Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Metamorphosis”

I was talking to my co-worker, who is a bigger Star Wars fan than I am, about The Bad Batch the other day about a great many things regarding this giant universe. My continuous gripe has been the filler episodes that have zero connective tissues to the greater universe created through this shared existence. The Clone Wars, Rebels, and now The Bad Batch have created a giant, sprawling thread that can be tugged and molded, and spliced however it’s needed.

That said, the part that got me during this conversation was that if you took the canon episodes into account, there wasn’t a lot of canon episodes. The formula is tried and true still, yet it really needs to be updated. Shows like Game of Thrones really upped the formula, giving us canon episodes every week, and jamming plot into every episode. I know it’s like comparing apples to pears, but I digress.

The reasoning behind this anecdote is that it’s like magic. I’ll bring something up, and then when I go to watch the latest episode of whatever I’m talking about, it’s addressed. This time, Dave Filoni dives really deep in the way back machine to season two, episodes 18 and 19. Whenever Star Wars reaches outside of the space opera genre, I’m all in for whatever we’re going to get. This week, we’re going horror, baby!

“Metamorphosis” has a very Alien feel to it. It harkens back to the very claustrophobic feel of The Nostromo, and successfully recreates the suspense that made Alien so god damn scary in its time. There is a definite act structure during “Metamorphosis,” and it really helps with making this episode stand near the top of the heap. Jimmi Simpson is an absolute douchebag as Dr. Hemlock, especially with the final scene of the episode. His manipulation of the former Kaminoan Prime Minister, as well as his attempt to fold the former chief cloning engineer back into the plans of Palpatine.

There’s a lot of really cool looking effects. The lighting of the flashlights during our ode to Alien was awesome. Watching the lights track the ship, was one thing. But when the Zillo Beast was found, and the the team was trying to track it with the lighting, it was something else. On top of that, the reflective lighting in the darkness was beautiful. Seeing Omega with the reflected purple light from her energy bow was amazing. Finally, the lighting effects during the Zillo Beast’s escape from the ship to the power station was awesome.

The lighting was out of this world here. Seeing the electricity reflect light off of the Zillo Beast added a beautiful blue hue to both the beast, as well as the surrounding tower and buildings. But the highlight of the later part of the episode’s technical achievements, the battle to end/capture the Zillo Beast had a lot of very pretty explosions. The mixture of yellows, blues, greens, reds, and purples made all of the explosions look more like fireworks instead of buildings and people exploding.

On the top, “Metamorphosis” could very well be considered a throwaway, non-canon episode. But if you dig deep, you can see “Metamorphosis” is entrenched in the lore of the animated universe. The Zillo Beast is a HUGE opportunity to give us something of a big bad to fight during our crescendo in a few weeks. The feeling I had during The Clone Wars and Rebels, where episodes meant something and I was constantly entertained, is finally coming back. “Metamorphosis” keeps true to the visual wonders that made the later animated episodes stand out more than The Clone Wars. “Metamorphosis” is easily near the top of the heap this season.