As always, all good things must come to an end. The Star Wars series, The Bad Batch, ended in early May with a jam packed finale that concluded a powerful final season of a wonderful show.
Season three picked up several months after the season two cliffhanger that saw Omega (Michelle Ang) captured by Imperial forces. She is in a facility where the Empire is conducting a secret project that is of great interest to the Emperor, known as Project Necromancer. Also imprisoned in the facility is Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker, who voices all of the Clones in the series), the Bad Batcher who left his brothers and joined the Empire, only to later see how the Empire does not care about the soldiers serving it.
The season starts with Omega planning an escape with Crosshair. In previous seasons, we hardly saw Omega and Crosshair alone. But this season, their relationship is front and center as they work together to figure out an escape and find the other members of the Bad Batch. Omega and Crosshair’s relationship can be seen as an inversion of the relationship between Omega and Hunter. While Hunter is Omega’s protector and a father figure to her, Crosshair functions much more like an older brother. Although, as Omega reminds Crosshair in a comical fashion, she is technically older than him.
Eventually, Crosshair and Omega are reunited with the surviving Batchers, Hunter and Wrecker. Predictably, it takes time for Crosshair to acclimate to being with his brothers again. He knows they don’t trust him because of his previous actions. Still, he tries to make amends and will protect his brothers at all costs. He will also do whatever he can to protect Omega and make sure she is safe.
The most intriguing part of the season deals with Dr. Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson) and his management of Project Necromancer. Dr. Hemlock oversees this project, which evolves the Kaminoian cloning techniques introduced in Attack of the Clones and takes it a step further by having the project attempt to clone a midichlorian count (which would in effect clone someone’s Force abilities) While not explicitly stated, the series implies that the project is how Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, who makes a return appearance this season) is able to cheat death at the end of Return of the Jedi, setting up his return in The Rise of Skywalker. This helps tie the series into the rest of the saga, as Project Necromancer is also briefly mentioned in The Mandalorian.
Easily the biggest lesson of all from The Bad Batch, but especially from season three is to never underestimate children. They will often surprise you with the solutions they will come up with to problems. This is shown through Omega, who uses her smarts many times in the series, particularly in season three, in order to overcome challenges and help others. The show’s epilogue also shows how Omega will use what she’s learned from her brothers in the future, though I won’t say much more than that.
All episodes of The Bad Batch are streaming on Disney+
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