Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Retrieval”

Watching “Retrieval,” I became thoroughly convinced that the writers forgot how to pace a two part episode. Going from “Spoils of War” and “Ruins of War” to “The Clone Conspiracy” and “Truth and Consequences,” there was a step down in quality, but it was a definite fun couple sets of episodes to watch. Each episode in the two-parter made sense, and the pacing was there.

However, “The Crossing” was an absolute albatross to get through, and was made unbearable with Omega’s constant…preteen-ness. I get they needed to create growth within the team and make them able to survive without them. However, this entire through line just hurt the pacing, and made the thief who stole the Marauder an afterthought until “Retrieval.”

Does “Retrieval” make up for the abysmal lead-in that was “The Crossing?” No, it absolutely fucking does not. The pacing between the two episodes was awful. For two episodes that are supposed to make up one coherent story, it doesn’t. However, the story that was told was a decent enough story to make the narrative enjoyable on its own.

While getting the Marauder up and running was still the main objective, the ancillary story that ultimately took down the local mob boss, Mokko, was fun. However, this plot was a little bit predictable. Benni was the thief who took the Marauder last week, and we finally got some progress here. Why none of this could have been shown last week to give cohesion and pacing is beyond me.

Watching Benni’s slow descent to naive dipshit to wannabe renegade badass when he finally got all of Mokko’s data was predictible, but alright to watch. Unfortunately, Mokko didn’t really give me anything to give a shit about as to whether he lived or died. He was a stale villain who’s motives were weak. I can’t be too mad. At least there was a face to Benni’s motives.

Let’s get down to it. On its own merits, “Retrieval” made enough progress to keep me interested in how this story played out. My feelings on this two parter after last week was so low, I was ready to stop watching. “Retrieval” was able to turn the ship around just enough to make me give a shit about Benni.

What we really needed was a cohesive plot. What we got was a disjointed story of two episodes. Luckily, “Retrieval” was able to come back around to be enjoyable enough to pick up the ball and run where “The Crossing” pulled a Daniel Jones and tripped over itself. Unfortunately, Mokko and Benni’s little rival doesn’t mean a god damn thing.

At the end of it all, there was no ore extraction, the ship is back, no new members came on, and no one left. “Retrieval” felt like a decent ending to a non-canon two-part filler episode. I guess that’s a step up from the pile of shit from last week.

If the writers can get back on track, and give us some bangers, The Bad Batch can end really strong.