Star Wars ‘The Bad Batch’ Episode Eight Easter Eggs
A less than welcome clone reunion and an appearance from one of the fandom’s favorite bounty hunters are all worth unpacking this week on The Bad Batch.
Lama Su Hired Fennec Shand
This wasn’t a gigantic surprise, and honestly something that I think many of us assumed from the beginning, but in a conversation between Lama Su and Nala Se on Kamino, it is revealed that he is the one sending bounty hunters after Omega – and by extension the Bad Batch – in an effort to get her back.
This is especially interesting because Nale Se seemed to be the one pulling the strings that allowed Clone Force 99 to escape with Omega in the first place, but it seems that she is too important of a clone to just let go of. There is a lot to unpack here as the Kaminoans clearly and openly view the clones as commodities, but Nale Se seems to have a soft spot for the irregular clones and especially Omega.
Crosshair
The title of this episode was “Reunion,” so it was implied pretty early on that the rest of The Bad Batch would be reunited with their old friend, Crosshair at some point. And after the Scrapper Guild alerted the empire to Clone Force 99’s location in the last episode, it’s no surprise that their former friend showed up this week. Crosshair is his new-old self still, repeating what good soldiers do and being generally ruthless in the face of the should-we-kill-kids dilemma, but the episode doesn’t go great for him towards the end.
What should have been a great plan to fire up the engines and get rid of Clone Force 99 ended up with a very close escape by the batch and what looks like they could be some pretty horrible face burns for Crosshair. By the end he’s giving orders from behind a few layers of bandages and a breathing apparatus in a look that is very reminiscent Anikan’s transition to Darth Vader. The good to bad shift, burns, face covering, and breathing assistance are all basically the Vader check list sans the force. But this leaves us wondering if, and under what circumstances, Crosshair will get a moment of redemption. If he continues following the Anikan roadmap, it will be the very end of this season and have pretty tragic results.
Cad Bane
Cad Bane is one of those characters who almost never shows up to do anything but make the protagonist’s life harder, but you can’t help but like him. His appearance is probably going to be bad news bears, but we can’t not quietly hope that whatever he does is super badass. One of the leading bounty hunters in the galaxy, Cad Bane has briefly worked with characters like Aurra Sing and IG-88 and done battle with Obi-Wan and Anikan while taking high profile jobs from the Hutts.
Unfortunately this week, he and his wild-west aesthetic succeeded in knocking down Hunter and collecting Omega for Lama Su. As far as bounty hunters go, Cad Bane is pretty much the biggest gun you could call in, so the Kaminoan Prime Minister clearly wants to see results yesterday. Also, as a fun behind-the-scenes aside, Cad Bane’s stand off with hunter was shot-for-shot of the mock-up for a deleted season 7 stand off between Cad Bane and Boba Fett.
