As the words The Clone Wars burn and fade into The Bad Batch title screen, and we hear the same over-the-top narrator in the opening shot of the new Disney+ show, or when the clones later called droids "clankers," I was quickly reminded I'm basically watching more of The Clone Wars.
When Disney first announced The Bad Batch, I wasn't overly thrilled. Another animated cartoon show set in the same time period as The Clone Wars and, to an extent, Rebels? Yawn. I mean, it's Star Wars, so I knew I would watch it, but going into it, I already felt like I would be somewhat disappointed.
The first episode, titled "Aftermath" (annoyingly so since a recent Star Wars book from a totally different time period had the same title), did just enough to make me think I might be wrong and that I will enjoy this show enough.
For starters, the first actual scene already filled in a nice little gap that showed how much connective tissue this show has within the Star Wars universe. We see a young Jedi witness clone troopers turn on his Master as the Emperor issues Order 66 - which, of course, establishes the exact timeline of the show - and he has to make a run for his own life. This young Jedi is Caleb, who grows up to be Kanan Jarrus, the lead Jedi in Rebels who mentioned a bit of this backstory during that show.
It's always nostalgic to see overlap between the shows and the movies. There was some overlap in Season 7 of The Clone Wars, which released last year, and the opening of The Bad Batch did the same. We saw the Emperor's speech when he turned the Jedi into fugitives for committing treason and reorganized the Republic into the first Galactic Empire (to thunderous applause, of course). But this time, we hear the speech from the perspective of the clones, who now believe the war is over.
When Clone Force 99 returns to their home on Kamino, they sense something is amiss. As they arrive to the facility, a dead person underneath a sheet is carried away, and then a lightsaber drops to the floor. They quickly realize the terrible truth about the hunt for the Jedi (I'm curious if this Jedi will turn out to be someone significant).
Clone Force 99 is a squad of five cliched archetype soldiers. Their names are Wrecker, Hunter, Echo, Tech, and Crosshair (you know, because this is a kid's show and cliched names are mandatory). No time is wasted establishing their origins because we've already been introduced to this group in The Clone Wars Season 7. It's probably a good decision not to spend too much time reintroducing them, but the side effect of that is the rushed feeling of the episode's big reveal, which completely falls flat. See, it seemed like these five were the last five clones created in this batch, but it turns out Crosshair actually was just a normie; instead, this young girl we're quickly introduced to named Omega is actually the fifth clone in this batch. More on her in a moment, but suffice to say, the story already trying to pull off a twist like felt completely ill-timed.
There's definitely more to this Omega girl's story, though, so I'm assuming they just wanted to get that little tidbit out of the way early. Each clone in the bad batch had their genetics modified to be good at something (as their uncreative names imply). But Omega seems gifted in many ways; more importantly, she seems to have force abilities. At one point, she was telling Crosshair that something he was feeling guilty about was not his fault, as if she could sense something. She also seemed to be a crack shot. Maybe she has all of their abilities in some way?
So who exactly is Omega? Whom is she a clone of? Theories suggest she might be a unaltered clone of Palpatine, which is why the Empire is so interested in shutting down the Kamino's clone operation and keeping her existence secret. She could be an experiment by the Kaminoans (the same ones we first meet in Episode II: Attack of the Clones) themselves; the woman Kaminoan seemed to be very attached to Omega, almost as if she was her mother in some way. In an act somewhat of treason, she even helped Omega and the Bad Batch escape at the end of the episode.
Admiral Tarkin was involved in another pretty sweet little story tidbit that fills a gap I've wondered about regarding the Kaminoans. Tarkin (not yet General) visits the Kaminoans and tells them the Empire is no longer interested in clones, much to the chagrin of Lama Su, Kamino's Prime Minister. Tarkin explains that they would prefer to recruit troops instead of grow clones, so he wants to end their contract with Kamino (and possibly shut them down for good? I imagine they would need to since there is no mention of them the rest of the saga). The greatness of this scene is two-fold: first, we get further clarification regarding the dissonance between the sharp clone troopers and the useless storm troopers who can't hit anything. Secondly, this is technically the earliest in the Star Wars timeline (at least, to my recollection) that we hear the Empire use the word "recruit," which fleshes out the propaganda and early storyline in Solo: A Star Wars Story, during which Han himself went along with the Empire's recruitment program. Pretty cool to see the start of that transition.
