The stage was set in the 72 minute epic opener that was released on Star Wars day earlier this week. But now we follow The Bad Batch on the first stop of their mission to get off the grid. We’ll keep this spoiler-free, so fear not!
Clone Force 99, accompanied by new teammate, Omega, visit an old friend with experience in evading the Republic, now known as the Empire, which is basically the same except the veiled fascism and inherent evil undertones are… less subtle. But, as with many episodes of The Bad Batch’s predecessor The Clone Wars, the smaller pieces of the overarching story are much more interesting here than the ‘A Plot’ of the episode as Hunter learns what it means to be a parent.
“Children will always find ways of getting into trouble, Hunter. It’s what they do. Protecting them is what we do.” – Suu Lawquane
Things are starting to fall into place for the familiar ‘found family’ trope, and whilst it could seem a little stale to retell the reluctant father narrative that we’ve seen one or two times before *cough* Obi-Wan/Anakin, Anakin/Ahsoka, Mando/Grogu, Kanan/Ezra *cough*, that isn’t a criticism. It’s arguably one of the central themes within the Star Wars saga, and each time it’s told, there’s a fresh perspective and angle at play. This time, it seems to be The Expendables meets Three Men And A Baby – again, not a criticism, we’re here for it!
However, this episode does veer into the territory of referencing something that casual Star Wars fans might not be familiar with (at least not without falling into a Wookiepedia hole), and whilst Gursimran Sandhu’s script does an okay job of trying to catch you up with some quippy remarks from The Bad Batch’s resident exposition engine, Tech, there’s still a lot of story left on the table for fans who haven’t seen certain episodes of The Clone Wars.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch can be found weekly on Disney+. Read our review of episode one here.