 would be the most likely to meet their demise, it would be Crosshair, who has been on an incredible arc since he defected from The Batch back in Season 1. And the series would not have spent so many episodes showing him clutching his shaking hand and saying ominous things about his trauma on Tantiss if he were not going to have a heroic confrontation with this place that has broken him. I’m still upset about his failure to make the shot that would have put a tracker on Omega when she gives herself up. So I feel like he needs some noble self-sacrifice to help square up his “debt” (what Crosshair calls love, apparently) with Omega.

I’m putting this prediction in the less confident category because a.) I don’t want it to actually happen, even if it is a satisfying conclusion narratively and b.) I do fee like it’s possible that we get a happier “we all made it out alive and to be continued in another series” ending. Thanks

P.T. McNiff

, for giving me hope! He made a very compelling case to me as to why this season has been so predictable, not really leaving enough room to have a lot resolved in the finale. It all makes sense if The Bad Batch continues on in a new series!

2. We find out who that mysterious CX-2 assassin is. 

Image Credit: Inside the Magic . net

The last time I was a guest on The Rebel Base Card Podcast, Greg C. And Greg. M. had convinced me that the especially formidable clone assassin who has been foiling The Batch and seems to be at Hemlock’s beck and call is likely Tech, or at least a zombified version of Tech. Why spend so much time with this character if we weren’t going to dramatically reveal his identity? I am less confident about this now that we haven’t seen this clone assassin for a while, but I am not totally ruling out a mini-boss type showdown between this unidentified clone assassin and Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair. 

3. Rex, Wolfe, and the rest of the clones show up as backup.

Image Credit: Den of Geek

This one is selfish. I just need to be right about the prediction I made earlier this season that Wolfe defects from the Empire and joins Rex. Why plant that seed of doubt in Wolfe’s mind if it weren’t going to pay off later? (And by later I mean now, in this finale.) Since both of these clones — unlike The Bad Batch — do in fact appear later in the timeline, it would be nice to end this series with a sense as to where they’re headed next. To begin to shade in the gaps in their story. Plus, I think that this series has to conclude with the broader story of what happens to the clones post-Order 66. If not by showing Senator Chuchi pass some kind of bill that will, at least in theory, protect the clones from The Empire — and I think that’s less likely based on recent episodes — then at least by showing as many clones together in one place, making one last stand in their fight against obsolescence and extinction.

4. I need to see Batcher again.

Image Credit: On Disney+

I have been missing Batcher recently. And while I’m glad that she is probably safe hanging out on Pabu, missions just don’t feel the same without her. Shoutout to one of my readers,

Phyllis Eide

, who messaged me with the incredibly astute observation that so many Star Wars content creators had been mistakenly defaulting to male pronouns for Batcher and, in some cases, doing so for many other Star Wars creature characters as well. Why do we always assume animal characters are male? What kind of gender politics does that reflect? That’s an essay I’d like to write someday. I’d love for Batcher to surprise everyone and help save the day, but I’m not sure how Batcher gets to Tantiss on her own from wherever she is, and it doesn’t appear she tagged along with Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, and Rampart (or Echo). Still, she was a new character this season that I never knew I wanted, and I will feel a lack of resolution if we do not circle back to Batcher. I would even take a brief reunion with Omega, complete with enthusiastic jumping and licking, when everything on Tantiss blows over.

What would be wild yet welcome. 

1. Asajj Ventress returns (again). 

Image Credit: Collider

The episode featuring Ventress was easily one of the most memorable this season. And not just because it was miraculous and, to book readers, confounding that she returned. It was more because she’s such a great character — a stoic yet wry villain turned…well I’m not sure I’m ready to say what she’s turned into at this point. If she returned in this episode to help Omega and The Batch to rescue all those Force-sensitive younglings, we could learn more about what she’s been up to and what her sense of purpose is at this point in her life. And, who knows, maybe one of those younglings becomes her apprentice? The Ventress School for Gifted Youngsters? I’d watch that in a heartbeat. The utterance of M-count this season has created a storyline for the Jedi, and I think more Ventress could provide closure to that specific storyline. 

2. Rampart becomes a double agent. 

Image Credit: Dork Side of the Force

See all of my goofy commentary on Rampart’s facial hair from last week. I don’t need him to go full Kallus, but it would be nice to see that we dug him out of the character well for a grander purpose than sniveling and sniping as Clone Force 99 drags him around (as enjoyable as that has been to watch).

3. We learn something big about M-Count, cloning, or Project Necromancer. 

Image Credit: Men’s Journal

Maybe Grogu has been infused with Zillo Beast blood? Who’s with me? Seeing an even younger baby Yoda in animation would be thrilling, but I assume that this is too much of a stretch or strain on the Star Wars timeline to actually pull off. We know that Grogu is 50 years old in The Mandalorian, and we don’t yet know what happens to him once he catches a ride with Kelleran Beq right after Order 66…maybe he’s been captured by The Empire already. Regardless, I do think that learning something lore-altering or some kind of historical revelation that isn’t just a vague allusion to The Emperor’s quest for eternal life a la The Rise of Skywalker would make me happy. Or, considering we are on the precipice of the 25th anniversary thetarical re-release of The Phantom Menace, wouldn’t it be fun to recontextualize that film with new information about midi-chlorians and how they work? 

4. Omega learns of the existence of Boba Fett. 

Image Credit: StarWars.com

Since the moment we learned who the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed girl on Kamino really was, I’ve had to consider that she is Boba Fett’s sister. I understand why introducing Boba Fett, who already has so much history (the Original Trilogy, the Holiday Special animated short, and, more recently, The Book of Boba Fett series) to this part of the timeline could be more complicated than it’s worth. Especially since Fennec Shand, who doesn’t meet Boba Fett until The Book of Boba Fett some three decades later and Cad Bane, who takes on Boba as his apprentice at some point in some animatics — prototypes for never made episodes of The Clone Wars — and has a fatal (or at least Star Wars fatal) duel with an older Boba Fett in The Book of Boba Fett (which, again, is in the Mando era 30 or so years after The Bad Batch). I don’t need them to meet in this finale. There’s clearly not enough time to do that well. I just need Omega to find out that Jango Fett, from whom she has been cloned, had a son named Boba who’s still out there, somewhere in the greater galaxy.