Infiltration / Extraction (The Bad Batch - S03E06 & E07) - Animated Series

Discuss the latest Chapter! (Discussion)

"Wish I'd felt the same. I have unfinished business with this one!" SPOILERS.

Best senator ever

The Bad Batch released a double feature this week with the latest two episodes Infiltration and Extraction. While the two episodes are somewhat light on plot and once again focus very much on action a couple of very interesting things happen and in my opinion the two episodes are certainly the best so far in season 3. The setup is this: Rex provides protection for a covert meeting of two senators, it is none other than Riyo Chuchi (who played a crucial part in the season 2 two-parter about the fate of the clones after the war) who wants to have a confidential chat with another senator who is a former separatist. What we see here is of course once again the very early proto rebellion at work, with Riyo trying to form alliances with likeminded senators who are no friends to the Empire and want to be free again.

Rex uses some prime real estate for his hideout

Somewhat unfortunately maybe Riyo only has a short scene, because the episode is all about one of the special ops clones (the ones who are brainwashed and conditioned on Tantiss) tracking the senator Riyo is going to meet, he is his target and the Imperial assassin tries to take him out. But Rex and his men manage to corner the assassin and even manage to capture him. This is where we leave Riyo and instead the focus is now on Rex. He flies back to his base and there he tries to interrogate the clone, but to no avail.

And yet another assassin is sent to deal with the situation

The Empire meanwhile knows about the capture of the assassin, so they send yet another assassin to deal with the situation. We learn that the assassin clones have internal homing devices, so the Empire knows exactly where the clone is. Since he has gone dark they naturally assume that he was captured and they have a very simple solution, the new assassin is to kill the captured special ops clone, just in case his conditioning may break and he talks after all.

Rex finds out that the Empire is after Omega

Rex and his team meanwhile manage to crack the assassin's data puck and find out that the Empire is not just after the senator Riyo met, but that they also want Omega. Howzer, whose fate was unknown after his first appearance on the show (he might have easily been dead) is not dead after all and is now with Rex, he suggests that they bring in the Bad Batch, not just because Rex wants to inform them that the Empire is still hunting Omega, but Howzer thinks that now since Crosshair is with them again they really need to have a chat with him. While Rex tells Howzer that Hunter already questioned Crosshair Howzer is more skeptical and insists they talk to him as well to find out what he knows about Tantiss and whatever else is going on. Howzer of course has some issues with Crosshair after what he did not just to Howzer, but also his squad on Ryloth where most were killed.

That awkward Thanksgiving reunion

So the Bad Batch make their way to Rex' hideout and Howzer lets Crosshair know that he has serious issues with him, very visible tension and distrust hangs in the air and things are pretty uneasy.

Star Wars... where the Jedi send 14-year-olds into war and little kids are happy when they get lethal weapons as gifts...

The captured assassin clone still won't reveal much. Howzer meanwhile states what I have been thinking all this time since Omega and Crosshair espaped Tantiss: how come Crosshair, who escaped the place on a shuttle, still does not know the coordinates of the base? Crosshair merely states that he doesn't. I talked about this last week, in my opinion this is a major oversight in the plot, Omega and Crosshair took an Imperial shuttle, plotted a hyperspace route to the planet they eventually crashed on, I do not see how they could not know the coordinates of Tantiss, yet the writers think otherwise. Howzer is also sceptical about the fact why Crosshair is not a brainwashed assassin like the other captured clones... Crosshair explains that being a "defective" clone has some perks, because he reveals to Howzer that they tried of course, but failed to condition him.

In the crosshair...

The second clone assassin meanwhile has found Rex' hideout and has infiltrated it. He reports his findings to Tantiss and tells them that Omega is on site, which prompts Tantiss to send in regular clonetroopers under the command of none other than Wolffe who are meant to capture Omega and get her back to Tantiss. Wolffe insists that Rex and the others are not insurgents, but fellow clones, so we get a hint at where Wolffe's loyalties may ultimately lie. The clone assassin meanwhile kills the captured clone and what we get then is an extended cat and mouse chase where Rex, Hunter and co try to escape from the clutches of the Empire.

Where does your loyalty lie?

