Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 Spoiler-Filled Review

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an action-adventure sci-fi animated series created by Dave Filoni. He is the creator of Star Wars Resistance and Star Wars Rebels, and supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Tales. For over eight years, Filoni has headed Lucasfilm Animation, which has produced all Star Wars-related animated series since 2008. The first and second seasons aired in 2021 and 2023, with this third season airing from February 21st to May 1st of this year.

The first and second seasons of this series centered around Omega (voiced by Michelle Ang), who worked as a medical assistant on Kamino, and her “brothers,” a group of elite clone troopers, specifically Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo. Although each of these clones have different personalities, they all are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.

In my review of the first two seasons, I noted that Omega forms a family-of-sorts, known as the Bad Batch. They try to avoid bounty hunter Fennec Shand (voiced by Ming Na-Wen, reprising her role from the live action Star Wars Disney+ series) or fellow clone Crosshair (also voiced by Baker), both attempting to track them all down, and the might of the newly-formed Galactic Empire. They work as mercenaries for Cid (voiced by Rhea Perlman), remove their inhibitor chips, and meet with other renegade Rebels (and clones). Through it all, there is an ongoing theme about working together toward a common goal, which is tested as Kamino is obliterated in Star Destroyers commanded by an Imperial officer named Vice Admiral Rampart (voiced by Noshir Dalal), with our heroes barely escaping with their lives.

As I wrote, in January 2023, the series relies on a simple good/evil dichotomy. The Galactic Empire is concerned about stability and order, but in a malevolent way, cracking down on disobey. This includes Rampart’s idea of a chain code registration system and erasing all that existed from the Galactic Republic. Rampart kills clone commander Wilco (voiced by Baker) after he refuses to falsify a report. The Bad Batch forgets about past allegiance to the Republic, only fighting for their own survival. These clones get involved in the criminal underworld, meet rebels, and help preserve history. The Empire occupies a “disobedient” planet by force. The second season ended with Omega being taken away by the Imperials.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch comes at a time that Lucasfilm Animation has been working on Star Wars: Tales and Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. The former series recently aired its most recent iteration, entitled Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, on May 4th. Previously, Lucasfilm Animation worked on Star Wars Resistance (2018-2020), Star Wars Forces of Destiny (2017-2018), Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020). Otherwise, the animation studio’s parent company, Lucasfilm, has produced live-action series like Ahsoka, Andor, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Willow, and two series set to be released this year: The Acolyte and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.

The first episode of season three thrusts the viewer back into the story, primarily by centering on Omega. She is adapting to her new life on Tantiss where she’s a prisoner in all but name. Doctor Emerie Karr (voiced by Keisha Castle-Hughes) claims that she isn’t, but this is a lie. However, Doctor Hemlock turns out to be a much crueler character than Karr: he leaves troopers to die in the jungle after a shuttle is downed in the jungle due to the weather. He is dedicated to getting blood samples from every individual behind bars within the facility.

Luckily, Nala Se defends Omega, throwing away her blood samples to protect her. Nala Se goes to the vault with an armed escort. Omega tries to connect with Crosshair (who seems as if he doesn’t want to be rescued), and saves a wounded hound named Batcher. Hemlock becomes skeptical of Nala Se, claiming, rightly, that she is intentionally delaying the M-Count enhancement. He declares, almost like a cruel prison warden, that emotion and sentiment have “no place” within the walls of the base.

Hemlock resembles the actual poisonous European plant, which has compound umbels of “small white flowers and finely divided leaves,” according to the fourth edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary. This herb was even mentioned in the fourth act of Macbeth by one of the witches who spoke of the “root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark.” At the same time, Hemlock is strategic, knowing that Omega is needed for Project Necromancer to be successful. He does not predict the escape of Crosshair and Omega coming, an attempt which barely succeeds. While he lets them escape, he imprisons Nala Se, branding her a collaborator who deserves no rights, and dedicates the Empire’s full resources to find Omega.

The Bad Batch takes many risks to find out where Omega is being held. They discover a former lab of Hemlock’s but this facility was destroyed by orbital bombardment. In that same episode, they fight off slither vines and barely escape with their lives. In the process, they meet three clones, Mox, Deke, and Stek, who left the facility. Crosshair and Omega, who crash-land on a planet, go through something similar. They do not return to Tantiss because the Empire is searching for them. They barely get onto a cargo ship. Thanks to these efforts, Omega is able to reunite with Wrecker and Hunter, who are unsure if they can trust Crosshair (can you blame them?)

Later episodes show the tensions between them. It also indicates that Hunter and Wrecker still care about him. They even kept his armor in case he came back. Hunter learns why Crosshair was arrested: he murdered an imperial officer who killed a clone! This surprises Hunter. It helps, to an extent, redeem him, in Hunter’s eyes. More than that, however, working together to stop a creature from destroying the base, along with Tech and Omega, helps bring Crosshair back into the team. Through it all, the pro-military themes come on heavily, even more than series like Girls und Panzer or the plethora of Japanese naval-themed anime.

