Screenshot: Star Wars: The Bad Batch
It can safely be said that the first quarter of Star Wars: The Bad Batch has been a game of pit stops. Of course, when you’re an outlaw clone unit on the lam from a newly-forged Empire looking to put the kibosh on all manner of clones—and they apparently have unfathomable plans for your new clone charge who is definitely more than what she appears to be—leap-frogging from one planet to the next just to get a little breathing room would seem essential. Not to mention exhausting.
Hunter, Echo, Wrecker, Tech, and Omega have charted a tireless zig-zag course during these first four episodes, bopping from Kamino to Saleucami to a barren moon and, this week, to Pantora, in the hopes of finding a moment to get their bearings since the declaration of Order 66 flipped everything upside down and installed the brutal Emperor Palpatine to a place of Imperial permanence. The Bad Batch, formerly Clone Force 99, have rebelled against their Kaminoan programming and are now considered serious liabilities to a new galactic order that doesn’t tolerate dissent. So, naturally, rest doesn’t come easy.
Making matters worse: the Batch is out of food and the Empire has made their hunt for Omega and her found family public by tossing them onto a wanted list, which brings a thrilling Star Wars inevitability to The Bad Batch: bounty hunters.
As everyone knows (and Omega soon finds out), bounty hunters only make the galaxy that much smaller. And so we have “Cornered”, a rollicking, speeder-powered episode that escalates the already fraught dramatic stakes by taking a fan favorite mercenary and slotting her into an era when she was younger and more ruthless: Fennec Shand, portrayed here by Ming-Na Wen (as she was on The Mandalorian). More on Fennec in a bit.
The Batch’s need for provisions is a strong impetus for this episode’s melodrama. It ratchets up their desperation and justifies rash decisions (such as landing on a moon potentially teeming with all kinds of scum and villainy) as the Republic is no more and the Batch’s unlimited tap for resources has dried up. And since clone troopers were never known for being flush with credits Hunter is forced to find a spot where he can discreetly hock what remains of their dwindling arsenal for food and fuel. Enter: Pantora, a strategic moon during the Clone Wars rife with space ports and markets, the next logical pit stop for Hunter and his family—and, thus far, the most dangerous. (“In and out, quickly and quietly,” Hunter insists, not realizing what show he’s on.)
Pantora is a refreshing visual shift for The Bad Batch. A vibrant and lively leap away from the gun-metal grays, clinical Kaminoan whites, and oppressive cosmic blacks we’ve seen so far in this series, Pantora’s deep urban canyons beam with neons and rich alien life. It’s a fun environment to watch Hunter, Echo, and Omega wander through on their quest for credits and, soon after, it becomes a perilous, kaleidoscopic gauntlet where one false turn can lead to catastrophe.
That peril would seemingly come from Pantora’s strong Imperial presence. Inside the marketplace where Hunter needs to procure some grub for his crew (especially for the famished Wrecker) there lies a chain code outpost, which both asserts the Empire’s control over this system and blasts out some nefarious pro-fascist propaganda. (Admiral Rampart makes his holographic appearance here, as he did on Saleucami.) Armed troopers march the causeways to applause and acclaim. This makes the Batch’s margin for error even smaller, doesn’t it?
It does, and it doesn’t. After all, plowing through a horde of stormtroopers (are we calling them that yet?) is easy as a Naboo picnic for Hunter and his motley crew, that’s been well established. No, the real threat this week comes from a devious port worker and a hard-as-nails merc trained in all kinds of warfare and other unknowable (though certainly just as lethal) x-factors. “This is Raspar Six at Ro station,” the wormy port worker transmits almost immediately after being bribed by Tech, which says a lot for how much credits can buy on Pantora. “Word on the channels is you’re looking for a certain modified Omicron-class attack shuttle.”
He’s transmitting to Fennec, who glares at a hologram of Omega and has every intention of procuring this bounty by any means necessary. With that an incredibly meta (but no less dramatic) piece to this week’s episode locks into place: a test of fan loyalty, with Omega at its center.
Fennec, a terrific character last seen scouring the Western space-scapes of The Mandalorian alongside Boba Fett, has a built-in fan base that could rival (and even potentially surpass) that of the Batch. Blasting her way into this prequel series, Fennec has an opportunity to establish her wildly notorious reputation as an assassin of the highest order, which, in this context, makes her the bad guy (at least for one episode). Pitting Fennec against, say, Hunter, is already a dicey proposition on paper—who do we really want to see win that fight?—but seeing it play out in a duel with Omega literally standing between them is enough for any sensible Star Wars fan to do backflips in their living room.
