With a powerhouse three-episode premiere, Star Wars: The Bad Batch season three starts off with a fast-paced and emotional bang. Together, the episodes set up a story about the lengths people will go, and the sacrifices they’ll make, for those they care about most.
The rest of this article contains spoilers for episodes 1-3 of The Bad Batch season three.
The first three episodes of this season are full to the brim with new information and even more questions. From Omega (Michelle Ang) and Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker) escaping Tantiss to Hemlock’s connection to Project Necromancer, it’s clear fans are in for a wild ride.
However, what struck me most while watching these episodes wasn’t necessarily the connections it makes to other parts of the Star Wars franchise, but was instead the relationships the story continues to foster and explore.
A Duo for the Ages: Crosshair and Omega
Crosshair and Omega have never had an easy relationship. From the moment she entered the batch’s lives, Omega altered the way the other five clones worked. Crosshair, already a little grumpy and stand-offish before the effects of the inhibitor chip, never quite took to her. Regardless of Omega’s efforts to remind him of the familial ties that bound them. However, as we watched Crosshair slowly distance himself from the Empire over the course of seasons one and two, we saw his ambivalence toward Omega shift.
With Crosshair’s efforts to keep Omega away from the terrors of Tantiss having failed, and Omega now in the same prison he wanted her away from, the first and third episodes of season three answer the question many fans have been wondering: what does the relationship between the most pessimistic and the most optimistic members of the batch look like now?
In short, it looks much the same. Crosshair is still reluctant. Omega is still determined. But amongst all the similarity, there’s a subtle shift in Crosshair that colors his reluctance into something new. In ways we didn’t before, we now have a Crosshair who knows he has done wrong, who no longer blames Omega, who wants his sister safe but who can’t help her because he doesn’t think he deserves the same safety. We see this perfectly, and painfully, when Crosshair warns Omega against saving him. “Don’t risk anything for me,” he says after saying her actual name for the first time. “I belong in here.”
Crosshair has made many mistakes, most of which Omega knows nothing about. But one of the most important aspects of every Star Wars story is not only that we carry within us the ability to change, but that we can also carry the ability to see and believe in that change in others. So when Omega looks Crosshair defiantly in the eye and responds with “None of us belong in here”, she gives her most pessimistic of brothers something to hold onto: hope.
This becomes important later in episode three, “Shadows of Tantiss”, when Omega helps Crosshair escape from his cell and they help each other escape from Hemlock’s facility. With a new understanding between them, and perhaps the type of bond that can only come from being held prisoner by the same person, the two clones are able to work toward the hope of getting somewhere safe. Together.
Omega has always put her trust in Crosshair. Maybe now, away from the shadow of Tantiss, Crosshair will heed her words from rotations past and finally learn how to trust enough.
A Complicated Connection: Omega, Emerie, and Nala Se
Though different than her relationship with Crosshair, Omega’s burgeoning connection to fellow clone Dr Emerie Karr is just as interesting.
“I never knew I had a sister.” Omega says as Emerie takes a sample of her blood. “It’s nice not being alone.”
For all intents and purposes, Omega and Emerie are sisters. Not only are they extremely rare female clones of Jango Fett, but they were also raised in labs by scientists who perhaps did not always have their best interests at heart. But where Omega had Nala Se and, eventually, her brothers to protect her, Emerie presumably had no one.
It would be easy to write Emerie off as another cog in the wheel that Hemlock controls, but we’ve seen countless times that she does care and that she does not always follow the rules. She tried to reason with Crosshair at the end of season two, and she gives Omega back her straw tooka doll after the upsetting encounter with Hemlock in episode one, “Confined”. We would perhaps not be wrong in wondering if, as with Crosshair, there’s a tie that binds Emerie to Omega, too. Whether it pulls tighter than that which binds her to Hemlock remains to be seen.
It wouldn’t be the first time we see a scientist turn their back on their work for the sake of Omega. Nala Se has been protective of Omega almost since the first moment we met her in season one. She helped the batch escape with her when they fought off Crosshair; she sent Fennec Shand after her solely to make sure she was safe and away from the grips of Lama Su and the Empire; she refused to even utter Omega’s name to Hemlock until Lama Su mentioned her first. And now, she disposes of Omega’s blood samples and helps her escape once again.
But it’s more than just these moments of aid where we get a glimpse at the bond Nala Se and Omega share. For the first time, this season allows us to see the two working together, something they did for Omega’s entire life before she escaped Tipoca City with her brothers. And these glimpses, though short, make me wonder at the root of Nala Se’s protectiveness. Is she protective of the science that makes up Omega? Is she fearful of what the Emperor and Hemlock could gain from that science? Or is she protective because she cares for Omega, not as a scientific experiment, but as a person?
It’s the same wonder I hold for Emerie. And it’s a wonder I hope the show explores in future episodes.
Family Ties: Hunter, Wrecker, and the Cadets
While Omega tackles her relationships and confinement on Tantiss, the remaining members of the batch are desperate to find her. Episode two, “Paths Unknown”, shows a Hunter and Wrecker stretched to their limits after dozens, if not hundreds, of rotations separated from Omega. Though Echo is away on a mission with Rex, the gravity of Omega’s absence in the boys’ lives is palpable. It’s clear Hunter and Wrecker haven’t spent so much as a day not looking for their sister. Their distress shows itself through the ways they now interact with each other.
I’ve always argued that Wrecker, a character who fans often say isn’t given as much focus as the rest of the batch, is the most emotionally mature of his brothers. This is never clearer than when he’s in charge of an emotionally tortured Hunter.
Throughout the entirety of “Paths Unknown”, Wrecker is not only the voice of reason but also a source of comfort. Every time Hunter is stressed, panicked, worried, Wrecker is right beside him, comforting hand patting his shoulder or back. It’s a subtle addition to their interactions, but it’s something my eyes were drawn to nonetheless. Perhaps because it’s an action we’re so used to seeing between the boys and Omega but not necessary between the boys themselves.
The show furthers this through the interactions Hunter and Wrecker have with the three young clones they encounter (voiced by young Boba Fett actor Daniel Logan and Julian Dennison, both New Zealanders of Māori descent like original clone Temuera Morrison). When young Stak leads Hunter and Wrecker through the jungle, he says that he wishes the other clones felt about them the way the batch feels about Omega.
One of the key storylines of The Bad Batch is an exploration of how the clones, forced soldiers of an ever-changing galaxy, are treated as subhuman. But, as Omega reminds Tech in season two, the batch aren’t just soldiers. They’re family. “Paths Unknown” shows, through Wrecker’s gentleness and Hunter’s fierce determination, what, exactly that means.
It also shows that maybe there’s room for their family to encompass all the clones left behind.
Missing Pieces and Shadows of Tantiss
Though Tech’s and Echo’s absences are felt keenly throughout these episodes, the strengthened relationship between Crosshair and Omega, alongside the exploration of Wrecker and Hunter’s grief, keeps the story focused. This show has always been about the importance of the clones’ bonds, and that’s still true. But that doesn’t mean everything, or everyone, is safe.
We end this three-episode premiere with Omega and Crosshair away from Tantiss, but not necessarily safe from Hemlock’s clutches. We’ve seen the lengths the batch will go for those they care about. But what lengths will Hemlock go for eternal favor with the emperor himself?
New episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch air every Wednesday at 3am (EST) / 12am (PST) on Disney+.
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