The Clone Force 99 group, though, catches Tarkin's attention. He puts them through a fun test (we see this test room during The Clone Wars), and he later sends them on a mission to see how useful they can be to him. He wants The Bad Batch to eliminate some straggling rebel insurgents on Alderaan.
And who is leading this radical insurgent group? Why, none other than a young Saw Gerrara, of course! That was a pleasant surprise. Saw's original appearance was short-lived, but between his involvement in the video game Jedi: Fallen Order and a brief mention in Rebels, he is getting put to better use. We basically see the very beginning of Saw establishing his independent radical group. Saw is trying to save a group of displaced refugees who got lost in the shuffle of the Empire's takeover.
The Bad Batch, of course, decides it's better to go against Tarkin's orders and not eliminate these people. Well, all except for Crosshair. He also suspiciously wanted to kill Caleb at the beginning, so maybe his encoded programming was still there in some capacity. The tension he causes throws a wrench into the group's chemistry, which was maybe the best element of the entire story, but this dynamic seems to be thrown away by the end. Crosshair ends up betraying his squad, who returned to Kamino to retrieve Omega after disobeying Tarkin's orders.
We get further implications of Omega's Jedi skills when she proves to be a crack shot when helping the Bad Batch escape capture upon returning to Kamino. What's frustrating about Omega is the exact same thing that turned people off to Rey. Here is a young girl with obvious talent, but she has no idea how she was using any of it! She's had no training. She apparently has no idea who she is or what she's capable of doing (assuming she's someone significant, of course). It's the Rey storyline all over again. At least Rey's understanding of machines as well as her resourcefulness and such were plausible. But at least Omega doesn't come across as the goofy, bumbling kid Anakin was when taking down the droid ship at the end of The Phantom Menace.
If Omega does have connections to the Emperor, it would sort of connect what we've learned during the two seasons of The Mandalorian. The Empire is willing to conduct experiments to learn all it can. If Omega is force sensitive, Palpatine definitely would have an interest in experimenting on her, possibly to learn how to achieve his ultimate goal of immortality.
As I said, there's just enough connection to the rest of the universe to keep me highly interested in the story. The characters and general presentation, of course, is geared for kids, but I rebuilt my tolerance for that last year when I binged The Clone Wars and Rebels in preparation for the final seventh season (which was so awesome).
I wonder what other gaps this show may try to fill in? Will we find out who saved Grogu from the burning temple in Coruscant after the Republic turned on the Jedi? The timing for that would be just right. Maybe it was Jarus, though he never mentioned anything like that in Rebels (seems like a big omission; maybe he felt the need to keep Grogu a secret?).
At the end of the episode, the crew is heading to J19, a place referenced in "The Clone Wars" during an episode when Rex and company discovered the whereabouts of Cut, a rogue Clone trooper who left the war to start a family. It's possible Clone Squad 99 may have connections to Cut, so bringing back a character like that could be cool. It'd be cooler, of course, if they meet up directly with Rex. Ahsoka also is around at this time, and I fully expect to see her at some point, though she may come later.
One final, more somber thought I had at the end of this first episode: I feel like we're in a Rogue One situation where this entire group needs to die at the end. They're never mentioned, they don't appear later in the timeline at all. So why would this kick-butt group of rogue cloners just disappear? "More likely they were wiped out."
Notes:
-I know it's not any kind of messaging, but coming off the heels of Falcon and Winter Soldier heightened my response to hearing Saw refer to them as refugee for sure!
-Wrecker has the coolest look of the five Bad Batchers. He's basically what Marvel's Crossbone would look like if he was a clone.
-The name of the squad is Clone Force 99. The number 99, of course, is an upside down 66.
-It makes sense that Tech seems to know who Saw is and the fact that he was trained by Anakin and Captain Rex.
-I love that Omega had this little stuffed toy for Wrecker. We see stuffed toys in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and even Rogue One. Could be a new tradition akin to lines like "I have a bad feeling about this" or the Wilhelm scream.
-A lot was covered in this first hour-plus-long premiere. Whether the writing will stay this good remains to be see, but I'm not holding my breath. They have 15 more episodes to go still.