Omega takes matters into her own hands on Star Wars: The Bad Batch
Omega discovers a few truths about her mysterious origins amid a wild bounty hunter battle
TV Reviews Star Wars: The Bad Batch
You have to hand it to Disney; they know how to nail media synergy. Currently blasting through the pages of Marvel’s Star Wars comics line is War Of The Bounty Hunters, which features Boba Fett booking it to Tatooine with his bounty in tow (the be-carbonited Han Solo), as all hell—in the form of several bounty hunters looking to take what’s his—comes down all around him. It’s an event that connects the admittedly unnecessary dots which lie between The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, but it still kind of owns, And this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch sure looked like it wanted in on all that bounty hunter brouhaha.
Of course, the production schedules of an animated series and an entire comic book line are both incredibly complex; they can’t be expected to perfectly sync up whenever the Mouse House demands it. Still, chalk it up to kismet that the bounty hunter Cad Bane found himself warring with the ruthless Fennec Shand over Omega, his ill-gotten asset, in the foggy corridors of the abandoned cloning facility of Bora Vio in this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. The ensuing scrap was a lively bit of catharsis following last week’s rapid-fire series of dramatic gut punches, and a heartening one as well, character-wise: while the fate of Omega was once again thrown up in the air, the small clone from Kamino took matters into her own hands and facilitated her rescue as Fennec and Bane exchanged blaster fire over their would-be bounty.
“Bounty Lost,” this week’s adorably-named episode (directed by Brad Rau and Nathaniel Villanueva, and written by Matt Michnovetz), turned out to be a meticulously-paced entry port to the latter half of this debut season of The Bad Batch. Rife with intricate, storyboarded-up-the-wazoo fight scenes and bookended by two equally riveting sequences aboard the Havoc Marauder, the episode makes some time to finally explore how Omega felt about this whole “lamming it from the only home she’s ever known” thing, and how she’s still coming to grips with being a clone of an infamous bounty hunter who has lived the first years of her life without a family to call her own. (We’ll come back to Omega’s revelations in a bit.)
As Omega discovers just how valuable she was to the cloners of Kamino, Hunter’s paternal instincts kick into overdrive. (It’s worth noting here that Hunter’s affection for Omega reflects Jango Fett’s bond with Boba, a young clone the bounty hunter once attempted to raise as his son.) After suffering their worst failure yet, Hunter’s Bad Batch hustles out of Bracca with the freshly-singed and absolutely furious Crosshair, who has one of his sharp-shootin’ eyes bandaged up, nipping at their heels. It was that old Star Wars chestnut: heroes attempting to make the jump to hyperspace while dodging fire from their mortal enemy. Only this time Hunter refused to make that jump—at least, not without Omega.
Fortunately for her (not to mention the episode), Echo, who has been quietly stepping into his role as the conscience of the Batch over the last couple episodes, quickly reminds Hunter that Cad Bane was certainly off-planet with Omega and they’d never have a chance to find her if they were shot out of the sky. So it’s to hyperspace that they fling themselves, to parts unknown, burdened with heavy hearts.
The Batch aren’t the only ones hot-footing it through hyperspace in the beginning moments of this week’s episode: Cad Bane’s shuttle, the Justifier, hurtles towards its destination with Omega locked up inside, her only company largely being Bane’s smarmy support droid, Todo 360 (voiced magnificently by Seth Green). However, Omega does get a chance to face her kidnapper, who shows her the kind of mercy you would expect from a gunslinger such as Cad Bane. “No one is coming for you, little lady,” he says artfully over his shoulder, toothpick dangling between his teeth (like a good cowboy ought). Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo are out there somewhere, Omega knows. Getting back to them in one piece is the trick.
Omega’s primary tasks break down like so: navigating the social mores that come with reasoning with a digi-dweeb like Todo; evading that frenetic hallway face-off between Fennec and Bane; boosting a distress beacon from the semi-functional Bora Vio facility so that the Marauder could find her. Omega meets each challenge without losing her nerve once. (She even has the grace to apologize to Todo after betraying his tenuous trust, taking the soldering torch she used to reattach his broken leg and glitching him out with it: “It’s only temporary.”) Later, as Fennec makes her presence known and Cad Bane goes on the offensive, Omega comes upon a long-discarded batch of alien clones, black manufactured eyes staring back at her from within the darkened glass that contain her strange distant cousins. When Fennec reveals that Lama Su has all sorts of heinous plans in store for her, Omega begins to grasp the truth of her existence that Hunter confirms by the end of the episode.
