Today saw the release of the 13th episode in the third and final season of Lucasfilm’s acclaimed animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+, and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment.
Last week on The Bad Batch, Omega (voiced by Michelle Ang) was placed into her new home called the “Vault” at Mount Tantiss, while the other members of Clone Force 99 (all played by Dee Bradley Baker) broke Rampart (Noshir Dalal) out of Imperial prison in an effort to find a way to track her down. And now, in this week’s episode– entitled “Into the Breach”– Omega is settling into her new surroundings while also working to figure out a way to potentially escape on her own. She talks with Jax (Ivan Sinitsin), Sami (Naiya Singh Padilla), Eva (Olwyn M. Whelan), and Bayrn (Shelby Young), who are the other children with high M-counts being held captive at the Imperial cloning facility, about the games they are forced to play in order to keep their brains active, and how many scientists are watching over them at any given time. This reminded me a lot of the memorable Imperial prison episodes of Andor and how Cassian got to know his fellow inmates there before attempting a breakout. Eva also tells Omega how she got her doll– which Omega crafted herself earlier in the season– and that Dr. Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is the only nice adult working at Tantiss.
Meanwhile, Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair meet up with Echo and they all take Rampart with them to an Imperial space station where the ex-officer has told them they will be able to retrieve the coordinates to find Mount Tantiss. They provide Rampart with a stolen Imperial captain’s uniform (which he is initially hesitant to wear because it is far beneath his previous rank of vice admiral) and act as his security detail when arriving at the station. The group– excluding Wrecker, who stays on the ship to monitor comms– is accosted by a lieutenant named Novitz (guest star Jeff Boehm from Angels & Demons), but Rampart is able to talk his way out of it. Back at Tantiss, another scientist working under Dr. Karr named Dr. Scalder (Helen Sadler, who has voiced Rey in LEGO Star Wars games and animation) becomes suspicious of Omega’s activities and doesn’t trust Karr’s ability to keep tabs on the young girl and her new companions in the Vault. At the base, the Bad Batch and Rampart continue toward their goal while Wrecker is approached by Novitz and is forced to knock him unconscious.
This sets a ticking clock on the rest of the mission, which kicks into high gear when Echo is unable to retrieve the coordinates from the station’s computer system. So Clone Force 99 instinctively changes the plan while it’s already in motion, much to Rampart’s dismay. At Tantiss, Omega is able to access the tube system used by the service droids to enter and exit the Vault, while at the space station the Bad Batch use Echo’s ship to latch onto a departing transport heading to Mount Tantiss with mere moments to spare before it jumps into hyperspace toward its destination. Overall I would say this was another exciting episode that inches us ever closer to the final confrontation between our heroes and the villainous Imperial scientist Dr. Hemlock, who did not appear in this chapter. My only minor critique is that I have gotten pretty tired of the “heist” story format being overused in Star Wars content, among other media. But once I got past that, I was able to have a good time watching these plans unfold as our protagonists begin to find their ways back to each other.
New episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch are released Wednesdays, exclusively via Disney+.