A stop for supplies and repairs to the ship turns into danger for the gang when someone very lethal takes an interest in Omega.

Last week’s episode really upped the ante for The Bad Batch, giving me a reason to finally take some interest in what the show was trying to do. This week, it’s a little less special in that regard, but it has my attention anyway because the characters are so relentlessly likeable and the action is very compelling.

Discovering that their ship is now tagged on wanted lists everywhere, and without adequate supplies, the gang decide to stop off at the nearest planet to make some modifications and stock up for the road ahead. Problem is, their arrival doesn’t go unnoticed, and when their presence is revealed to a very familiar mercenary, their day gets even more complicated than it already was.

Week by week, each character is really growing into their role – Wrecker the brash, big-hearted goofball, Tracker the worried, paternal figure, Tech the often unintentionally funny and technically capable but lacking common sense guy and Echo the slight outsider embraced by the team and often stuck with the really crappy jobs. Omega is perhaps the best of all – the plucky young kid who is often underestimated by those around her. Together, they make the show worth watching.

The action is the other half of that equation, and like The Clone Wars before it (or what I have seen of that show to date) it’s fairly unflinching in terms of violence and its consequences, which may surprise some unfamiliar with that earlier show and coming in expecting a standard cartoon. There’s casualties aplenty in the crossfire between the Bad Batch and their adversary here, as well as plenty of nuanced stuff concerning the end of the war, the nature of the victory and the dark side of the new order quickly being established in the galaxy.

While it perhaps lacks the emotional punch of last week’s episode (a fact I ascribe to an absence of Crosshair and his own particular strange tale in all this), it’s a damned entertaining half hour – these are characters I can’t help but want to spend time with, and the pace and sophistication of the narrative is welcome.

Verdict: Still firing on all cylinders, though perhaps not quite as much to chew on here with no Crosshair. 8/10

Greg D. Smith