As the newest member of Clone Force 99, Omega has served a particular function on The Bad Batch: the MacGuffin. Secrets and revelations have swirled around this character from the very beginning, and for the first eight episodes, those secrets remained locked up tight. “Bounty Lost” finally opens up the baggage Omega has been unwittingly carrying around with her, which contain information that holds serious ramifications for The Bad Batch as the show propels precariously towards the midseason mark.
So what, specifically, is Omega? First and foremost, she’s a person, one who loves to play ball with kids her age and enjoys learning new things like shooting her new Zygerrian crossbow with startling proficiency. She likes goofing around with Wrecker and trusts Hunter with her life. But as far as Lama Su is concerned Omega is little more than a clone—and this week we discover that she’s probably the most important clone since Alpha was brought into the galaxy well before the Clone Wars. (You’d know Alpha by his other name: Boba Fett.) Omega is a pure genetic replication of Jango Fett, a 1:1 clone created without behavior mods or growth acceleration. And since Alpha, the only other clone built this way, has gone missing (since his dad’s death on Geonosis towards the end of Attack Of The Clones), that makes Omega the only living source of Jango Fett’s raw genetic material.
Echo reasons that the Kaminoans put the bounty on Omega for these reasons, which means they’ll never stop pursuing her until she’s laid out on an operating table and her precious DNA is once again in the hands of Lama Su.
The last time Fennec and Omega brushed against each other, Fennec warned the young clone that, ultimately, the only person Omega will ever be able to rely on is herself. Fennec hits that refrain again this week, which reverberates all the way through to that final scene on the Marauder, where Hunter attempts to reassure Omega that, so long as she had the Batch at her back, she’ll be safe.
“I don’t want to end up an experiment in a tube,” Omega says. “That’s not gonna happen,” Hunter replies, far too casually. Omega knows that the likes of Fennec and Cad Bane will rear their nefarious heads again before this story is told, and again, and again after that, no matter how often Hunter and his Batch fend them off. Her worth is too great to the galaxy’s worst kind of people. This new life of hers may never truly be safe, no matter how many times Hunter tries to convince her otherwise. “You can’t fight them all.” With that, Hunter makes a promise to Omega, which in drama is almost always the kiss of death: “You are never going back to Kamino.” Omega smiles at that, warily.
Stray observations
- When Echo identified Cad Bane for the Batch, he brought up Bane’s participation in the plot to abduct Chancellor Palpatine way back in The Clone Wars Season 4, Episode 18, titled “Crisis on Naboo”.
- There was even more trouble brewing on the choppy waters of Kamino this week: Lama Su called out Nala Se for having a “personal interest in the young clone,” which, he said, had “threatened [their] operation enough.” We discovered Lama’s plans for Omega as he ordered Nala to, upon receiving Omega from Cad Bane, retrieve Omega’s vital genetic material, and then, at last, terminate her. So the revelation that Fennec was hired quite separately by Se to keep Omega safe from Su and his operating table came without a shock. Seems Omega brings out the caring parent in everybody.
- Bane, to Todo: “Get your chassis up here! I can’t see anything in this chop!”
- Todo’s wonder at how “new” his reattached leg felt was cute.
- The abandoned facility on Bora Vio was another lovely environment for The Bad Batch, a Bespin-esque wonder of forgotten spires and wispy clouds. We didn’t spend near enough time outside this week, I think.
- “By hook or by crook, you’re coming with me.”—Cad Bane gets all the great lines and Cory Burton got to emulate a bit of Peter Weller while doing it. I’d be fine with him being the primary heavy of the show next season, just saying.
- It’s like poetry, it rhymes: Omega calling out to the Batch from the sky-high spires of Bora Vio recalls Luke’s hail mary cry from the sky-high spires of Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back. (Just substitute the Force with a wee satellite dish.)
- Bane’s jet-powered boots rule.
- What do you say, group? Is Crosshair’s left eye bound for the pirate patch? Have we seen the last of Cad Bane on The Bad Batch? Are we ready for Omega’s inevitable life-action, grown-up appearance on The Book of Boba Fett? Set your comments to “speculate” below.
