Star Wars: The Bad Batch (1.6) Episode Recap: Choices

In last week’s recap, I mentioned how much of Star Wars: The Bad Batch up until this point has felt more like an episodic adventure series around the titular squadron than it has felt like it is leading to something bigger. For the first time since perhaps the third episode, the storytelling – even the characters – feels like they know more is at stake.

The episode resumes almost exactly where the last episode left off. The squadron is taking bounties in order to survive. In this particular episode, they have to recover part of a droid for an unknown (to both them and us) client. In the process of trying to recover the droid before it is fully destroyed, they run into another pair trying to retrieve the same droid part. That pair turns out to be Rafa and Trace, who were last seen in Star Wars: The Clone Wars working with Ahsoka. (Yeah, I know I am ahead of myself in that I haven’t gotten to that season in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but don’t think I wasn’t going to do a little bit of research into who that shadow we see at the end of the episode might be). While the Bad Batch are the ones who recover the droid, they end up handing it over to Rafa and Trace, because Hunter says that he knows they will do the right thing. While it does feel a bit cheesy with the groundwork laid for Hunter to make this choice earlier in the episode when Rafa doubts him, it is still an important moment for the show. The Bad Batch are not just surviving anymore. They are not taking orders anymore. While they don’t know who they are in this new universe, they know they have a choice.

Visually, the show is still pushing itself in little ways. Ones that make watching it week to week interesting. The glow of the pink from Omega’s bow she picked up in last week’s episode was a small detail but one my eyes were drawn to each time she pulled the bow. The overall animation style in Star Wars: The Bad Batch matches creator Dave Filoni’s other Star Wars adventure in The Clone Wars. While he and his team found that 3D animation visual niche in the Star Wars universe, it is exciting to see it blended with familiar Star Wars images and color schemes in these past few episodes. In this past episode, the pit that Omega falls into with molten droid parts evokes a very similar look to Anakin and Obi-Wan’s showdown in Revenge of the Sith. The chase scene in the episode the week before was reminiscent of the pod racing in The Phantom Menace. It never feels shoehorned in. None of those aesthetic choices do and that is part of what makes them fun when they do surface.

When Rafa takes the droid from Hunter at the end of this week’s episode, she tells him, “In the end, we all make choices.” That’s what this episode was about. Forcing the clones, especially Hunter, to make a choice. Everything else has happened to them; forced their hand. They had to react. They did not get to make a choice. Hell, even when they were Republic soldiers, they didn’t get choices. They followed orders. In fact, Wrecker – and the audience – was reminded of that this week. When Wrecker jumps the gap to turn the power in the facility on, he hits his head. After he hits his head, he hears Crosshair’s voice telling him that soldiers are meant to take orders. There is no other mention of Crosshair. Wrecker doesn’t even tell any of the other Bad Batch members about this. It is a little nugget left behind for us to speculate what it might mean for Wrecker’s future with the Bad Batch. Whether or not it meant anything is less purposeful than the fact that it reinforced the principle at the center of Star Wars: The Bad Batch six episodes in: autonomy and how these clones respond when given a choice. Of course, Wrecker’s reaction to that moment was to destroy a small army of droids closing in on the rest of the Bad Batch, so I suppose sometimes it really is not all that serious.