Star Wars: The Bad Batch (1.9) Episode Recap: Bounty Hunter Showdown

Star Wars: The Bad Batch has been on a tear the last few episodes. The show has oscillated between emotional resonance to striking visuals and back again. This past week’s episode was no different. This particular episode even had some significant plot details sprinkled in. All season we have been waiting for the other shoe to drop on what makes Omega so coveted. We finally know.

The previous episode ends with Omega being kidnapped by a bounty hunter, Cad Bane. Cad makes it clear in this episode that he is working for Lama Su. Initially, we don’t know why Lama Su wants Omega though. He lets on that it is for her genetic material, but it’s not until the Bad Batch themselves find out that we do. All of the clones were created with the DNA of Jango Fett. However, there were only ever two exact replicas of him. Boba Fett and…Omega. While the Bad Batch doesn’t know Lama Su’s exact plan, they know the stakes of their rescue mission now. However, most of the episode still isn’t spent with them. It’s spent in the Old West.

Okay, so it isn’t exactly the Old West, we are still in space. But the planet that Cad Bane and Omega land on is filled with fog that takes on the appearance of dust with its yellow hue. Another bounty hunter, Fennec Shand, is also back in this episode in pursuit of Omega. Most of the episode is the showdown between Fennec and Cad. It lives up to the billing associated with the mythology of those characters. The long shots that I wrote about at length last week in the showdown between Hunter and Cad Bane are back this week. It mimics a duel in a western yet again. This time though, it spins out to become much more. Cad and Fennec hand fight and escalate to shooting blasters at one another. It all culminates in Cad using a flame thrower to try and smoke out a hiding Fennec just to get surprised and kicked over the railing by her. It is the single most thrilling fight Star Wars: The Bad Batch has produced thus far. Though Fennec bested Cad in this round, we can only hope this isn’t the last showdown we see between the two of them. If Lama Su has his way, it certainly won’t be.

By the end of the episode, Omega is back with the Bad Batch. We also finally find out that Nala Se (who helped Omega escape with the Bad Batch in the pilot episode) is the one who hired Fennec Shand in the first place. And it wasn’t to hunt Omega, it was to protect her. Nala Se knew that Lama Su wanted to use Omega for his own ends. Nala Se was not going to let that happen. Over the last few episodes, we have added even more parties to the show’s central conflict with Crosshair, Cad Bane, and the Kaminoans. The Bad Batch is still keeping its story tethered to its titular squad though. Even in an episode that isn’t directly about them, as they rescue Omega and Hunter promises that they will protect her, it is clear that the Bad Batch themselves are more driven than ever before.