47 Comments
I imagine Omega eventually getting away from the Kaminoans will be the explanation as to why the Empire so quickly switched from clones to human troopers. No more DNA, no more clones.
Seems silly. It’s not like they have to use Jango Fett’s DNA as opposed to any other fit candidate in the galaxy at large.
I figure they stuck with the Jango Fett template for the Republic Clone Army, but now that the Empire is in charge, yeah–why not find a new candidate? Why not clone 10,000 Vaders?
So if Omega is, like Boba, an unaltered clone of Jango why is she a female? and blonde? and possibly force sensitive? (at least she has the accent, thankfully that part of the cloning process is till working correctly)
Is it a plothole or is there more to be revealed? (like, did they mean “unaltered” just by the fact they didn’t add the whole fast aging alteration?)
Would you like to look at Boba Fett with a blonde wig on every week?
Speculation, Omeega is not a Force sensitive clone. That makes sense because that’s already The Mandalorian’s thing.The Kaminoans need her because they are holding on to the hope that they can keep supplying troops to the Empire. I find it hard to believe that they don’t have some other form of the original Jango Fett DNA onhand. Why would they want her terminated if they cannot store DNA? Why does she have blond hair?Omega, I didn’t get it. She’s the last clone.Wouldn’t Crosshair become an ineffective shooter with only one eye? I think I heard once it really screws up your depth perception.
You don’t HAVE depth perception with only one eye.
But the Star Wars universe has pretty advanced cybernetics (which certainly the Empire has access to)
That seems like a trope, the sharpshooter with the cybernetic eye.
You don’t have real depth perception but your brain will learn to simulate it at least somewhat from shadows, reflections and such.
I have all the same questions about terminating her. The Kaminoans have lost Jango and Boba. They only have one source of that DNA. Seems that destroying that one source after making a new copy leaves them at risk for the exact same situation they are in now.
They would take her DNA, for a new version, THEN terminate her, since she’s defective.
Life uh finds a way 🤷
They should make a flashback episode on Camino with guest Rhys Darby as the Clones’ elementary school speech therapist/language arts teacher.
Your genotype (DNA) is not entirely your destiny. Y0ur phenotype — how your genes express themselves in a given environment — is actually more important.Hair, eye, and skin color are highly inheritable, but perhaps Nulla Se introduced some variable that altered how Omega’s cells produce melanin, the pigment responsible for brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin. Or maybe it was just an accident. Omega’s DNA isn’t altered. Her gene expression is just very different than Jango’s and her clone brothers. If it was intentional, then why make her so different? TBD.
Oddly, making Omega a female is more straightforward. Jango Fett is human, so he has the 23rd chromosome pair that determines biological sex. The male pair consists of one X chromosome and one Y. The Kaminoans could easily replicate Jango’s X chromosome, delete his Y chromosome and pair the identical X/X set. That would create a clone that is biologically female, yet 100% Jango.
Totally not going to happen fan theory:
Crosshair is going to become Dengar with his bandaged-up head.
Dengar was in The Clone Wars already
Dengar was in The Clone Wars series.But maybe Crosshair traveled back in time?
Aw, poor Crosshair and his sad bandages.
So does this mean that other than being female, Omega doesn’t have accelerated aging in her DNA? apologies if I missed this in the review, or in the show (each of which will be read and rewatched). EDIT: I should have read the review first.
The clones in the abandoned facility were Snoke, right? Didn’t the thing in the tank that broke open all over Fennic look like whatever Snoke is?It’s so odd that the Kaminoeans would have an abandoned facility like that. Presumably during the war they would have tried to get all the capacity they could, right? Why would they have a whole facility just sitting there falling into disrepair? There’s got to be more to the story…
I thought the things in the tanks were cloned experimental Kaminoeans. The one that fell on Fennic looked really tall.
Maybe, but it seemed like the head was too big for a Kaminoan. I’ll have to re-watch that part.
I don’t disagree with your interpretation of what they were, but Snoke was taller than a Kaminoan.
Snoke didn’t have those giant eyes.
I don’t think they’re Snoke at all, but Kaminoans being ultimately responsible for creating/perpetuating Snoke (and possibly Palpatine) would certainly make sense—provided they survive their usefulness to the Empire.
