It’s another big week for the Star Wars franchise, with a really fun episode of The Mandalorian and several new comics coming out. But what shouldn’t– and in all likelihood won’t– get lost in the shuffle is the two-episode second-season finale of Lucasfilm’s animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+.
The first of these two exciting episodes, entitled “The Summit,” begins on Pabu, where Clone Force 99 (all the male members of which are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and Omega (Michelle Ang) are sifting through the stolen information brought to them by Echo at the end of the previous installment.
Their only lead is a summit being held by high-ranking Imperial officers on Governor Tarkin’s (Stephen Stanton) home planet of Eriadu. That’s where Dr. Royce Hemlock (Jimmy Simpson)– the cloning scientist who’s hunting for Omega and is currently keeping Crosshair hostage at Mount Tantiss– is headed, so the Bad Batch plan a covert mission to track him down. They say goodbye to Pabu for now, and Phee Genoa (Wanda Sykes) makes her feelings more clearly known to Tech as they depart the island. Then we see the titular summit beginning to take place, with Hemlock required to give a progress report about his work on cloning Emperor Palpatine– though he doesn’t quite come out and say that in so many words– and even one Orson Krennic (Ben Mendehlson) from Rogue One making a cameo appearance to discuss Project Stardust (AKA the Death Star). Clone Force 99 arrives and make their incursion into Tarkin’s compound, where they run into rebel extremist Saw Gerrera (Andrew Kishino), who is more intent on destroying any and all Imperial targets than rescuing captive soldiers, regardless of who they may be. Anyway, things go south and the Bad Batch find themselves trapped inside a suspended cable car dangling over a seemingly bottomless chasm as they attempt an egress, which gives us this episode’s fairly literal cliffhanger ending.
Then this week’s second episode, entitled “Plan 99,” picks right up where “The Summit” left off– with the Bad Batch dangling over the aforementioned abyss on Eriadu. An attack by Tarkin’s forces further complicates things, and in the sure-to-be-most-talked-about moment from this season-two finale, Tech sacrifices himself to ensure that the other members of Clone Force 99 make it to safety. Despite traversing the rest of the track successfully, Omega gets knocked unconscious in the ensuing crash and wakes up later in Cid’s bar on Ord Mantell. There, she is devastated to remember Tech’s apparent death, but she doesn’t have too much time to grieve the team’s tragic loss before the Empire and Dr. Hemlock show up, having been alerted to their presence by Cid (Rhea Perlman). Soon Hunter finds himself surrendering to Hemlock to save Wrecker, and then after a climactic showdown outside, Omega is incapacitated and taken into Imperial custody. Having gotten what he needs, Hemlock leaves stormtroopers in charge of Hunter and Wrecker, who are summarily rescued by Echo and the flying medical droid AZI-3 (Ben Diskin). The remaining members of the Bad Batch vow to find Omega, and then we cut to Mount Tantiss, where the young clone is reunited with the Kaminoan Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) and placed in a room with a “recovering” Crosshair.
Next comes the shocking twist ending that leads me to believe that the creative minds behind The Bad Batch are almost certainly planning for the show to get picked up for a third season, if it hasn’t secretly been already. Omega remains in Imperial custody and is introduced to the character known as Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes), who reveals herself to be her sister– another female clone of Jango Fett, only adult-aged. This has pretty huge implications for the show going forward, if indeed it does go forward (I imagine we’ll find out next week at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London). And yeah, there’s already some fan outcry over the loss of Tech– though as someone with decades of experience consuming Star Wars media, my first assumption tends to be “no one’s ever really gone.” But whether Tech survives or not, this two-part finale sets up more adventures for a show I would have guessed would be ending this year. If and when we do get a third season, I would also predict a redemption arc for Cid and a resolution to the whole question of “What happens to the rest of the clone troopers?” After all, it’d be pretty dark if their ultimate fate was as involuntary guinea pigs in Dr. Hemlock’s twisted experiments. Like the first season, I thought season two of The Bad Batch was something of a mixed bag, but I still find myself left curious to see what happens next.
Star Wars: The Batch Batch seasons one and two are now available to stream in their entireties, exclusively via Disney+.