The escape sequence and game of cat and mouse is actually pretty entertaining, there are stealth takeouts, blaster battles, close encounters with death and ultimately a duel between Crosshair and the assassin clone, Crosshair is still not up to his previous standards and you can tell he really isn't the best shot in the galaxy anymore, eventually Crosshair and the assassin clone fight in a river, the two of them float towards a massive waterfall. Crosshair is pulled out of the water at the last moment, but the assassin clone goes down the waterfall, only to survive the massive drop of course.
But ultimately Wolffe and his remaining troops corner Rex and the others. And Rex tries to appeal to Wolffe's loyalty. He tells him about what the Empire is doing to their fellow clones on Tantiss, experimenting on them, brainwashing them. He also points out the very dubious fact that the Empire is after a mere child, who does that? Wolffe is still skeptical and doesn't really want to believe it all, but he makes an important decision: he lets Rex and the others go. So now we know where Wolffe really stands.
After their close encounter with the Empire Rex and Hunter have a chat and Hunter is still all about lying low, he is convinced the Empire is too strong and can't be defeated, so he is pretty fatalistic. Rex will not have it though and ultimately he also urges Hunter to find out why the Empire is after Omega and why she is so important to their secret project. Because they (mostly Omega) are prime targets and will never be able to lie low while the Empire is hunting them.

All in all the two episodes were really enjoyable, certainly the best two episodes this season thus far, maybe not quite on the same level as some of the season 3 highlights, but still really good and much of that has to do with a lack of giant alien monsters trying to eat the Bad Batch and a shift of focus away from Omega and to Rex, Howzer, Crosshair and Wolffe. In fact, it is interesting to see how the Bad Batch character dynamics has evolved since the pilot. Hunter has mostly been relegated to a secondary character now, whereas the true focus is on Crosshair. I believe the showrunner Jennifer Corbett and her writers maybe realized eventually that Crosshair is simply the clone with the most narrative potential. He's not a do-gooder, he has complex motivations, he is the archetypical anti-hero and he also has a classic redemption arc, all of which makes him the most interesting character in the Bad Batch lineup. So in season 3 you can see how the focus is almost entirely on Omega and Crosshair, with Hunter relegated to being more of a supportive character, he's still the leader of the group, but where previous seasons more emphasized his father role, the relationship between Crosshair and Omega is more at the forefront now.

And one more thing is now super apparent: the big theme in season 3, maybe throughout the entire show, is loyalty. Omega has unwavering loyalty to all her fellow clones, including Crosshair and all the captured test subjects. Hunter is mostly loyal to his small team and puts that above else. Rex on the other hand is loyal to the clones in general and is also willing to go to great lengths to rescue everyone from the clutches of the Empire. Crosshair, who for a long time was portrayed as a pretty solitary man who is loyal to a fault to the Empire because following orders is what soldiers do had his loyalty put to the test and he admits in the two-parter that the relationship with the Empire was very onesided and while Crosshair wanted to be loyal, the Empire considered him an expendable resource. Crosshair's loyalty to his team mates is not entirely clear, but in season 3 you can tell that he is definitely loyal to Omega, maybe because she never stopped caring for him and believing in him and even helped him escape Tantiss, Omega can be very endearing. Then we have Wolffe, who, while a loyal soldier to the Empire still, apparently considers loyalty to his fellow clones to be more important. So when presented with a choice he puts his loyalty to the clones above all else. I also believe this loyalty to fellow clones is what contributes to the downfall of clones, it simply is a risk to the Empire when your armed forces are more loyal to their fellow brothers in arms than the Empire, so it's advisable to have normal recruits, people who just want a job or money maybe, who would potentially be more loyal to the institution paying them than their fellow soldiers.

What else... even though it is unlikely I would wish that either Andor and/or Ahsoka season 2 would reveal the ultimate fate of senator Riyo and Omega, it would be nice if either Riyo had a cameo in Andor (or a small role) where we see her as someone who helps Mon Mothma and I also wonder if Ahsoka will ever reveal the fate of Omega, of course this all depends on how The Bad Batch ends, I assume Omega will stay alive, the fate of Riyo is less clear, she plays a very dangerous game and could be found out at any moment.

