The Batch find themselves cornered.

Following last week’s fairly emotional episode as Wrecker was put under the full influence of his inhibitor chip and the whole gang finally got their chips removed and waved Captain Rex off, this episode brings back a familiar face or two as the activity of the gang on the old starship attracts the attention of the Empire, specifically in the form of former comrade Crosshair.

Thus begins a tense game of cat and mouse through the wreck as the Batch try every trick they know to evade the force of stormtroopers arrived to take them in, only to find that Crosshair remembers all those tricks as well. It does some genuinely interesting and bold things with the idea of the escape through the innards of the wreck, and you’re never quite sure who’s going to come out on top until the very end.

Meanwhile, another face familiar to long term fans of the Star Wars franchise pops up to have a crack at taking Omega away from her squadmates. The episode finally confirms what had seemed obvious in terms of exactly who it is paying the hunters to go after the child, and it’s clear that the politicking of the new era of the nascent Empire has truly only just begun.

There’s also the usual Bad Batch fun – Wrecker continuing Omega’s training with a lesson in how to disarm explosives, Tech’s ever reliable dryness of wit and some great battle scenes, and these help with offsetting the overall dark and fairly bleak tone of the piece. By the end, things have happened you wouldn’t necessarily expect, and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of certain famous faces by a long shot yet.

Verdict: Uses humour effectively to balance out the darkness. 8/10

Greg D. Smith