– Spoiler Review –
Hope you enjoyed last week’s nice little break, as The Bad Batch’s return with “War-Mantle” is just the tip of the iceberg for the end of the show’s first season, ending on a big cliffhanger that will probably take the final two episodes to resolve!
We’ve known about Project War-Mantle since early in the season, which is the plan to use the highly experienced clones to train the recruits the Empire prefers to use for an army—a small example of Crosshair and his special forces squad—and now the conveniently named episode “War-Mantle” shows us the project writ large. It’s been unfortunate the show hasn’t broken from Clone Force 99 more and focused on Crosshair training the special forces, instead only showing them on a few missions often reacting to the Bad Batch’s actions, so it’s been hard to see if there’s any real progress or change in their abilities. Is Crosshair’s squad’s example enough for the Empire to want to stop using clone troopers and cancel everything with the Kaminoans or does the success of the project change nothing, the plan already being to rid themselves of the clones? It’s pretty clear by the end of the episode the project was a smoke-screen for their goal to phase out using clone troopers, its success mattering not, and Crosshair’s team is rather one small part of a larger project already in motion. A distress call from a clone trooper causes Rex to reach out to the Bad Batch, as he’s otherwise engaged, and their trip to a seemingly empty planet instead hides the Project War-Mantle base, where recruits from all over the Empire’s worlds are being trained by Republic Commandos. Why buy an army when you can recruit one for free? And why not use the resources available to you, the experience of highly trained clones, to give these fresh faces the skills to be a formidable army? As the Bad Batch sneaks its way through the base, one thing is alarmingly clear, regardless of the new recruits’ skills: there are a lot of them and their overwhelming numbers cause the Batch trouble. I loved the little ways the episode made the distinction clear between the skills of the clones and the fresh stormtroopers: the Batch able to evade their swarms for so long or the Imperial clone commandos causing the biggest trouble for the team, like the one jumping around on the elevator’s top to get ahead of the escaping group,* shows the clones’ advanced abilities; for the stormtroopers, especially when flying, we see them struggle to be evasive, crashing into one another even, while they end up shooting down one of the clone commandos simply because they saw a target and shot. It’s clear the clones’ skills haven’t totally translated over, as we all know by the time of the Rebellion, but their strength due to numbers is already apparent here, as it results in the capture of Hunter! Oh yeah, this episode is not messing around.
But how about I back up a bit? When Rex contacts the group, he’s in a sticky situation of his own, and he puts the onus on the Batch to rescue a clone in distress. Like the last few episodes, a debate on whether to go or not starts, with Echo the most vocal about helping the clone since it’s his friend Rex asking, while Wrecker’s hilariously there to tell Hunter everyone else speaking has a valid point. It’s Omega again who tips the scales for Hunter to the rescue mission, pointing out helping Rex’s friend is more important than getting paid, even if means less food. While these debates between the team about taking a mission have often been funny and intriguing, they are growing a little stale, week after week after week, so I’m hoping by the end of this season and into the next this format changes and they have far less of those. Landing on the Outer Rim world of Daro, it seems empty, despite what we as viewers know thanks to the opening scene showing the clone in question being chased by other clone troopers and their massiffs, but Hunter’s tracking skills come in handy, helping them find the War-Mantle base built into the mountain. Omega and Wrecker are left on the ship for backup and Hunter nearly takes everyone back once they see the size of the base, but Echo’s insistence they need to help this clone, who so clearly doesn’t want to be there, just like they helped him, is enough to put the small strike team into action. Getting to the cells is the easy part, but once the escape begins, complications arise as Tech finds out his codes are outdated compared to the current Imperial ones while Echo’s ability to jack-in takes even longer now with new protocols, while the swarms of troopers stack the odds against the group.
