The Bad Batch: The Return Thoughts
The direction of the season becomes clear with one of the series’ best episodes as Crosshair revisits his dark past.
I love a solid double-meaning title, and “The Return” is perfect for an episode revolving around Crosshair’s return to the Bad Batch. This might be one of the best in the series as it connects to the best episode, “The Outpost,” where Crosshair finally reaches his breaking point with the Empire. In “The Return,” tensions are high within the team as Echo returns for any intel Omega and Crosshair can provide to help them find Mount Tantiss. While Wrecker trusts Crosshair because Omega does, Hunter is less convinced, throwing him icy glares and giving cold shoulders. However, confrontation is unavoidable when the team takes Crosshair’s lead on an Imperial terminal to access information from Nala Se’s datapad.
An interesting fact: This episode was written by Amanda Rose Muñoz, who has been with Lucasfilm since Rebels, starting as a Script Coordinator, slowly working her way up to now writing credits on quite a few episodes of The Bad Batch (including “The Solitary Clone” in season two where Crosshair kills a former Separatist leader). She might also be the source of the name of the native Pabu monkeys, the Moon-yos, given that she also wrote “Pabu.” It is always great to see talent nurtured and developed at studios to create some of the best work in Star Wars.
Family Dynamics
Despite appearances, this is a self-contained episode. Aside from AZI, this episode only involved members of the Bad Batch. No other characters even have dialogue. Leana and Shep are referenced as their love language is giving gifts (of fruit) to Omega and Crosshair, the latter trying to fix his aim but still suffering from a shaky hand. Omega calls her brother out for trying to avoid talking with Hunter and tells him that he will eventually have to if he wants to regain his trust.
This episode is the first time everyone has been together since Kamino, and the shift in group dynamics is more apparent. Crosshair and Omega have grown closer, and Batcher is partial to both since she has mostly been around them. This change in Crosshair and Omega’s relationship likely fuels Hunter’s distrust of Crosshair since, on Kamino, Crosshair actively distrusted Omega.
But Hunter also knows Crosshair is hiding something about the Outpost and his return to them, so he finally confronts his brother. Crosshair tells Hunter that he killed an Imperial officer but, in Crosshair fashion, turns the tables back to criticize Hunter’s leadership. He blames Hunter for ignoring his warning, leading to Omega’s capture and, although not spoken, Tech’s death. Crosshair then goes for the gut and tells Hunter that he’s mad because Omega escaped with his help, not Hunter’s help.
Hunter is so preoccupied with arguing with Crosshair that he fails to sense the giant ice beast approaching until it is almost too late. The two brothers and Batcher try to draw the creature past the sensors while Wrecker turns the fuze box back on, and Omega brings the sensors back online.
Like “A Different Approach,” this episode has elements of Jurassic Park as the team splits up to get power back to the perimeter sensors while avoiding a giant beast. The thrilling action sequence forces Hunter and Crosshair to work out their argument via a mission that furthers the overall direction of the season, which looks like it is heading toward a Clone attack on Mount Tantiss.
The Outpost, Revisited
Crosshair’s return to Barton IV is immediately met with the sight and sound of an ice vulture, a painful reminder of the events there. Luckily, the place is abandoned, so they don’t have to worry about stealth maneuvering, but old wounds run deep, and Crosshair has to relive his trauma while fending off Hunter’s glares.
Clones dying for Stormtrooper armor was a devastating reveal in “The Outpost,” but seeing that the place is abandoned, while convenient, has to be even more emotional because it was as if those men never existed.
But the door is open for more intel collection, and Crosshair discovers the armor of fallen Clones. When Crosshair finds Commander Mayday’s helmet tossed in a corner, he honors him and his fallen brothers by creating a memorial and lining up their helmets in a row, giving his brothers the dignity that the Empire denied.
Abandoned facilities are the Empire’s calling card, and they always manage to leave a mess behind. At least the creature haunting this location is not the result of Hemlock’s experiments.
Moving Forward and Getting Better
After they successfully access the information on the datapad, which includes Clone numbers and medical information, Crosshair confides in Hunter. He put his faith in the Empire and doesn’t think he deserves a second chance with everything he has done.
Hunter tells him that all they can do is try to be better. And there are definitely signs of that happening: He follows Hunter’s orders without contention and smiles twice (once at Omega’s joke that she’s older than him and again at Batcher when they escape the ice creature).
Crosshair already admitted that the Empire took out the raiders but has not told them EVERYTHING. Crosshair has killed many people, making redemption more challenging for him, at least for Crosshair.
And we finally see the ice vulture, which is quite beautiful, before it, like Crosshair, moves on from the Outpost and towards the future.
However, it is difficult to believe that Crosshair knows nothing about the Tantiss facility even though he was just a prisoner. He is intelligent and perceptive and should have picked up some information. This means he would deliberately keep secrets from the team to avoid hurting them. Could whatever is happening on Tantiss (aside from Project Necromancer) have something to do with his shaky hand?
At some point, Crosshair will need to ask his brothers and sister for help. And, at some point, everyone is going to have to talk about Tech and the pain of that loss.
Seeing Batcher in the background on Pabu living her best life with the moon-yos is so endearing. More of that, please!
Knowing that the Empire was tracking them down, the team should have destroyed the sensors as they left. A massive ice creature could have been an excellent deterrent to prevent Imperials from discovering what they were doing there. Of course, the Empire can figure that out once a terminal has been accessed, but it would have been a good backup.
Originally published at http://creditsandcanon.com on March 7, 2024.
