Serving as a sort-of midseason finale, we get two episodes of “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” this week.
Both reestablish the secret assassin operative program the Empire tried to assimilate Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker) into. These assassins are ultra loyal by their reconditioning and apparently can be tracked via a super secret method that few can disengage, which ends up being the downfall of Rex (Baker) and the rogue clones under his care.
We open with a failed assassination attempt by one such operative to kill former Republic Sen. Riyo Cuchi (Jennifer Hale) and former Separatist Sen. Avi Singh (Alexander Siddig), who are seeking to form some alliance. After capturing the operative, Rex takes him under his care and invites Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair (all voiced by Baker) and Omega (Michelle Ang) over to warn Hunter that Omega was one of the operative’s targets and to get more info from Crosshair on the program.
Given that the assassin was being tracked the whole time, the Empire sends in another one to kill him. Upon discovery of Omega, the second operative summons a clone strike team lead by Commander Wolffe (Baker), who has been kept in the dark about the operative program and Mount Tantiss.
Rex’s base is taken out so easily it’s embarrassing. I understand he had no way of knowing that the captured assassin was still being tracked, but the way in which his base of operations was organized allowed the second one to figure out how to cripple them in seconds and I fail to see why Crosshair and company needed to come to the base in person at all. The whole setup of the episode feels a bit contrived, but it does plant the seeds of Wolffe’s eventual desertion of the Empire — by the time we see him in “Star Wars: Rebels,” he’s long since joined Rex.
The best parts of the episodes come when Howzer (Baker), who’s now joined Rex’s group, confronts Crosshair about his actions against him on Ryloth that led to the deaths of some of his men. Howzer, remembering that Crosshair took the Empire’s side over his in that conflict, doesn’t trust him and that’s something Crosshair has to earn over the course of Episode 7.
Aside from that, Assassin No. 2 becomes a good rival for Crosshair, given that he’s also a sniper. The two dual in Episode 7, and Crosshair would have lost if it were not for Howzer. But we learn that No. 2 survived, setting up a potential rematch in the episodes ahead.
These episodes do set up some story elements for later, but they are mostly filler. I enjoyed them, but they are far from the peak of this show, and miles away from the best episodes of the show’s predecessor, “The Clone Wars.”
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch” Season 3: Episodes 6 and 7 get a 7/10
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