Star Wars reviews: The Bad Batch season two part two

Star Wars: The Bad Batch season two has come to its shocking conclusion. I previously blogged about the first eight episodes of the season and here are my thoughts on the second half.

In general I felt these episodes were more strongly consistent than than the first half of the season had been. Echo leaving the Batch to join Rex and his underground movement to help the clone troopers escape the Empire spurred a great deal of introspection in the rest of the group, especially the teenage Omega.

Clone Force 99 (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) may have started out as a military unit, but once they broke from the Empire and adopted Omega (Michelle Ang) they became a family, and the departure of Echo is keenly felt.

Episode nine, “The Crossing,” sees the remaining members of the Batch sent by Trandoshan smuggler Cid (Rhea Perlman) to a desert planet to retrieve some highly volatile ipsium mineral from a mine she purchased. While they are extracting the ipsium the Batch’s ship the Marauder is stolen. Without any supplies, the stranded group is forced to cross the harsh desert to reach a spaceport on the other side of the planet, only to find it abandoned. They are able to use the technology there to contact Cid, however the Trandoshan informs them she won’t be able to arrange for their rescue for several days. The Batch angrily reminds Cid of all the times they saved HER rear end, but she blows them off.

The group had been feeling increasingly uneasy at their alliance of convenience with Cid throughout the second season, but this feels like the turning point in their relationship.

“The Crossing” really stood out to me for developing the relationship between Omega and the emotionally repressed Tech. It’s a well-written scene that provides some long-overdue examination of the intelligent, introverted Tech. Baker and Ang do a fine job with the voice acting in this scene. And once again I’m amazed at how totally different Baker is able to make the male members of Clone Force 99, not just in their voices but also in their personalities.

In “Retrieval” the group discovers that the Marauder is still on the planet and are able to track it down by homing in on their droid Gonky. They discover the ship was stolen by teenager Benni Baro (Yuri Lowenthal) in an attempt to curry favor with Mokko (Jonathan Lipow), the brutal owner of the ipsium mine where Benni and numerous others work for literal slave wages.

Mokko is neither clever nor subtle, but like many other oppressors he’s discovered a secret to remaining in power: keep your subjects at each other’s throats desperately competing for scarce resources so that they’ll be too distracted to realize they’re being exploited. The Batch help Benni and the community overthrow Mokko. Regaining their ship, they’re finally able to depart the planet.

In “Metamorphosis” we are introduced to Dr. Royce Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson) and with a last name like that you just know this guy isn’t going to be pleasant. Indeed, the amoral Hemlock, previously expelled from the Republic Science Corps for his unauthorized experiments, is now a member of the Empire’s top secret Advanced Science Division at Mount Tantiss, tasked with unraveling the secrets of the cloning technology seized from the Kaminoans. Hemlock is using the surviving clone troopers as unwitting test subjects for his unethical experiments.

One of the transport ships belonging to the Advanced Science Division crash-lands, and the Batch, still smarting from Cid’s refusal to rescue them, only reluctantly agree to salvage the ship for her. Unfortunately they discover the cargo is alive & hostile, an attempt by the Empire to clone the incredibly dangerous Zillo Beast. Way back in The Clone Wars season two Chancellor Palpatine ordered his scientists to clone the Zillo Beast that attacked Coruscant. I always figured that writer Dave Filoni would eventually follow up on that somewhere or another. The Bad Batch, which is exploring the Empire’s efforts to pervert cloning to their own dark ends, is the perfect place to return to that subplot.

We shift our focus to former Batch member Crosshair in “The Outpost.” Still blindly following the Empire’s orders, Crosshair is assigned to the arrogant Lieutenant Nolan (Crispin Freeman) who does nothing to disguise his disdain for the clone troopers.

Nolan and Crosshair travel to Barton IV, where an Imperial supply depot is under siege by raiders. Mayday, the clone in charge of the base, is the opposite of Crosshair, regarding the inexperienced, haughty Nolan as unworthy of respect. Most of the episode involves Crosshair and Mayday arguing over what the clones’ role in the galaxy should be. Crosshair’s comment about not leaving behind “dead weight” is almost immediately thrown in his face when he steps on a pressure mine, and Mayday disarms it, saving his life.

The two clones locate the raiders, but in the ensuing battle an avalanche buries everyone. Crosshair manages to extricate himself and locates the gravely wounded Mayday. Crosshair struggles across the harsh frozen landscape to bring Mayday back to base for medical treatment. But when the two clones at long last make it back, Nolan tells them they’ve failed in their mission to retrieve the stolen supplies and refuses to help them. When Mayday succumbs to his injuries, a distraught Crosshair is furious, but Nolan responds that the clones are expendable. At last realizing exactly the sort of monsters he’s pledged his loyalty to, Crosshair shoots Nolan, killing him.

