Review: Star Wars The Bad Batch “Common Ground”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Bad Batch finds their ideologies challenged when their new mission has them helping a Separatist. Meanwhile, Omega stays behind with Cid and discovers a talent that could be helpful to the team.

Our Take:

Let’s face it. No one wants to team up with their enemy or help them in any way. But since it’s part of a job, they don’t have that much of a choice. Trust is the name of the game in this week’s episode of The Bad Batch, as the characters take on a retrieval mission with an ally that they didn’t expect to work with.

Their target is Senator Avi Singh from Raxxus, who is taken into custody by the Empire when they seized control of his city. But here’s the catch. Their client that they’re helping happens to be the Senator’s Separatist droid GS-8, and as we all know, anything related to the Separatists is terrible news. This was a fun little mission that has the Batch and the droid working together despite their differences, which could prove that not all of the Separatists are bad. While its script didn’t manage to expand on those themes, it’s still another tolerable episode that features the droid’s amusing distractions and some nifty animation work. When it comes to The Bad Batch, the animation always knows how to shine regarding its sceneries and entertaining action scenes, primarily the Batch fighting against the stormtroopers.

The episode also featured a brief “sub-plot”, which saw Omega staying behind with Cid while the Batch heads off on their mission. After everything that she’s been through, she could use a small break from the action. She later discovers that she has a knack for planning out strategies, which helped her win some matches for Cid and earn money to pay off the Batch’s debt.  

Those small breaks in-between the action proved to be fitting as they represented Omega attempting to prove to Cid and the Batch that she’s not useless. After seeing a few episodes of her being a damsel in distress, it’s still nice to see the writers continue to make Omega more independent. Whether her development pays off at the end of the series or not remains to be seen, so here’s hoping that it does.

Overall, the “Common Ground” episode is yet another entertaining mission that features some fun action and another developing moment for Omega. Its screenplay wasn’t able to raise a few stakes regarding the Batch and the Separatist droid. Still, it managed to compensate with its animation and a few thrilling sequences. With Omega having a helpful talent in strategizing, maybe now she’ll be able to go on more missions with the Batch. We shall see next week.