‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ Season 2 Episode 12 “The Outpost” – What We Noticed
This week The Bad Batch focused on Crosshair and the continued growth of the Empire. But could a switch in loyalty be on the horizon?
It was another solid episode of The Bad Batch that actually worked to push the story forward and bring us a little closer to the season finale. It was also one of the rare episodes that follow along with Crosshair’s portion of the story. So what is Crosshair up to? What point in the character arc are we at now? And what does this mean for the rest of the Bad Batch?
In order to talk about this week’s Easter Eggs and what we noticed, I’ll have to spoil large portions of this week’s episode of The Bad Batch. If you haven’t watched yet, proceed at your own risk.
Clone Troopes “Retiring”
As the episode begins we see an Imperial officer giving a small collection of clones what feels like a memorized spiel about their retirement and gratitude for their service. The clones point out that it’s a forced retirement and they don’t know what to do from here, but it seems to fall on deaf ears as they are escorted off of the base.
The replacement of clones with conscripted human soldiers has been slowly building throughout the season, but it’s interesting that they are considered to be retired and will, presumably, have some sort of meager retirement package. Whatever the clones do get would be thanks to Senator Riyo Chuchi, who we saw earlier this season fighting for clones’ rights and representation.
TK Trooppers
We also start seeing a lot of TK ‘Troopers throughout this episode. TKs are the standard Stormtrooper you probably think of when thinking of Star Wars. And in another example of things this season has been leading up to, they are everywhere. The clones are out and the Stormtroopers are in–literally, in the same scene–and the transformation of an army made up of clones to that of conscripted soldiers is just about complete. There only seem to be a few clones left, and one of them is Crosshair.
KX-Like Droids
This week’s mission takes Crosshair to a remote ice planet where three other clones are guarding crates of unknown Imperial equipment. Here we see droids that look like an early version of the KX Imperial security droids. They’re a little different in the details, namely, their heads are very different from the KX droids we know, but the barrel chests, broad shoulders, and very long limbs are all similar to the KX design.
Good Soldiers Follow Orders
The outpost from this episode is remote and under constant attack by raiders, so some crates and most of the clone guards have been lost by the time Crosshair gets here. And the Clone Commander he works alongside, Mayday, seems to help Crosshair finally see that the Empire isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The clones here have been asking for help and supplies for months, yet are blamed when they aren’t equipped to protect the goods. Eventually, Crosshair and Mayday are sent to retrieve some lost crates from raiders despite there being multiple full teams of TK troopers coming in the morning who could have gone on the mission or at least assisted.
At the end of the mission, Crosshair and Mayday open the crates to see that they have been protecting TK gear; armor that could have protected them and possibly saved the other clones. But also gear that they weren’t allowed to touch because it was being saved for the very people who they were being replaced with. Mayday points out that they were good soldiers, they followed orders, and we are back to the infamous clone quote.
Crosshair is finally seeing that the Empire isn’t there for him or the other clones, no matter how hard they work or how faithfully they follow orders. But at this point, I don’t know if Crosshair deserves a redemption arc.
What did you think of this week’s episode of The Bad Batch? What do you think will happen next? Do you think Crosshair can be redeemed and welcomed back into the Batch? Let us know in the comments!
May The Force Be With You, Adventurers!
