The Bad Batch S3 Episodes 6 & 7: Attack of The Clone Wars
In which I question whose show this actually is, at least for these two episodes.
The Short Take:
Did these episodes steal the limelight from our main characters? Perhaps, but the story this series wants to tell is much bigger than they are. Full of action, intrigue, and revelations.
[SPOILER WARNING: If you have not watched The Bad Batch through Season 3, Episodes 6 & 7, you’re on our hit list and as such should be on the run.]
Image Credit: Laughing Place
The Long Take:
This week, I had the privilege, as I often do, of joining
and on the Rebel Base Card Podcast’s Batch for Breakfast insert series. We traded many thought-provoking questions, and I’m going to make you listen to the episode to find out which ones. However, I will share that at some point, by way of answering a tangentially related question, Greg C. joked that Hunter spent a good part of the second of the two episodes this week, “Extraction,” standing awkwardly behind Rex. He’s not wrong. Greg M. later noted that “Infiltration” and “Extraction” felt like episodes of The Clone Wars. He’s not wrong either.While I feel slightly vindicated that my suspicion that Crosshair put his old armor back on within one episode of reuniting with the Marauder crew simply because we needed to make way for a bigger, broader, fate of all the Clones story, I too wondered here if that would unfairly overshadow the story of The Bad Batch as a family unit. In screenwriting there is a narrative hierarchy of storylines designated by the “A story,” “B story,” “C story,” and so forth. One of the joys of serialized storytelling more specifically is witnessing several of these storylines that have been running in parallel suddenly converge synergistically or collide explosively.
This action-packed two-parter is one such inflection point. Rex’s team has captured a Clone X assassin who infiltrated a secret meeting between Senator Chuchi and Singh. But in the process, they discover that Omega is in danger. Hence, the A story: The Bad Batch trying to find their way in the galaxy and protect Omega, intersects with the B story: how all the clones are under threat from the Empire and what will happen to them once that Empire considers them completely obsolete.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Rex summons the Marauder crew to his spire base on Teth, the planet where, as Greg C. Pointed out, The Clone Wars series began with its feature-length premiere in 2008. This is just one of many ways in which the B political story of the clones overtakes the A story of the specific group of clones that we know and love as the focal point of this series.
Our characters learn a lot in these two episodes: chiefly that Hemlock tried to make Crosshair a Clone X assassin and failed, and that Omega is on Hemlock’s target list, though to me, as an audience member, this was not a revelation by any means. In fact, I’d say the this series has cornered itself into repeating information that the audience already knows because there are always characters who do not yet know that information. I laughed as a befuddled Rex says he might have heard the phrase M-count but doesn’t really know what it means. WE all know it’s midi-chlorians, Rex! Why can’t we just say the out loud and get it over with?! I have changed my mind since the premiere; the plausible deniability of M-count as midi-chlorians but not technically midi-chlorians is a farce. We should just rip off the bandaid and more directly reference The Phantom Menace (1999). What better way to celebrate its upcoming 25th anniversary?
While there are character revelations a-plenty, the events of these two episodes primarily build towards one climactic reveal: Rex learning that the leader of the Imperial clone squad that has been chasing them in tandem with the Clone X assassin (or sometimes at odds, it seems), is in fact his old buddy Wolffe. For those who don’t know, Wolffe is a clone that has appeared in The Clone Wars series since the early days. Wookieepedia lists him in 15 episodes total. So he is as much a blast from fandom’s past as he is from Rex’s. In this moment, it felt as though Rex trying to recruit clones to resist the Empire was the A story, with Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, and Omega just along for the ride in the B story.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
Now as someone who loves The Clone Wars animated series, there’s a vantage point from which I really shouldn’t be complaining about this at all. I get excited every time a familiar face pops up in my Star Wars, and The Bad Batch is no exception. As a critic, I get a little concerned that this is happening in the final season of a series called The Bad Batch and not The Clone Wars: Aftermath.
I don’t want to say that this more all-encompassing, historical story should not be told. The clones are a fundamental part of the Prequel Era of Star Wars, and to not tell their story in full and give them their due in the canon would be as dismissive and exploitative as the Empire’s treatment of them. The Clone Wars reached many narrative heights, and one is how well it showed the individuality and humanity of clones despite the Republic turned Empire thinking of them as wartime commodities. And there’s probably no better place to tell the end of their story than here. Yet, if there’s a way to tell the story of the clones THROUGH telling the story of The Bad Batch, though, everyone wins. But in order to do that, we have to always anchor the story in Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, and Omega. (And now Batcher! Sorry I almost forgot you, Batcher). And I just wasn’t feeling that in these episodes.
Again, my mind wanders to the idea of narrative repetition (a cloning of storylines even? *ba-dum ching*). We’ve already followed Crosshair on this journey from rigidly believing that “good soldiers follow orders” to defecting from the Empire, to the point at which he is actively volunteering information that will help Rex’s clone rebellion. Even before that, we saw it with Commander Cody in “The Solitary Clone” (S2E3). But these two new episodes reminded me that one clone’s conversion narrative is not enough. We have to see it happen again and again with clones like Wolffe who at first pass could be talked into letting Rex and company go because they’re fellow clones, but could not be persuaded enough to give up on his own service to the Empire.
The second episode title, “Extraction,” more literally refers to Echo swooping in to rescue the gang from Teth, but it also refers to more conceptual extractions. Of information from Crosshair, and not from the captured Clone X assassin (who just cackles evilly — so creepy!). And of the extraction of all clones, everywhere. That Rex, with the help of The Bad Batch (motivated by their concern for Omega), will not stop until every clone has been extracted from the Empire’s clutches. See how I just described that? It sounds like Rex’s show now. (Not that Rex is undeserving of his own show!)
Image Credit: StarWars.com
All that said, the stakes for The Bad Batch as an individual family are very clear by the end of this two-episode story. Rex tells Hunter that he can no longer play defense if he wants to protect Omega; he instead must go on the offensive and destroy Mt. Tantiss and Dr. Hemlock’s horrific, abusive experiments with it. So I’m not saying that the Batch took the backseat in these two episodes for arbitrary reasons. Their story is now tied to the broader story of the clones and their status in the galaxy, and in a way that makes sense.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
So while dismantling Mt. Tantiss will in fact help Omega and get The Bad Batch one step closer to that idyllic happy ending, in which they can finally set up a homestead and know where they fit in the galaxy. (See Mando and Grogu rocking on their front porch.) I just hope the weight of that quest doesn’t get lost as the series tries to tell a grander story that closes the book on The Clone Wars, both as a series and a major historical event in the Star Wars timeline.