Today saw the release of the climactic episode of the third and final season of Lucasfilm’s animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+, entitled “The Cavalry Has Arrived,” and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this concluding installment.
“The Cavalry Has Arrived” is one of those series finales that hews pretty close to exactly what I would have predicted, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing for The Bad Batch. All the dangling plot threads come to a head as Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair (all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) continue their incursion into Mount Tantiss, although Wrecker’s injuries after having fought that creature last episode prevent him from taking a major role in Omega’s rescue. Meanwhile inside Tantiss base, Dr. Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes) leads Echo (also Baker) toward the Vault, where she believes they will be able to help the captive children escape. Little does she know that Omega (Michelle Ang) has already made her egress with Jax (Ivan Sinitsin), Sami (Naiya Singh Padilla), Eva (Olwyn M. Whelan), and Bayrn (Shelby Young) in tow.
Those five children make their way through the base’s droid access tunnels until arriving at the chamber where the Zillo beast is also being held prisoner. They manage to set it free and that’s when chaos breaks loose as well, although Dr. Royce Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson) doesn’t lose his cool quite yet. He activates more Clone X troopers who set upon, knock unconscious, and capture Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair. After sending the four other high-M-count kids on their way with Dr. Karr via a stolen shuttle, Omega and Echo then set free the remaining clones, plus the Kaminoan scientist Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) and ex-Imperial officer Rampart (Noshir Dalal). Nala Se takes it upon herself to destroy the research being done at the lab, but Rampart follows her, intending to steal the information for himself and sell it back to the Empire.
Thankfully, Nala Se is both literally and figuratively one step ahead of Rampart, and when he kills her it sets off the thermal detonator she’s holding in her hand, destroying both of them and the invaluable cloning data at the same time. Nala Se has a great line here about how the technology “will always be Kaminoan,” foreshadowing how Emperor Palpatine will struggle to perfect Project Necromancer without her help all the way through to the events of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Hemlock gets a holo-call from Governor Tarkin (guest star Stephen Stanton), who is concerned about the pandemonium breaking out at the base, and insists he will be arriving himself to take things under control. Then there’s a couple really big exciting action scenes involving the Bad Batch breaking free of their restraints, combating the Clone X troopers, and eventually taking out Hemlock, who falls to his death from a landing platform outside of Mount Tantiss.
The reunited Clone Force 99 make their escape into hyperspace moments before Tarkin’s Imperial fleet arrives to shut down Tantiss base “indefinitely” (rerouting all of its funding toward Project Stardust, AKA the Death Star) and our heroes– as has been telegraphed since last season– settle down permanently on Pabu. The only problem I have with this is that the Empire is now aware of the island-planet’s existence and that the Bad Batch were using it as a hideout, so why does it remain secure for the next decade or so while these characters all grow old together? Either way, it’s a nice resolution that sees Hunter bidding farewell to Omega as she goes off to fight in the rebellion against the Empire. And that’s where The Bad Batch leaves things, with a predictable but satisfying send-off that thankfully didn’t do anything exasperating like revive Tech at the last minute (despite all my worries that it would). I could have used a couple more left-turn surprises here and there, but most of all I think this finale gave fans what they wanted… and ultimately, finally let those war-torn clones have some peace.
The complete series of Star Wars: The Bad Batch is now available to stream in its entirety, exclusively via Disney+.