The Bad Batch depicts growing sentiment for true independence from imperial control. The Empire attempts to stop this with assassins, in part. Such people are former clones who underwent conditioning which erased their identities, so they can be the Empire’s pawns! The Bad Batch barely win against these mercenaries and appear to not care about saving troopers anymore, especially toward those trying to kill them. In a powerful scene, Commander Wolffe, who’s leading a squad which is trying to capture Omega, lets the “rouge clones” (the Bad Batch) escape, implying the brotherhood can cross enemy lines.

The Empire’s human experimentation is never shown positively. Their web of control is vast, even bringing in Fennic Shand, a bounty hunter once hired by the Kaminoans to abduct Omega. She tells the Bad Batch she will give them information about M-Counts. However, she actually works for the Imperials, implying she works for anyone who will pay her. This lack of morality is clear with many mercenaries in the Star Wars universe and it reminds me of Doctor Aphra’s moral grayness.

It’s significant that Crosshair’s hand is hurt not because of physical wounds, but psychological ones. This causes Omega to tell Crosshair that he is the one who has to fix his hand, since it couldn’t be healed with usual methods. The depiction of mediation did remind me of scenes in Star Wars Rebels. It didn’t come off, to me, that this mediation will heal Crosshair, but rather that it will improve his state of mind. Although this doesn’t seem like a “military” approach, in writing this review I came across an article interviewing some veterans and active U.S. soldiers who say yoga (and mediation) have helped to ease their “trauma, emotional or physical pain, and stress and anxiety.”

The Bad Batch makes good points about how the Force is not genetically determined (saying it isn’t in your blood) and brings back characters shown in the related series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. One such character is Asajj Ventress, who the clones detest, knowing she is bad news. Tech digs up files from the Republic archives. Her response shows that they are sort of on the same side. She notes that the Clones and her were pawns in the same war (the Clone War) and says that the Galactic Empire is more dangerous than they think. Omega serves as a force of redemption. She says they should give Ventress a chance. She helps Omega, but falsely says she doesn’t have a high M-Count, when she knows the opposite is true!

The tenth and eleventh episodes take an even darker turn. Force-sensitive children are kidnapped and brought to “the vault,” declared to be “assets” who need to be experimented on. This dehumanization is a way for those like Emerie to justify their experimentation without feeling guilty about what they are doing. The children are even referred to by numbers, rather than names. Nala Se tries to encourage Emerie to help the children, but she feels trapped in this entire system. At the same time, Tarkin serves in a position akin to an inspector general. He declares that if Hemlock’s experiment doesn’t yield proper results, his program will be ended (basically).

Any disobedience is harshly punished by the Empire. One child, Jax, who tries to escape, is put in solitary confinement. Another declares that Emerie lied and is angry with her. Emerie shows some compassion, giving her the doll that Omega had made and left behind during her escape. One young child deemed to be easy to control because of her age.

This leads to the eleventh episode. The Bad Batch is about to leave Pabu and the Imperials track Omega there. They attack the city, destroying sea skiffs and other ships, so no one can escape. All the domiciles are searched until she is found. The bounty hunter, hired by Hemlock, defends brutal tactics despite the mayor’s protests. The episode ends when she surrenders herself so that people will be spared. Her plan falls apart. Crosshair fails to put a tracker on the ship which takes her away. She should have fought against the Empire instead.

In the final four episodes of The Bad Batch, the Bad Batch recruit Admiral Rampart, who once destroyed Kamino’s cities on orders from the Emperor (but was blamed for doing it recklessly). Imperials take blood from Omega. Hemlock brings her to the vault, which becomes her new home. She meets the other children, Eva, Jax, Sami, and Bayrn, and realizes they are always being watched, a literal depiction of a pantopticon. Rampart and the Bad Batch somehow get aboard a shuttle en route to Tantiss. The appropriately named Doctor Scalder is unable to uncover Omega’s plan to flee and bring the children with her.

These last episodes move quickly. It fits with the action. A shuttle with Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair is shot down by the Imperials. Echo sneaks into the base on his own. The children, who Omega is trying to save, stall for her, so she can help them escape. The series finale, over 50 minutes long, ends the series with a bang. Shuttles search for the Bad Batch. Rampart is interrogated by Hemlock for siding with the rogue clones. He is in the cell next to Nala Se, whose home world he was ordered to destroy!

I liked how Emerie has a change of heart. She helps Echo rescue Omega. This doesn’t do that much, at first. Omega releases the Zillo Beast without the help of Echo or Emerie, and brings the other children with her. She saves them from a terrible fate under Imperial control. After Emerie leaves with the children, Omega and the other members of the Bad Batch help fight the super soldiers awoken by Hemlock. He, predictably, tortures Hunter, Crosshair, and Wrecker. Omega does her part. She works with Echo to release the clones who are imprisoned. Tarkin is rightly displeased with Hemlock, who falsely claims everything is under control.

