The Solitary Clone (The Bad Batch - S02E03) - Animated Series

Discuss the latest Chapter! (Discussion)

"You know what makes us different from battle droids? We make our own decisions, our own choices!" SPOILERS.

No one likes Crosshair

A series may have an issue if the most interesting episodes turn out to be the ones not featuring your regular main characters. While I gave the two part Rebels prequel in season 1 a bad rating, I only did so because it felt very weird to have a Rebels prequel with minimum involvement of the Bad Batch, similar to how The Book of Boba Fett suddenly turned into Mandalorian season 2.5 halfway through the season. But in isolation the Rebels prequel was among the best we got in season 1. And now, after the two episode season 2 premiere last week we leave our regular heroes behind once more and instead we get an episode that focuses entirely on Crosshair and Commander Cody. And it turns out that while this episode suffers from the same issues the entire series is suffering from (more about that soon), it's also by far one of the best The Bad Batch episodes yet.

Cody tells Crosshair that more and more clones have their doubts about Order 66

And the reason The Solitary Clone is one of the best episodes yet is that it has actual character development and that the inside view of the very early Empire with clones still serving as the bulk of the new Imperial army is far more interesting than yet another oddjob and fetch quest. And while these moments are unfortunately very short, they still provide a lot of insight. And of course it will please many fans to see Commander Cody again. The plot of the episode can be summarized in a few sentences. The Empire wants to take over a former separatist planet, but the governor of said planet is very much in opposition and they want to remain independent. When the appointed Imperial governor arrives with his squad of troopers they are taken hostage. Crosshair is then assigned to Cody's squad (Rampart doesn't trust Crosshair with his own command yet after Kamino) and they are supposed to free the governor and defeat the insurgents.

Insert lots of action here (symbol photo)

The insurgents have command over a sizable army of droids and what follows is a very lengthy action sequence in which Crosshair and Cody take out the droids. We eventually get the showdown between Cody, Crosshair, the Imperial governor and the separatist governor. Cody has had it with the fighting and proposes a peaceful solution, he promises that no more blood will be shed if the Imperial governor is released and the separatist agreess. But then the Imperial governor orders the woman to be shot, Cody refuses to carry out that order, but Crosshair pulls the trigger and kills her. Back on Coruscant Cody and Crosshair have one final talk and Cody reveals some of his own thoughts to Crosshair, that the difference between them and droids is that they make their own choices. When Crosshair receives the orders for his next mission from Vice Admiral Rampart a short while later we learn that Cody has gone AWOL. He's had enough of the Empire.

Cody is absolutely not ok with how things turned out

As mentioned above the reason this episode so much better than the season 2 premiere - or much of the entire series really - is that for once we don't have any pointless fetch quests and silly antics by Wrecker, Omega and co. Instead we get short, but insightful glimpses into the everyday life of Crosshair, a clone that is liked by no one, not even fellow clones who shun him and want nothing to do with him. Another interesting, very short, tidbit is the conversation of the regular clones in the mess hall in which they talk about the the new proposed Imperial recruitment policy, they hope it will not be passed into law for their sake, in short, they are afraid they will become obsolete once regular humans are accepted en masse as troopers.

And then there's Commander Cody of course, who is still serving, but you can tell that he seems to have second thoughts about it all. He still has integrity and a moral compass, he does not just blindly follow orders. So it makes sense when he proposes a peaceful solution, a solution that is actually accepted. But it turns out the Empire is of course pure evil and the Imperial governor orders the insurgent shot, despite Cody's promise that no harm will come to her. And this in turn results in Cody defecting. The scenes with Cody and Crosshair were well written, on the one hand we have Cody, who is less than enarmored with what's going on and on the other hand we have the robot like Crosshair who still claims that soldiers should just follow orders and not concern themselves with anything else. And Crosshair is still all about orders, he kills the separatist in cold blood after all. Still, my general feeling is that Crosshair's stoic facade will eventually crumble as the series progresses. Giving him no arc at all, i.e. just maintaining the status quo for him, would be incredibly boring.

All of the scenes with the clones, Cody and Crosshair were actually very interesting to see, a Bad Batch series which would have focused on a few clones serving in the Imperial army, offering an inside view of how things gradually change and how the clones, some of them, begin to question the morality of it all may have been really compelling. Instead we get the much less interesting "defectors on the run and doing pointless fetch quests" most of the time.

Now, this episode still suffers from the usual Bad Batch issues. And that is an overreliance on endless action scenes. As usual the action itself is perfectly fine, seeing Crosshair and Cody take out all the droids and making their way up to the tower was fun, but when your episode has maybe 5-7 minutes of plot and 15+ minutes of more or less non stop action things are simply out of balance. Especially when there are zero stakes since neither Crosshair nor Cody can die. Of course The Bad Batch is meant to be light entertainment, geared for younger audiences and families and in that context the endless action may be fine, but still, I feel a bit more plot would benefit the series greatly.

But the biggest issue is, and I mentioned it at the beginning of the review, when stand alone episodes about guest characters and secondary characters turn out to be so much better than most episodes featuring the actual main characters. Let's hope the episodes featuring the actual Bad Batch will leave the fetch quests for Cid behind much sooner than later. We know from episode summaries that we will get two Crosshair episodes this season, this was the first one. I wish we'd get a few Cody episodes as well. Actually, I wish The Bad Batch was a different series altogether and about characters like Crosshair, Cody or the regular clones in the mess hall entirely. Let's hope the series will shake things up and that the episodes featuring the main characters will become more interesting too. Or else it will be a long wait until the next Crosshair episode.

The Solitary Clone is worth your time and a much stronger effort than the season premiere. Still very light on plot, but the plot we get is really good for a change.