One thing I found decidely odd and funny for all the wrong reasons is how Omega happily accepts a small energy crossbow as a gift from Echo. I know, it is fiction, but still, sometimes Star Wars has some very questionable messages. From Qui-Gon stating they are not here to save slaves and leaves behind the mother of Anakin (or the simple fact that in an advanced hyperspace civilization with droids slavery even still exists or that no one is doing anything about it) to the Jedi merrily sending child soldiers into war (seriously, who sends 14-year-olds with hyper lethal lightsabers into battle in a massive all out war?) to a little kid now getting a gun, because, yeah, 12-year-olds should absolutely accompany experienced special ops clones on dangerous missions and learn how to shoot things or other people. Star Wars can be somewhat odd at times.

Another thing that always strikes me as odd is how uninformed and uneducated the people in Star Wars are. Here we have various clones who all served with Jedi in the Clone Wars, yet when Omega briefly explains the experiments they perform with the blood samples of clones on Tantiss and mentions the term "m-count" no one knows what that is, only Rex believes he may have heard that before but doesn't know what it is either. Ok, I could understand why a soldier may not be super familar with all the details of the Jedi generals and their mystic powers, but what I never understand is how in Star Wars such things as "lexicons" or "wikipedia" do not exist where you could easily look up something like "m-count". No one ever has access to readily available information, yet they all have ships with computers, terminals, data pads... and none of these devices includes a library of essential books, lexicons, anything? I mean, the Jedi were a very prominent force in the Old Republic, you'd expect there to be countless books on the Jedi and their religion and books explaining how the Force works, i.e. that the Midichlorian count in your blood is primarily indicative of an individual's power level and that it is the Midichlorians that allow people to use the Force in the first place. Actually, I would even expect this to be common knowledge in a galaxy where space wizards can do these fantastic things, People should be super fascinated by all that and want to know all about it. Yet no easily available books, lexicons (electronic or printed) about all that seem to exist in Star Wars, at least none of the major players ever seem to have access to any of them which I find extremely implausible. As implausible of course as the fact that in A New Hope everyone seems to have forgotten the Jedi ever existed (or believes they were fake charlatans) after twenty or so short years, when the Jedi were a primary faction in the Galaxy for thousands of years before that. In short: it makes no sense for Rex or any of the other clone veterans to know nothing about the Jedi and how their Force works. Did Rex never ever in all his time with Ahsoka ask her about the Force? If I met someone like Ahsoka in real life I'd want to know everything about her fantastical powers. And while clones are genetically altered to be more submissive and obedient, they are still human with a mind of their own and that includes natural curiosity. It is a small detail, sure, but it is things like these that sometimes make Star Wars feel a bit lacking when it comes to believable worldbuilding.

Anyway, Infiltration & Extraction are certainly worth your time, the focus on Rex, Crosshair and all the other clones, with Omega mostly in the background this time, does the story huge favors, because Omega, as a main character, is simply not interesting enough to carry entire episodes. Crosshair however is certainly the best character of the series, a good example of a truly complex character in Star Wars who has to cope with his past and all the bad things he did in the name of the Empire he was loyal to, until his loyalty was trampled with feet and he realized his loyalty was squandered. So it's an uneasy life for him now, with psychological trauma that even affects his performance in combat and former friends and colleagues are very distrustful of him, other than Omega who may be a bit naive, but her unwavering loyatly and belief in Crosshair is probably more important to him than he would ever admit. In previous seasons all the Crosshair episodes were the stand out highlights, I hope the writers will put the focus more on him in the remaining episodes than Omega who underwent pretty much zero character progression and is just not complex enough to carry a story, in fact, she's more of a McGuffin than a well fleshed out protagonist now with the Empire after her, which is the primary plot device now. So if you have ignored season 3 thus far but liked some of the great previous The Bad Batch episodes you should definitely give the two-parter a try, it's more The Clone Wars than The Bad Batch with all the appearances of classic clone characters and even the action this time around is pretty great, no monster hunt, instead you get an intense cat and mouse game, special ops stealth ninja clones and some pretty great character dynamics between Rex, Howzer, Wolffe, Crosshair and Hunter.