It’s been one of the central themes of this season how the Empire uses people. Previously we saw that Admiral Rampart did everything he was ordered to do, yet the instant he was no longer needed he was made a scapegoat for the Empire’s crimes and thrown to the wolves. Hemlock, rather than being outraged at Nolan’s death, is actually amused that Crosshair murdered his commanding officer and applauds the clone’s initiative, demonstrating that the Lieutenant, who saw the clones as expendable, was himself entirely dispensable. And one of the reasons why Hemlock is so desperate to unlock the secrets of the Kaminoans’s cloning technology is because he knows that if he doesn’t succeed the Empire will dispose of him.

In the next episode “Pabu” the Batch is once again assisting “liberator of ancient wonders” Phee Genoa (Wanda Sykes) on one of her capers. In spite of her seemingly blasé attitude, as well as her fondness for helping herself to other people’s property, Phee is much different than Cid, in that she regards the clones as friends. Learning that the Batch are attempting to cut ties with Cid, Phee takes them to the tropical island of Pabu, where refugees from numerous worlds have established a community. Phee is clearly offering them sanctuary.

When a natural disaster strikes, the Batch throws in to help save the lives of everyone on Pabu, and to rebuild the community. The contrast to the Empire is clear; for the Batch and Phee and the people of Pabu, friendship & community are invaluable, and it’s the responsibility of each individual to help others.

The second season moves towards its climax with “Tipping Point.” Echo and several other clones are actively working to rescue their brothers who are being shipped to Mount Tantiss for Hemlock’s experiments. One of the clones they liberate is Howzer, who has been a prisoner of the Empire since his refusal to follow orders back in the first season. I was wondering what was going to happen to him, so I’m glad we got an answer here.

Hemlock, having learned that Omega is the one person who Kaminoan scientist Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) actually cares about, has Crosshair transferred to Mount Tantiss, hoping the clone can give him a clue where his former team is hiding. Crosshair breaks free and is able to  transmit a warning to the Batch before being recaptured.

That leads to the two episode season finale “The Summit” and “Plan 99.” Hoping to locate Crosshair, the Batch infiltrates Governor Tarkin’s (Stephen Stanton) base on Eriadu where Hemlock will be attending an important Imperial summit, so that they can place a tracking device on Hemlock’s ship and follow him back to his base. Unfortunately Eridu has also been infiltrated by Saw Gerrera (Andrew Kishino) who is determined to blow up Tarkin’s headquarters. The Batch, revealing they’re trying to locate Crosshair, try to get Saw to stand down, but he refuses, seeing Crosshair and the other clones Hemlock has imprisoned as necessary sacrifices in the war against the Empire.

As a result of Saw’s interference, the Batch are discovered and Hemlock’s ship with its tracking device is blown up. Tech sacrifices himself to save the rest of Clone Force 99, seemingly plunging to his death. The rest of the Batch, wounded and pursued by the Empire, flee to Ord Mantell, hoping Cid can help them. However Cid betrays them, revealing their whereabouts to the Empire in exchange for a reward. Hemlock captures Omega and brings her to Mount Tantiss in order to pressure Nala Se into working on the Emperor’s mysterious cloning project. Hunter, Wrecker and Echo manage to escape from the Imperial forces, but they still have no idea where Hemlock’s base is located, but they vow to track the mad scientist down and free Omega.

To be continued! Yipes, what a cliffhanger!

The Batch’s decision to go to Cid for help instead of returning to Pabu was baffling, since I’m sure everyone in the audience saw her betrayal of the team coming a long way off. The only thing I can think is that Pabu was too far away, the Batch needed immediate medical assistance, and so risked returning to Cid. But the script really ought to have made that clear.

It’s interesting that we see Cid attempt to rationalize her betrayal of the Batch, arguing that the team had put her at risk by returning to Ord Mantell, giving her no choice. That’s entirely in Cid’s self-serving nature, and sadly there are all too many people like that who will engage in that sort of self-justification, making themselves out to be the “real” victims. In the end Cid, was very much like the Empire, seeing Clone Force 99 primarily as assets to be utilized for her benefit.

In contrast, the Batch’s mission to find Crosshair once again shows just how important loyalty to family and friends is to them. It doesn’t matter that Crosshair previously turned his back on the rest of the team; he’s still their brother, both figuratively and literally, and they feel compelled to help him.

Tech’s death was a huge gut-punch. It really shows just how well this series developed Clone Force 99 from one-dimensional stereotypes into fully-realized characters over the past two seasons that it was so very painful to see him sacrifice himself, and to watch the others mourn his death.

The big question now – other than how will the Batch save Omega – is whether Tech is really dead. He fell from such a height that I can’t imagine how he could have survived. But we don’t actually see a body. And this IS the same series where someone once got cut in half and dropped down a pit, only to turn up alive later on. So you never know.

