Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Replacements”
Overview (Spoilers Below):
Having escaped from their last harrowing escapade, the Bad Batch are in a tough spot. Their ship was damaged, and they get thrown out of hyperspace and make an emergency landing on an abandoned moon. But before they can repair the ship, a strange creature comes and uses the replacement part for a chew toy. It’s up to Wolf and Omega to get it back, and they come through as usual. Meanwhile, Tarkin is working on making Crosshair into a bonafide war criminal.
Our Take:
The first two weeks of the Bad Batch were pretty exhilarating affairs with plenty of action and suspense. In the third episode of the new show on Disney Plus, things slow down considerably. Instead of high-paced chases and conquering overwhelming odds, Replacements is basically an animal planet documentary starring Omega. For about half the runtime, anyway.
That half really is pretty dull in comparison to the previous two episodes, though. Encountering an unknown and hostile creature on the moon is plausible enough, but having that creature run off with the spare part while also rendering Wolf unconscious definitely felt a little too forced. And of course, it means that Omega has to disobey orders once again in order to save everyone. She’s definitely grown on me over the past two episodes, but I hope that the show gives her more to do than play the savior every week.
Luckily, this episode isn’t just about the clones escapades on the moon. We also get to follow Crosshair on a journey back to try and wipe out Saw Gerrera’s rogue militia with a new squadron comprised of volunteer soldiers instead of clones. It’s definitely cool to get a behind the scenes look at the makings of the Stormtroopers, and that scene of executing the innocent bystanders was harsh, but this plot also feels a bit strange due to the logic Tarkin is employing when it comes to his new soldiers.
There really seems to be no denying the fact that clones literally engineered to be fighting machines are always going to be a better choice than hired humans. Tarkin seems to bring up the Bad Batch’s failure to complete their mission as a sign of disloyalty that soldiers who volunteer wouldn’t have, but that’s just dumb because the Bad Batch aren’t like any other clone. If the Empire really wanted loyal soldiers, it seems like keeping the clones (who have literal chips implanted to make them follow orders) around would be the obvious choice. But there’s a larger Star Wars universe this has to connect with, and so we shall see where this goes.
Replacements is a bit of a letdown in comparison with the events of preceding episodes, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun. Sure, the Omega storyline didn’t seem to have a real point (we already know she can think for herself and get things done) but watching the beginnings of the creation of the Stormtroopers was neat. Hopefully the next episode will hold together a bit better and be more exciting to boot!
"There are also other characters that come and go (also owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate media company)."
Huh. Is that just referring to other characters from the show itself, or is this implying that the new season is going to have cameos from other WBD IPs