Hello and welcome to Laughing Place’s weekly recap of new episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch on Disney+. This week’s installment, entitled “Decommissioned,” is the sixth episode of the animated series’ first season.
“Decommissioned” begins on Ord Mantell, where the members of Clone Force 99 are still hanging out in Cid’s underground cantina. Echo (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, as are all the adult clones in the Bad Batch) is training Omega (Michelle Ang) in the use of the laser crossbow she found in the previous episode. The bar patrons cheer her on and bet on her success as she fires at a target on the wall. “Soldiers need to be consistent,” says Echo when Omega hits the target three times out of twelve attempts. He emphasizes the need to tune out distractions, and says that skill comes with practice. Weirdly, use of the crossbow seems to be one of the few things Omega isn’t immediately great at. Cid (Rhea Perlman) enters and tells Wrecker that playtime is over; they need to talk. She briefs Clone Force 99 on a mission to Corellia to retrieve a Separatist tactical droid from a decommissioning facility.
Hunter says the Bad Batch hasn’t decided if they’re going to work for Cid or not, but she decides for them and declares them to be “in” because she’s offering them “a mutually beneficial arrangement.” Cid also tells Omega to build up the strength in her arms to improve her crossbow abilities. On the mission, Tech attaches the Havoc Marauder to the undersize of a larger ship to get Clone Force 99 past Corellia’s planetary sensors, while the clones explain the importance of tactical droids to Omega. “With clones now serving the Empire, knowing how to defeat them just went up in value.” They land the ship at the industrial dockyard and approach the decommissioning site on foot. They find the facility guarded by police droids, but manage to sneak past them into the interior, where they find droids being melted back into raw materials.
Wrecker knocks out a guard and the group splits up, with Omega using her macrobinoculars to search for a tactical droid among the scrap parts. Hunter stuns two machinists and Tech hacks into the foundry’s computer system, discovering that exactly one tactical droid is listed in the database. “The rest have already been destroyed.” Omega spots the droid on a conveyor belt, though it’s already in pieces. She spots one of the workers grabbing and running off with the droid’s head. Omega finds herself confronted by Rafa Martez (a character returning from the final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, voiced by Elizabeth Rodriguez), who says she can’t have Omega getting in the way. Rafa receives a communication from her sister Trace (Brigitte Kali), who says she’s “got the target.” Omega tells Rafa not to answer the call, threatening her with the crossbow.
Echo, Tech, and Hunter find Trace and hold her at blaster-point. They all demand to know who each other are, while Rafa manages to disarm Omega, sending a laser bolt into the wall of the facility and unleashing panic among the workers, who lock down the factory due to a security breach. Wrecker fires on the approaching police droids and Rafa breaks away, with Omega in pursuit. Trace also escapes the other members of the Bad Batch and tells her sister to meet her at the rendezvous point. On the catwalk, Trace throws the tactical droid head to Rafa, who immediately runs headfirst into a police droid and drops the head down to the conveyor belt below. Hunter and Rafa fight off droids while Omega and Trace scramble for the droid head, but Omega manages to get to it first. In overriding the lockdown, Echo shorts out the facility’s entire computer system.
Wrecker tries to get to the main control panel to reboot the system, but finds the bridge to the platform retracted with a dangerous fall below. He makes a jump for it, perilously swinging on a claw and reaching the opposite side, but not without banging his head on a hard metal wall. He does manage to pull the switch, restarting the conveyor belt and accidentally knocking down Omega, who drops the droid head, which Trace immediately grabs once again. Above, Wrecker finds himself with a splitting headache and starts to repeat the mantra “Good soldiers follow orders.” He collapses in a fire fight with the police droids, while Hunter asks Rafa why she and Trace are after the tactical droids, though she refuses to answer. Trace is running off with the head but sees that Omega is stuck on the conveyor belt and is about to be dumped into a pit of molten metal.
Hunter rigs up a cable to take out the catwalk’s support posts, eliminating the droids he and Rafa were fighting. Omega actually briefly falls into the pit but stands on the pile of droid parts about to be melted and is helped out by Trace and Hunter at the last second. Rafa drops down to their platform and complains that Hunter almost got her killed. Hunter says if they want to get out of there, they need to work together. “Fine, but I still don’t like you,” says Rafa. Tech calls to Wrecker over the comm to no response, while a larger wave of police droids heads into the facility. Trace comes up with the idea to use the tactical droid head to activate and control the decommissioned battle droids all around them, and Tech helps to boost the signal. Meanwhile, Wrecker wakes up, seemingly at least temporarily no longer under the influence of Order 66.
Trace’s plan doesn’t seem to be working, but Wrecker drops down and starts taking out all the police droids. “Now him I like,” says Rafa. Tech finally gets the tactical droid working and Trace uses it to activate the battle droids and set them against the police droids. “Never thought I’d see battle droids helping us,” says Echo. The group escapes from the chaos and Trace calls her droid R7 for a pickup. During their egress, a police droid shoots the tactical droid head from out of Trace’s hands, destroying it, but Omega helps take out the police droids with her crossbow. “It’s all about tuning out distractions,” she says. The team boards Trace and Rafa’s ship and take off, with Trace thanking R7 for his help. “Whoever Cid’s buyer is isn’t going to be happy,” says Omega. Rafa criticizes Clone Force 99’s allegiances, and Trace says their own contact needed the information in the droid’s head to fight the Empire.
Rafa asks why the Bad Batch isn’t fighting on the Empire’s side, and Hunter explains that they’re different from the other clones. After they land back at the Havoc Marauder, Omega bids farewell to the Martez sisters and offers for them to visit sometime. Before they leave, Hunter gives Rafa a data rod containing the tactical droid’s intel, saying she’ll “use it for the right reasons.” “In the end, we all choose sides,” says Rafa just before the two ships leave Corellia. On their ship, Rafa uses R7 to make a holotransmission to their unseen contact, telling the mysterious figure about the Bad Batch and that she knows where to find them. “Thought you might want to know.”
New episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch are released Fridays on Disney+.