– Spoiler Review –
Pulling away from the rogue Clone Force 99 and focusing instead on its remaining Imperial member Crosshair, The Bad Batch’s “The Solitary Clone” is an excellent, riveting episode which forces its lead to truly contemplate how far he’s willing to go.
As a Star Wars Rebels fan, I couldn’t help but immediately notice parallels between The Bad Batch’s season two episode “The Solitary Clone” and a few Agent Kallus-focused episodes of the former show, specifically “Through Imperial Eyes” and also “The Honorable Ones.” Both deal with ISB Agent Kallus and his growing disillusionment with the Empire: “The Honorable Ones” focuses on him having his eyes opened when he’s forced to spend time with rebel Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios to survive, their discussions similar to ones Crosshair and Commander Cody have in “The Solitary Clone,” while this episode’s structure is pretty close to “Through Imperial Eyes,” from how its framed from the Empire’s POV of the conflict and Crosshair’s perspective for the most part. By drawing parallels to these memorable episodes of Star Wars animation past, it helps give us hints on where they plan to take this storyline and show how far the animation and musical teams have come, as they push both envelopes in ways which make “The Solitary Clone” as memorable as those before it.
After the two-episode premiere, I was looking for the show to catch us up with Crosshair, who we last saw stranded on Kamino as the Empire left him behind and Clone Force 99 did its best to bring him along, and episode three delivers beyond my expectations. For starters, we see he’s back as part of the Imperial machine, but more alone than ever, other clones not wanting to even sit by him at the mess hall, while not even his return after nearly a month’s worth of waiting has deemed him the chance to command again. Vice Admiral Rampart, who gives Crosshair his first mission back, even is incredulous about his return, his surprise dictating the choice of mission, which is join Cody as he goes to rescue an Imperial Governor from a planet resisting Imperial control. Beforehand, the two soldiers meet up, discussing Crosshair’s team going rogue and Cody seemingly probing to see how Crosshair feels about defecting, a far different conversation than the one they have at the end of the episode once they’ve returned, standing at the wall of fallen clone brothers outside the barracks. It’s a stark image, a reminder of why they fight, but also an invitation to question why they still fight and what it means to in the fallen clones’ memory.
There’s a lot of silence this episode, purposefully so, giving us the impression of Crosshair’s loneliness, whereas his life was full of sound and food fights when he was with his brothers, so it makes the music usage all the more stark and noticeable, the Kiner Brothers taking it to the next level for this episode. There’s ton of synth-heavy vibes for “The Solitary Clone,” like something out of Blade Runner, as the music begins when Crosshair revels in getting a new mission so he can keep fooling himself he’s just a solider and he’s just following orders, it adds a familiar but twisted feel to the resulting action sequence as the clones breach the local governor’s office to retrieve the Imperial one, and later it plays over a wordless sequence in the aftermath of Cody and Crosshair’s ‘success’ in the mission, highlighting how different and less heroic this world of peace and order is than the one the Republic championed prior to its fall as the music matches the same menacing synth surrounding Crosshair and his choice on how he ended the conflict.
There’s a familiarity to this episode not only to Rebels, but even more so to The Clone Wars, which this is a spiritual successor for anyways, as we fall into the familiar beat of clone troopers destroying battle droids protecting a separatist. Except the rules and sides have changed, but the episode does it best to distract us from that, trying to lull us into the familiarity like the clones likely feel as they methodically take out the clanker army before them. Usage of sound helps with this goal a lot: the slightly darker take on the heroic music from TCW show is trying to tell us the reality of what our eyes are deceiving us into thinking instead, that these are clones doing the right thing…probably the same thing the clones are believing themselves; while the claustrophobic feeling from the close quarters combat taken to new heights with the droidekas rolling into the fray coming from all directions, racketing up the tension and fear of where and when it’ll appear, endure us to how the clones feel in the situation as it sounds like we’re in this tight space with them, the droids an easy target to want destroyed, what we’re used to rooting to be destroyed. But the show doesn’t try to be subtle in the end about the truth of the situation, all these fancy and impressively implemented tricks meant to sympathize us to Commander Cody again, so when he offers peace after he and Crosshair finish storming the governor’s place to find her holding the Imperial one hostage, Crosshair’s choice to obey the Imperial governor and ignore Cody’s work feels like the rug being pulled out from under us, much like Cody feels. It’s not clear at first he feels this way, keeping his expression neutral as he can throughout the wordless sequence of the Imperial occupation coming in, but the scenery and music tells us enough for how he sees the world now and later his words to Crosshair confirm it, meaning there’s no surprise to us when Rampart tells Crosshair Cody’s gone rogue next.