One thing’s for sure: I’m going to be in real suspense waiting for season three!

Star Wars reviews: The Bad Batch season two part one

We’re now at the halfway point of the animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch season two, so I wanted to take a quick look at the episodes so far. The incredible Dee Bradley Baker returns to voice the entire Bad Batch and every single other male clone character on the series, with Michelle Ang as the Batch’s young ward, the teenage female clone Omega.

With the Batch believed dead and their former comrade Crosshair having thrown all-in with the Galactic Empire, the members of Clone Force 99 now hope to extricate themselves from their obligations to the Trandoshan smuggler Cid (voiced by Rhea Perlman) so they can go on their own path and secure a stable future for Omega. Cid suggests the Batch travel to Serenno, where the Empire is preparing to ship offworld the massive war chest accumulated by the late Count Dooku during his time leading the Separatists. The Batch’s efforts to make off with a portion of the wealth quickly goes pear-shaped, and they barely make it off Serenno in one piece.

I found the two-parter “Spoils of War” and “Ruins of War” to be somewhat underwhelming. Probably the strongest aspect of the story was the Batch meeting the elderly Romar Adell (voiced by Hector Elizondo), one of the few survivors of the Empire’s invasion of Serenno.

Adell informs the Batch that Dooku’s war chest was acquired not just by the Count looting the worlds of the Republic but his own home planet. It’s a vivid demonstration of how very far the former Jedi had fallen. In the recent Tales of the Jedi anthology series showed how Dooku’s disillusionment with the Republic was caused by him realizing how many of the politicians in the Senate were lining their own pockets at the expense of the people they were supposed to be representing. Now we see once again that, by joining Darth Sidious, Dooku ultimately became everything he started out fighting against.

“The Solitary Clone” was a definite improvement. The episode focused on Crosshair, whose blind loyalty leaves him isolated even from the other clones still serving the Empire. The ruthless, ambitious Admiral Rampart (Noshir Dalal) places Crosshair under the command of Commander Cody and dispatches them to the planet Desix to rescue Imperial Governor Grotton (Max Mittelman). The Governor has been taken hostage by the former Separatist Tawni Ames (Tasia Valenza) and her band of freedom fighters in a desperate attempt to safeguard their world’s independence.

This episode is a very effective inversion of the format established in The Clone Wars animated series. Cody leads a squad of clone troopers against the Separatist droid army to liberate a world… and I very quickly found myself rooting not for the clones but for Ames and her battle droids.

Cody genuinely believes he is doing the right thing, fighting for peace & security. He manages to talk down Ames, getting her to surrender, and is then horrified when Grotton orders her to be executed on the spot, an order Crosshair carries out without hesitation. Witnessing the start of the Empire’s brutal occupation of Desix, a shaken Cody at last realizes he’s on the wrong side.

Later, back on Coruscant, Cody confronts Crosshair about his unquestioning loyalty to the Empire:

“You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices. And we have to live with them too.”

The next day Crosshair is once again summoned before Rampart, who informs him that Cody has gone AWOL, further cementing the Admiral’s conviction that the Clone Army needs to be replaced with conscripted Stormtroppers who will be blindly loyal to the Empire.

Episode four, “Faster,” shifts the focus back onto the Batch as Tech, Wrecker and Omega accompany Cid to the planet Safa Toma where her droid TAY-0 is an entrant in a violent, high-speed “riot race.” TAY-0 loses when crime lord Millegi (Ernie Hudson) has his own racers cheat, and Cid finds herself heavily in debt. Tech participates in a second race to win Cid’s freedom.

This felt like another fairly standard episode but unremarkable, except for two things. One, we at long last got an episode spotlighting Tech. Two, at the end Millegi, handing Cid back to the Batch, he questions why the clones are risking their lives for her, attempting to warn them that she’s not worth their loyalty. Omega refuses to heed Millegi’s advice, but it does once again establish that, while the Batch working for Cid may have been a necessity in the short term to ensure their survival, in the long run they’re better off not being beholden to the smuggler.

“Entombed” was another fun but seemingly-throway episode as Cid’s sassy space pirate associate Phee Genoa (Wanda Sykes) convinces the Batch to accompany her on a search for a legendary treasure. This felt like an affectionate homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with ancient ruins, puzzles, death traps, and music that evoked John Williams’ scores for the Indiana Jones movies.

I feel the season started to get back on track with “Tribe,” the sixth episode. The Batch are running yet another errand for Cid, delivering forged chain codes to a group of droids on a space station, until Omega discovers those droids have a prisoner, a young Wookie. Impulsively leaping to the Wookie’s rescue, Omega learns that Gungi (Jonathan Lipow) is actually a Jedi, one of the few survivors of Order 66. The rest of the Batch immediately drop their mission and fight their way off the space station, taking Gungi with them.