“Cornered”, which was directed by Saul Ruiz and written by Christian Taylor, plays with our emotions even more in an earlier scene where Fennec approaches a lost Omega with a smile and an offer of purloined food. “It’s okay to break the rules sometimes,” Fennec says to the impressionable Omega, who’s grateful for this help even if she doesn’t fully trust that blaster under Fennec’s duster. Surely there’s space in The Bad Batch for Fennec and Omega to have an adventure or two together, isn’t there? But then where would that leave Hunter? And Wrecker? And—oh, I’m so confused.
Stray observations
- The Batch’s first choice for a hiding spot, Idaflor, is marked as uninhabited, but isn’t that more conspicuous? Wouldn’t the Empire scan that ‘uninhabited’ planet and find lifeforms, Hunter? “The Hoth system is supposed to be devoid of human forms” and all that? Eh? Eh???
- Wrecker: “Why’d you tell me we’re out of rations? Now I’m starving!”
- Echo: “You stick out too much.” Wrecker: “Oh, you don’t?!” Echo: “Not dressed like this.” *pulls down mask* Perfect.
- Gonky is so helpful as a walking workbench, I love them.
- Proprietor, who purchased Echo this week : “You’re not a droid!” Echo: “You got me for a bargain.” Echo knows his own worth, good for him.
- Dee Bradley Baker’s droid cadence is cute, in an ironic sort of way. Echo: “Yes. What-ev-er. You. Require.”
- Wrecker vs. Fennec. Two hits: Wrecker hits a wall, Wrecker hits the floor. (He was really hungry!)
- What kinda droid is Clink? An astromech with arms and legs? Where have we been stashing him??
- Fennec really set out to make those red cords in her hair work, considering we now know she’s been wearing them for almost 30 years.
- What say you, group? Are you in the market for a Fennec/Omega team-up series? Who’d win in a sniper contest between Fennec and Crosshair? Isn’t Fennec the most? Let’s talk about Fennec in the comments below.
64 Comments
This isn’t a necessary a complaint, but something I am struggling with are the really drastic shifts in tone. In this episode, similarly to last week, a lot of the episode feels that while it is a dark world, there is this sense of family-friendliness in it and then they just suddenly have these moments of brutal murders. In this episode when Fennec threw that guy to his death from the car and then shot the police officer chasing them.It’s not bad, at least yet it doesn’t reduce my enjoyment of the show, but it is becoming distracting.
The Clone Wars has been doing this for years. Wanton murder is Filoni’s favourite flavour.
Yep. In one Clone Wars episode during a battle on the droid factory planet, they ordered the clone troopers to hit the Bugs with flame throwers, roasting what appear to be sentient beings alive.
Murder’s fine on a kids show, as long as there’s no sex or foul language, don’t you know.
Yeah, I was worried with Disney behind this and Omega as a, if not the central character tht this would be a supper kiddie show, and then they shoot people dead in the chest.I also feel like Fennec was super nice to her quarry without much menace, If that is how her character rolls I would assume she’s working for the Kaminoans and not the empire.
Within thirty minutes after Luke finds the scorched remains of his aunt and uncle in A New Hope, there’s a whole bit with C3-PO and Chewbacca playing holochess that’s done for laughs. Hours after seeing her entire home planet blown up by a new weapon that can commit galactic wide genocide at the press of a button, Princess Leia is making quips to Luke Skywalker about his height. If you have issues with kid friendly levity mixed in with death, then your issue might be with Star Wars as a whole.
I thought the part where she told the girl it was okay to steal was jaw-droppingly wrong…smh and yeah the murdery stuff too I was like I don’t know what this show is about I don’t get the tone everything’s all over the map and these four episodes could have been told in two.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say this is anything particularly new in the Star Wars universe. Still not as tonally awkward as ‘Rebels’ where they really played up the incompetence of Imperial troopers, so much so as we’d see a typical situation where the crew of the Ghost are slicing and dicing and blowing up their way through a station full of Stormtroopers and then suddenly cut to Chopper, their droid, bonking their helmets or some sillyness.
One thing I’m surprised the review didn’t touch on: someone hired Fennec to specifically bring in Omega, and none of the others, and by episode’s end we still don’t know who it is. So my guess right now is Moff Gideon, and his whole thing with Baby Yoda is actually trying to recreate the work he earlier failed to complete with Omega. Bonus points if we get a cameo from Werner Herzog modeled after how he looked in the ‘70s, mustache and all.
I the Werner Herzog character shows up I’ll eat my shoe!
I’d like to see that!
If he can follow through on his promises I suppose I would have to as well. Of course I am nowhere as intersting as Herzog.
He has a slow-cook recipe for that.
Slow-cooker? I suppose low and slow smoking would be good. Slather it in some good ‘ol Carolina BBQ sauce.