When the imprisoned trooper’s identification number was mentioned, it sounded oddly familiar but I couldn’t place it, though the moment he spoke it clicked: Clone Commando Gregor! Originally found with amnesia on Abafar in The Clone Wars, seemingly dead in an explosion while helping the droids of D-Squad escape, his survival came at some cost, as he was a little kooky by the time the crew of the Ghost found him and the other surviving clones slinging joopas in Star Wars Rebels, but he was still the crack commando till his dying breath. Some of the cracks in his psyche show through here, as he’s already got his funny though odd little chuckle, but he’s still a commando through and through; I really loved how he took a stun blast to the legs and kept hobbling along, showing strength of purpose in his escape during the opening and that impressive commando conditioning. He fills them in on what’s going on with War-Mantle, helping them see how the days of the clones are truly numbered, and mentions he’s not teaching the recruits everything he knows or else they’d be in real trouble during the escape. As the escape carries on and the clones are trapped on the edge of a cliff like something out of Fugitive, Omega and Wrecker arrive in the Marauder, helping a few of the Batch onto the ship before they must fly away and shoot down some pursuing ships. There’s a lovely little moment where Tech takes the controls from Omega, saying, “That will suffice,” and it’s probably the most positive, loving thing he’s ever said to her, which is lot from him. They go back to the remaining trapped Batch upon losing pursuit, though damage to the ship causes it to list away as Hunter jumps for it and he manages to land on the stairs…but then he slips and is unable to hold on, tumbling down the mountain and through trees to the ground below. As he slowly recovers, two Imperial squads surrounding him, he sees the danger the Marauder is in and makes the call: get out now and leave him behind. There’s no debate this time, besides pleading from Omega, and the team jumps away, knowing they’ll need more help to rescue Hunter anyways. As Hunter sits in jail, Crosshair arrives, disappointed it wasn’t the full Batch but that’s when the episode cuts to black, so I hope we get more scenes of these two together, with Hunter hopefully trying to break through to his comrade. This cliffhanger was an excellent moment for the show, giving it some perceivable stakes that haven’t always been there and setting the stage for what is sure to be a big final two episodes. Typically something like this seems to happen in a penultimate episode so whatever’s coming should be quite eventful, especially since it’ll force the rest of the team to figure out the plan of action for the rescue without their leader for once, thus making their own decisions and seeing how well they know each other and their abilities.
Throughout the season, The Bad Batch has provided a view into the Kaminoans and their plans, be it against each other when it comes to Omega or against the Empire’s steady wind down of their production. The drama unfolding and their reactions to the Empire became more intriguing than I expected and it all splashes to the surface in “War-Mantle,” as despite Lama Su and Nala Se’s differences, where Se wants to save Omega and not harvest her like Su, he warns her the Empire cancelled all their contracts and they must prepare to flee, as he suspects they’ll be cancelled next. As she rounds up personnel to join them, Vice Admiral Rampart finds her subterfuge, bringing her to Lama Su to question how far up the conspiracy goes. In the moment, I thought Nala Se had purposefully gotten caught, hoping to take down Lama Su so he’d never harm Omega, but her surprise when Rampart decides to have Lama Su killed and keep her captured for future scientific needs shot down my theory, as she clearly was surprised. With all the clones being taken off Kamino, I wonder what the Empire will do with the facility, either use it or let it fall into decay, ending up like the abandoned facility Omega, Cad Bane, and Fennec Shand found themselves a few episodes back.
Here are a few other things:
- *Was it just me or did the coloring on the one clone commando (the only one with color on their uniform who shot Gregor a few times) look suspiciously like Scorch of Delta Squad, the stars of cult classic video game Republic Commando? Earlier in the season, when Lama Su and Nala Se discussed starting their next phase of cloning due to Jango Fett’s genetic code degrading, they mentioned the clones necessary were unwilling to return, which I theorized was Delta Squad, but it turns it, so far at least, they were referring to Omega and Boba. Did Delta Squad succumb to the inhibitor chip, hence this Scorch-like commando, are they at the base following orders but maybe free-minded like Howzer was, or am I talking about them for no reason again? In a base full of clone commandos, I feel like the odds are high we’ll see them, but we’ll know soon enough either way! UPDATE: According to the episode guide, the commando was meant to look like Scorch…not actually be Scorch. They are canon and they are out there… somewhere still.
- Gonky, via Omega plugging him in, helps save the day a bit by charging up the Marauder’s shields! Every member of the crew has had a memorable moment now!
- Those gorgeous vista shots that continue to amaze week after week? I’m not 100% certain this is true of every week, but it makes a lot of sense if it was: Joel Aron, Director of Cinematography Lighting & VFX at Lucasfilm, revealed the ones this week at least were hand painted! No wonder they are so dang gorgeous all the time.
- The little notes of Imperial motifs, when first seeing the nascent stromtrooper armor or as they wind their way through the base, were excellent connective tissue by the Kiner family.
- Speaking of stormtroopers, I liked the look of this early variation, almost more than the style we all know from the original trilogy, and I’ll be curious to see how it evolves into the style we know considering how close the clone trooper armor already was getting.
The Bad Batch’s “War-Mantle” ends with a terrific cliffhanger that will force the team to work together without their leader and promises an unavoidable showdown with their corrupted ex-member in the season’s final two episodes.
+ Gregor!!
+ War-Mantle uncovered
+ Kaminoan drama escalate
– THAT’S WHERE YOU END IT?!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
THE BAD BATCH REVIEWS
Season One: 1.1 Aftermath | 1.2 Cut and Run | 1.3 Replacements | 1.4 Cornered | 1.5 Rampage | 1.6 Decommissioned | 1.7 Battle Scars | 1.8 Reunion | 1.9 Bounty Lost | 1.10 Common Ground | 1.11 Devil’s Deal | 1.12 Rescue on Ryloth | 1.13 Infested