Tawni Ames, the governor of Desix, is an interesting character who, despite all the good tricks, I was rooting for from the start. She reveals she was friends with Mina Bonteri, a Senator in the Separatist government who was also friends with Padmé Amidala, and joined Mina in calling for peace with the Republic but it was rejected by Palpatine. Burned by the rejection, peace hasn’t been an option to her ever since, hence her quick, precise decision to immediately reject any Imperial control, doing her best to keep the planet independent after it left the Republic anyways. Her choices since then are commendable, as the opening sequence shows us a planet that is surviving and making do on its own, unified in its feelings as it flees when the Imperial governor first arrives. Unfortunately for Tawni, she’s on the wrong side of history, but for a moment things look like they might go against the predictable outcome. Cody tries telling her the Empire is the good guys and offering peace, but her words about losing faith in peace make him realize saying it isn’t enough, especially since they have her outnumbered, so he puts down his gun and fulfills what the Empire says it’s all about: offers her peace. She’s willing to take it, moved by the clone’s choice, only for the freed Imperial governor to order her execution, which Cody declines but Crosshair accepts, taking her out. It’s a haunting moment, as it almost felt like things could change, that the Empire could actually be what it claims to be, but Cody finds out firsthand it’s not everything he thought. It’s what drives his conversation with Crosshair afterwards, pointing out they are good soldiers like Crosshair said earlier, but the difference between them and the droids is having to live with the choice afterwards. Whereas Crosshair starts the episode waking up to the morning call, he ends it waking up before the light goes on, restless now, unable to sleep comfortable with his choice, even though he puts on a good face for himself and Rampart when he’s called to the Vice Admiral’s office for his next assignment. By drawing parallels to those Rebels episodes, it seems to hint these final moments might be leading to the same fate of Kallus, potentially having Crosshair join all those clones around him who choose to defect, chip or no chip, but I imagine it’ll be a tougher fight for him to ever make the choice, if he does. What will push him over the edge? What will be the final straw? Or will he die struggling to make the choice? “The Solitary Clone” ends with a renewed interest in Crosshair’s trajectory for me and high hopes we’ll get more moments like this to help keep it interesting and not abandon him again.
There were many times I was awed by the animation, like the gorgeous visuals to open the episode of Desix and later the chilling image of the Destroyer hanging in the clouds, the fields full of Imperials instead of peaceful workers, highlight the stark change in circumstances and misleading “peace” they offer. I also liked some of the little things, like seeing the view through Crosshair’s little pucks or the way the droid, with an explosive attached to it, slinks back and through the droideka’s shield to destroy it, as these both added subtleties and more delicate movements to the animation repertoire. At the same time I was amazed, it also highlighted how egregious the continued unwillingness to actual fix the whitewashing problems with Clone Force 99. They should look different from the other clones, but lightening their skin tone to be closer to white than their off-screen Māori father is not a necessary choice, as this difference in skin-tone brings in racist tropes of the darker skinned clones as inferior. There’s been a rallying cry against the group’s portrayal for some time now, with loads of great information on the #UnwhitewashTheBadBatch Carrd or a lengthier, more in-depth discussion of the problems via Gizmodo, but it’s gone unaddressed by the teams behind the protect. I’m not holding out hope they’ll fix the problem before and/or for any potential season three.
The Bad Batch’s “The Solitary Clone” might be one of its finest episodes so far, taking the time to explore Crosshair and the repercussions of his choices, using animation, the score, and even silence to communicate more than what words even could.
+ Silence and various sounds, music used to great effect this episode
+ Finally seeing Crosshair and him dealing with his choices
+ Tricking us to make the ending hit harder
+ Tawni’s story
– Unwhitewash the Bad Batch
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 Two: 1.1/1.2 Spoils of War & Ruins of War
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 | 1.14 War-Mantle | 1.15 Return to Kamino | 1.16 Kamino Lost