So…Omega is Boba’s sister in some quasi clone way?
Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. Hunter is her quasi-father of sorts, and Wrecker’s her uncle, etc. Found family is the center theme of the series, so Boba being her distant brother makes perfect sense. I especially appreciate how he’s referred to by the Kaminoans as “Alpha,” which only brings these two characters closer together. I’m anticiptating an Omega casting announcment for The Book of Boba Fett. It would not shock me in the least.
Maybe BoBF will be about him searching for his long-lost sister?
I’m no expert in Kaminoan Cloning (I assume some on Wookepedia are), but, I’m guessing Jango Fett’s genetic material works kind of like blood samples in a lab. There are ways to stretch the sample and ‘duplicate’ it, but eventually, you either need new samples or you eventually run out of ways to keep the integrity of the sample.
I assume that after 5 gabijillion clones that they used up all of their samples. (And since Jango Fett can’t provide more samples… that makes Omega very valuable.)
Still, it’s cute that Nala Se is slyly getting all Mama Bear over Omega. I wonder if Jango was offered both Alpha and Omega and decided to just go with Alpha/Boba. (Could a ruthless bounty hunter who kills people for money and sport also be a misogynist? Possibly!!)
So in Rebels, Boba is the same age as Ezra, (they infiltrate the Empire Junior Brigade together – if memory serves) but here Omega is closer in age to Kanan… so could Omega be older than Boba by a few years? They’re clones so… everything is fluid, I suppose. Omega may have fallen out of the tank already formed at age 6 or 10 or whatever the continuity requires. Just trying to wrap my head around the reveal.
Rebels is only a couple of years before the original trilogy, Boba was an adult by then. I don’t remember who else infiltrated that group…Wedge and Hobbs were extracted from it, I think?
I think you might be confusing two episodes of Clone Wars and Rebels. There’s an episode of Clone Wars where Boba infiltrates a group of young clones in an attempt to assassinate Mace Windu (Death Trap), and then there’s the episode that you’re describing of Rebels, where Ezra infiltrates the Empire training academy (Breaking Ranks) where he teams up with another infiltrator, but it’s not Boba. Boba is about the same age as Kanan, a year younger according to wookipedia. (I had to check it out, because after reading your comment, those two episodes also were linked a bit in my mind, but there were details that just didn’t fit right…)
Memory is not serving. Fett wasn’t on Rebels.
I think you’re right. I’ve probably conflated the two shows. I’m at that age now where if I enter any new SW material, it’s at the expense of old material being jettisoned.
I’m sure the “clone aging” thing is designed to be this convoluted so that we don’t spend much time thinking on it. I tried figuring out how old Omega would be in the OT, and I went cross-eyed.
Ha. Yeah. I’m going to stick to the metric of Luke & Leia being born when Ahsoka is 17. Order 66 happens right then, it’s basically year 0. So…? Omega is 12 at Year 0 (roughly the same age as Padawan Kanan Jarrus)She’s 29 during ANHShe’s 35 on Endor Freedom Day40/41 ish when Boba takes control of Jabba’s Palace.Yes, my brain hurts.
This was a nicely paced episode with some great scenes, and now we have the stage set for the last part of the season.And I know I mentioned it a couplethree weeks ago but damn, the background art in this episode was *stunning*. Cheers to all the people working on bringing this show to life, it’s appreciated!
The backgrounds and environments are seriously so good. It makes me want to get a better television so I can better appreciate them.
maybe one of the most unhinged opening paragraphs to a review on this site, ever
A clearly ass-whipped Hunter trying to reassure Omega he can protect her … Omega absolutely not buying it. Hunter, jeez, he’s a hot mess.Echo is the de facto leader. He’s super cool under pressure. He has better judgment than Hunter. He’s perfectly comfortable challenging Hunter. A nice evolution for CT-1409, who was actually the most rigid, the most obedient, the most Reg-est of Regs of all the original Domino Squad.
I really hope they aren’t setting up Omega to be Captain Phasma because that would be a lame end for a good character.
Omega’s older than Luke, and Gwendoline Christie was 37 at the time of filming, so I don’t see that adding up.
Not Phasma. There’s an (apparently quite solid) novel explaining that character’s backstory.
Phasma’s a whole different deal, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
I thought the “by hook or by crook” line was an homage to “The Prisoner.”