Rampart reveals he is a total slimeball. He demands that Nala Se tell him everything about Project Necromancer. She refuses, declaring that the research is Kaminoan. He shoots her at point-blank range, killing her, then her grenade goes off. He dies in a fiery explosion and all the data is destroyed. Honestly, Rampart deserved to die this way. Consider everything he did to destroy the cities in Kamino and other crimes he committed! At the same time, Nala Se didn’t deserve this death, despite being a collaborator-of-sorts.

Hemlock’s desperation is clear. He realizes that all his data is worthless and he ties Omega to him with cuffs. Thanks to the fact that Crosshair is a good shot, even with one hand (his other was cut off), they blast apart the cuffs, releasing Omega. Following this, they kill Hemlock, saving them all. This is completely justified. Hemlock’s experiments are only rivaled by real-life sadistic human experiments conducted at various concentration camps by the Nazis, the CIA’s mind control program (MKULTRA), the Tuskegee syphilis experiment on Black men, Operation Whitecoat, and secret germ warfare tests by the U.K., to name a few.

The end of the series sets the stage for a continuation or spin-off. The Bad Batch escape before the Imperials arrive and all funding is redistributed to Project Stardust (i.e. the plan to build the Death Star). Additionally, Echo and Emerie work to help others when they can, with the latter working to make up for her misdeeds. Some years later, an older Omega talks to an older Omega, and wants to be a pilot for the Rebellion. Hunter says Omega will be fine after her ship departs.

This season of The Bad Batch uses similar tropes to seasons one and two, and lack of diversity. As I wrote previously, the Jedi aren’t a major part of the series, and many characters either have White men or White women voicing them. This reinforces Whiteness often present in the Star Wars franchise. On the other hand, this season primarily focuses on the intersecting stories of Omega, voiced by Ang who is of Malaysian Chinese descent, and Crosshair, her fellow brothers, and machinations of the Empire itself. Sadly, there are no LGBTQ+ characters, not proving or disproving that Omega is a trans woman or intersex, nor including any other queer characters. Additionally, Deana Kiner, a composer for the series, and a trans woman, only did work on the pilot episode, but no others.

This season also featured Gwendoline Yeo as Nala Se, Keisha Castle-Hughes as Emerie Karr, Naiya Singh Padilla as Sami, Wanda Sykes as Phee Genoa, Imari Williams as Shep Hazard, Andy Allo as Lyana Hazard, Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand, and Julian Dennison as Deke. Castle-Hughes and Dennison are part Māori. Yeo is Singaporean. Padila is multiracial. Sykes and Allo are Black women, Williams is a Black man and Wen is Chinese. Previously, Wen voiced Savannah in Milo Murphy’s Law and Dr. Hirano in Phineas and Ferb. Castle-Hughes played Queen Apailana of Naboo in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Sykes voiced Linda Blake in Velma, Deb in Q-Force, and Tsaritsa / Queen of Fables in Harley Quinn to name a few roles.

The show’s head writer, Jennifer Corbett, and supervising director, Brad Rau, remained the same as in previous seasons. This series is more than a spinoff/sequel to Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Rau, Corbett, and Filoni also served as executive producers on this series, along with Athena Yvette Portillo. Corbett directly wrote on four episodes for this season, including once with Matt Michnovetz. Rau wrote four episodes. The latter he co-wrote with Steward Lee and Saul Ruiz.

Ruiz, Lee, and Nate Villanueva directed the majority of the episodes. Writers like Michnovetz, Ezra Nachman, and Amanda Rose Muñoz, along with Corbett and Rau, joined them. Disturbingly, Michnovetz was show staff writer and story editor for 24, a reactionary and Islamophobic live-action series which glorified torture. While some of those themes were in The Bad Batch, a bigger influence was Corbett’s U.S. Navy service. She said so in a June 2021 interview. She described the series as a military story, noting that writing for NCIS (also a co-producer), along with her background, informed her approach to the show’s story.

Ruiz directed various episodes of Star Wars Rebels and was a 3D story artist for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Corbett wrote three episodes of Star Wars Resistance. She also said that Omega is “kind of a moral compass for this squad as they’re moving forward.” While this is true, in this season has three main narrative focuses: Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech; Omega and Crosshair; Emerie and Hemlock. So, she doesn’t have as much of a focus as in other seasons. Otherwise, as this series ends it opened the door for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (May 4) and two upcoming series: The Acolyte (June 4) and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (late 2024), to name a few, apart from season 2 of Ahsoka, and other possible films.

All three seasons of Star Wars: The Bad Batch are streaming on Disney+. Hopefully, one day, there is a physical release.