Apparently slow-food movement doyenne Alice Waters came up with the recipe, so who knows?
I will also devour a shoe if Werner Herzog shows up on THE BAD BATCH.
25 some-odd years before the events of The Mandalorian, I doubt Gideon is anywhere near Moff rank running a secret force sensitive cloning project…prolly Corporal Gideon in charge of shiny floors on level 2 of a random star destroyer. A bounty on just Omega, alive, and not the Batch, dead, would have to have been placed by the Kaminoans. Empire has no idea who she is.I would love to see a young animated Werner, though 👍😁
I think it’s the Kaminoans that want Omega back. Lama Su is desperate for anything that’ll keep their contract with the new Empire and the first episode showed that Taun We has a special interest in her.
We could also get PFT if Werner is busy.
Moff Gideon would be 25˜years younger in this time frame. Unlikely he’s a even a Moff at this point.
I genuinely did want to touch on that cliffhanger! But it opened up too big a can of worms, and there’s always word count to consider. I’m sure this will come up again in the episodes to come, but for now:Boba Fett, eh? Yes?
Isn’t Boba still like only 14 or 15 at this point, at best?
That type of droid with arms and legs was previously seen on Resistance:https://www.starwars.com/databank/le-12
Thanks for that; it was driving me /crazy/
Part of me wants to gripe that Fennec has been wearing the same helmet for 30 years? But then I remembered this was Star Wars. Also, I loved Echo rallying those droids he’d just met. “Alright boys, we’re going into the field!”.
Is Fennec a fan favorite character? She was in the worst episode of the first season of the Mandalorian, and was fine but unspectacular in the second season. You make it sound like anyone was rooting for her to prevail here when I’m guessing that isn’t the case.
I think it’s less how much people enjoy Fennec Shand as a character and more that people adore Ming Na Wen. Who, at this point, is practically Disney royalty.
Yes, this.
Yeah, i thought that was weird too. Clearly she is meant to be ‘bad’ here. But i did appreciate Tracker and Wrecker going up against someone who was equal to the challenge, rather than generic clone troopers. For me this was a much better episode than eps 2 and 3, just much more exciting and some good comic moments as well. Plus a bit more mystery in terms of who hired Fennec.
Ming-Na Wen is a fan-favorite human being, is the thing.
While SW fans can craft a passionate fandom out of almost nothing (see, of course, Boba Fett), I agree that it seems like a stretch to say that Fennec has a rabid following at this point.
I agree that saying Fennec has a “rabid” fan base would be a stretch! Good thing I tamped down and said she had a “built-in” fan base, at least from what I’ve observed.
the only bigger waste of time than me reading this reply was you writing it.
Does it even matter if she is? We know she makes it through to The Mandalorian, so there are absolutely no stakes involved when cheering for Hunter to “win”.
Gonky is so helpful as a walking workbench, I love them.I’m so confused by this sentence. Is Gonky a singular character’s name? If so, why did you suddenly switch to the plural “them” at the end of your sentence? Or is it a manufacturer’s name, and you love the company? Is Gonky a character that is a walking workbench, or are all walking workbenches called “Gonky”—in which case wouldn’t it be “Gonkys are so helpful…”? Or did you suddenly feel the need to declare your love for all walking workbenches?
“Gonk” is a type of droid. The squared off trash can with legs looking things. They just cutified it with the “y” at the end
Gonky is non-binary.
It’s a robot, FFS.
Okay, Gonk IS binary. Literally.
“Gonky” is the name, at least as far as the StarWars.com database is concerned! I used “them” because I felt weird applying a gender to what is ostensibly a walking box.
A walking box would be an “it” then. Why would you apply any gender to a robot? Do you do that with your phone? Your TV?I’m beginning to reach saturation level with the pronoun thing…
Even in-universe there’s a “pronoun thing,” which is a weird way to call “ways people refer to themselves that literally don’t affect you.” Your willful refusal to be okay with “them,” a pronoun that hasn’t exclusively referred to the plural even in Shakespeare’s time, is telling. There’s a whole Wookiepedia page devoted to how different species and droids viewed sex and gender. In Solo: A Star Wars Story alone, Han’s droid refers to herself with feminine pronouns, but droids refer to themselves pretty much however they want. I’d assume it’s the same for Gonky.