Transporting Gungi back to Kashyyyk, the Batch are horrified to learn the Wookie homeworld is being pillaged by Trandoshian slavers working with the Empire. Citing the fact that the Wookies were their allies during the Clone Wars, the Batch join Gungi and a tribe of Wookies in fighting off the Empire.

This was a good one because it saw the Batch once again realizing that they have better things to do than getting tangled up in Cid’s criminal enterprises, that they’re much better off helping others who are being oppressed by the Empire. It was also nice to see the bond form between Omega and Gungi.

That brings us to the shocking mid-season two-parter “The Clone Conspiracy” and “Truth and Consequences.” On Coruscant, Admiral Rampart is aggressively pushing the Senate to pass into law the Defense Recruitment Bill which will phase out the Clone Army and enable the Empire to begin drafting its citizens into a new force of Imperial Stormtroopers.  Several Senators are opposed, with Riyo Chuchi (Jennifer Hale) forcefully arguing that the clones, having done their duty to protect the galaxy, should not just be cast aside, as well as questioning why, with the Separatists defeated, the new Empire even needs a standing army.

“After all they have sacrificed, you now wish to discard them? Leave them with nothing? Is that how we repay them for our service? How can we debate commissioning a new army without a plan in place to care for our current one?”

Star Wars has been political right from the beginning. Despite the preponderance of British accents among Imperial officers, it’s clear that George Lucas regarded the Galactic Empire as the dark side of the United States. That really comes to the fore with these two episodes.

Rampart argues there simply isn’t the money to both support the veterans of the Clone Wars and to fund a new military, so the former will have to be sacrificed in favor of the latter. That is exactly the position we’ve seen again and again here in America.

Somehow there’s always the money available to build billion-dollar tanks & airplanes and to wage unending wars in the Middle East in the name of “national security.” But when it comes to helping veterans struggling with physical wounds and PTSD, to finding them housing, to funding the Military Health System and the Department of Veterans Affairs, well, suddenly politicians will start arguing for “fiscal responsibility” because now we seemingly cannot afford any of that. It is an absolute disgrace.

There’s an uncomfortable scene in “The Clone Conspiracy” where a group of clone troopers, realizing they are going to be cast aside, and not knowing if they are even going to have a future now that the galaxy no longer needs them, are experiencing a mixture of fear, disbelief and outrage.

Captain Rex summons the Batch to Coruscant in “Truth and Consequences” to help Chuchi expose that Rampart had Kamino and its cloning facilities destroyed so that the Empire would be forced to transition to an enlisted army. The Batch is able to locate evidence of the cover-up and gets it to Chuchi, who presents it before the Senate. However, the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), ever the consummate chessmaster, quickly spins this to his advantage. Appearing before the Senate, the Emperor feigns shock & outrage and orders Rampart arrested. The Admiral is dragged off, all the while protesting that he was only following orders.

The Emperor then addresses the Senate and argues that the fact that the clones unquestioningly followed Rampart’s orders to destroy Kamino is proof that the galaxy needs to switch to the new Stormtroopers. A dispirited Chuchi watches as the Senate finally passes the Defense Recruitment Bill, ensuring the Emperor will have his standing army.

While most of the Batch were infiltrating Rampart’s star destroyer to recover evidence of the plot, Omega joined Chuchi in the Senate. Omega asked Chuchi what a Senator does, and the latter replied that Senators represent their people, serve as their voice in the government.

At least, that is supposed to be how it works. We see in these two episodes that all-too-many of the members of the Senate are complicit in helping Rampart push through the Defense Recruitment Bill because it’s a way for them to amass more wealth & political power.

Authoritarian despots such as the Emperor rely on such ambitious, avaricious public officials to maintain their grip on power.  Like Rampart, those officials all think they’re going to come out ahead, only to be shocked when, their usefulness at an end, they get cast aside by their supreme ruler. And all the other lackeys & functionaries, despite witnessing this happening again and again, somehow manage to convince themselves “It won’t happen to me.” We saw this repeatedly during Donald Trump’s time as President, and, really, this is always a fixture of governments headed by narcissistic sociopaths. In the end despots are only loyal to one person: themselves.

“Truth and Consequences” ends with the Batch realizing they’ve been outmaneuvered by the Emperor. Echo decides that his place is no longer with the Batch, but with Captain Rex, helping their fellow clones who now more than ever will have to fight for their rights & freedoms. The implication is that the rest of the Batch are now also going to seriously reconsider their future.

Hopefully the second half of the season will follow on from the interesting character & plot threads set up throughout these first eight episodes and have a more focused direction.