The practice actually does affect me, as I am an English-speaking person who is used to reading and using words in ways that are clear and not confusing. I went through 12 years of public school education and 6 years of college and in all that time, “they” and “them” were taught to me and used by me as plural pronouns. There is an endless number of singular words that could have become the consensus pronoun for those who do not relate to the “binary” choices. But for whatever reason, it was mandated that we must now disregard valid grammatical practice that made logical sense and was clear and easily understood and force ourselves to use these pronouns in a way that creates confusion and misunderstanding—as this example proves.I am now getting ridiculously close to 60 years old, so forgive me if it takes me a little while to completely abandon and relearn how I use words in a way that feels to me to be grammatically incorrect. I’m not comfortable with it and I feel ridiculous doing it, but I will hopefully get there at some point, as I don’t wish to upset anyone by accidentally misidentifying someone. But I’ll be fucked if I have to learn to gender-specific pronouns to identify goddamn man-made objects.A robot is a machine—in any universe. It has no gender. It is not human. And if you think that I am insensitive or some kind of bigot because I question or refuse to go along with such an incredibly ludicrous and almost comically-PC notion, then fine—call me a bigot. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by denying the fact that it’s a farcical argument to put forth. Insisting that machines be identified using gender-specific language—and trying to vaguely shame those who don’t—makes it really hard to take seriously anything else you say on the subject.
Omega’s definitely a cloned Jedi. Calling it now.
Daniel Logan’s Instagram:
Bleh. I hope not. Can’t we get away from that for a change?I would love it if she was just a super skilled clone: all the amazing skills of the members of the bad batch wrapped up into one, times 5.
Props to the show for doing camera moves and pulling focus in ways I don’t believe I’ve seen before. Or at least its a further progression from Clone Wars and Rebels. Also: I feel like they’ve basically closed the gap between “realistic” space & ship effect as far as those seen in the movies versus what they’re using on the cartoons. The ports and ships look real enough now that it’s almost jarring when the animated figures reappear. How long until a full-on deep-fake Star Wars show or movie? Something around 2 years, I bet.
I think the ships have looked fairly photorealistic for a while. As photorealistic as the movies can go. I particularly enjoyed how in Rebels the ships often moved in very 1977 ways just like in A New Hope. They also made the lightsabers look the same in that show, but I agree about there being a strange mismatch between the characters and the ships.
(nerd alert, sorry)Hera pulled a move where she jumped into hyperspace while flying through a two-way Imperial ship hanger in Rebel’s final season that was pretty much movie-quality.
Nerd away. Anybody here commenting an an animated Disney Star Wars show is pretty much by definition a nerd.There are like less than 30 comments about this show here. The same over at io9. I guess there are not as many nerds as I thought.
I think this show is dull and boring to be honest I don’t know how you can give this tripe an a lol
I don’t really get the hype surrounding Fennec.
Besides the fact that she’s playedvoiced by Ming-Na Wen, what exactly makes her stand out from other “badass” bounty hunters in Star Wars lore. (unlike someone like Aurra Sing for example, who actually has a personality)
If you want to compare her to Fett, who also didn’t have much of a personality at first and just looked cool, her outfit’s design also doesn’t make her stand-out much either.
So, I haven’t watched this show, and I haven’t watched Clone Wars, and I haven’t watched Rebels, and I’m sorry if this has already been brought up, but……I mean, the big reveal is gonna be that Omega is a Palpatine clone, right? I mean, look at her. The hair alone is a giveaway.
I feel like that merchant didn’t do anything wrong and got all the way screwed in this episode.
Yeah, the Batch clearly aren’t in the business of supporting local businesses.
Yup. Nice to see that CF99 isn’t entirely on the side of the angels. One does what one must & all that.
Now that you mention it, yeah, pretty much. I mean, he was rude to his droids, but…they’re droids.
Ming-Na in any Star Wars related role is certainly a favorite of mine
That image is going to serve me well…… in showing that Ming Na Wen is a Star Wars fan! What did you think I meant?
Kudos to the Filoni series for occasionally going much, MUCH darker than any of the films ever had.In the Clone Wars, Cad Bane tortures a Jedi to death on camera. (The Jedi is a Rodian and they couldn’t have gotten away with it if it was a human, but still…)And here, Fennec is a thoroughly amoral killer. She kills civilians and police without blinking an eye and, while the episode cuts away before we see the actual deaths, they definitely happen.
Another entertaining episode, but the Bad Batch need to develop some kind of goal or purpose beyond just “being on the run”, as this is all starting to get a little repetitive.
Hell, even just “We roll into a new planet and help the locals with a problem” would be a step in the right direction (if hardly a very original one.)
I bet/hope the next couple episodes address this. Right now, I’m enjoying the mad scramble to find somewhere to hide when the Batch are enemies of the Empire, and the Empire is young and hungry.
“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them….maybe you can hire The A-Team.”
“We roll into a new planet and help the locals with a problem” would be a step in the right direction Yeah. Because at the end of the day, as great as the show is, it’s really just (to paraphrase Roddenberry) The A-Team in space.