This week’s Bad Batch episode, “Decomissioned,” was a real treat, and let me tell you why.
The Plot
“Decomissioned” opens with Omega learning how to shoot a laser bow. She and the Bad Batch are at Cid’s and various patrons bet on whether or not Omega will hit her target. Echo says the heartbreaking, “Soldiers are consistent” because Omega is just a kid, let’s not forget. Cid interrupts with another retrieval mission, this time for a tactical droid’s head. These droids are super valuable due to the intelligence they carry and because they are being destroyed at a decommissioning facility on Corellia.
The Bad Batch aren’t the only folks after the droid, and complications ensue as another band of thieves steal their bounty. It quickly turns into a dangerous game of hot potato as the droid’s head passes back and forth between the Bad Batch and the newcomers, who turn out to be Trace and Rafa from the seventh season of The Clone Wars. The two parties end up working together to escape the enclosing facility’s security forces. Though the tactical droid is destroyed, Tech is able to procure a copy of its data, which Hunter eventually gives to Trace and Rafa when they reveal they’re going to use the data against the Empire.
In true Star Wars aesthetic fashion, the episode closes with Trace and Rafa talking to a shadowy holographic figure, framed in such a way the viewer won’t have a view of what may or may not be a distinctive profile.
The Good
I barely know where to start.
Wrecker’s chip revealing itself as he mumbles, prone on the ground, about good soldiers, Crosshair’s voice a ghost inside his head?
The return of Trace and Rafa?
Speculation about the hologram?
Okay let’s go with the setting of the story: the decommissioning facility where the Bad Batch retrieves the tactical droid. It’s sad seeing the old separatist droids shut down and strung up for the scrap pile. Graveyard vibes permeate the scenes.
Does it make sense why the Empire is wasting perfectly good droids? Of course not. Tech explains that the tactical droid’s knowledge on how to defeat clones just went up in value, but it doesn’t really answer the question of why the droids are being destroyed in the first place. Palpatine was behind both sides of the war. The droids are his soldiers too, just as much as the clones are. Perhaps the security systems and anti-slicing measures are just not up to the task. Or perhaps such a massive level of waste is unsurprising in the Empire’s economy, which is also reminiscent of the massive amounts of waste in current American society. No matter the reason, the story is better with the droids being destroyed if only for the aesthetic of our heroes scrambling around droid chassis, forced to work together because the enemy of their enemy is a friend.
Reintroducing Trace and Rafa is the episode’s triumph. Trace decides to save Omega from certain doom, even though it might risk the droid head. Rafa is a little snarkier, a little edgier than Trace when it comes to interacting with the Bad Batch, which is in keeping with her character (though she should probably engage in some introspection regarding her feelings about clones).
That the Bad Batch was retrieving the droid head without knowing where it was going astonishes Trace. It’s wonderful to see where they are now as to when we left them in the Clone Wars. She and her sister are part of the Rebellion now, before it really even is a Rebellion, and they need that droid to fight the good fight.
Which brings us to Wrecker’s fight. I’m so glad the writers decided to go with this slow suspense: Wrecker clutching his head a few times in past episodes to Wrecker alone on a high up platform (when he hates heights), remembering Crosshair saying, “Good soldiers follow orders.” But Wrecker doesn’t succumb. His team calls out for him, and he pulls himself up, and he fights. He comes in swinging, all belligerent bluster as he decimates droids, buying Tech those precious few seconds in order to gain control of the droid army through the tactical droid.
And because Wrecker appears to be his normal self, nobody knows, nobody realizes, how much trouble Wrecker is in. That chip tried hard to get control, but it failed–this time. Will it fail the next time at a critical juncture in the Bad Batch’s journey, when they have everything to gain just as much as they have everything to lose? Undoubtedly. I cannot wait to be emotionally devastated.
The episode also ends with a familiar aesthetic: the shadowy holographic figure. I was really hoping for an Ahsoka and/or Fulcrum reference so I nearly missed Rafa saying, “Patch him through.” That’s okay because if it’s not Ahsoka/Fulcrum, then the figure is probably Bail, and that’s almost as cool.
That said, Fulcrum was introduced on Rebels as a “he,” and still turned out to be Ahsoka. There’s an appealing motif in Ahsoka returning to Trace and Rafi again as Fulcrum. It’s very in keeping with Star Wars, where Darth Vader is a father, a senator of the Imperial Senate is a rebel spy, a young woman crashing on a speeder is actually a Jedi and so on and so forth.
The Bad
I’m putting the “Echo” exchange here, but technically the joke is so bad it’s good. True Star Wars cheese. Loved it.
Honestly, there wasn’t anything bad in this episode I haven’t discussed before.
In Conclusion
“Decomissioned” is an excellent action romp made into a real gem with the return of Trace and Rafa. The foreshadowing of Wrecker’s chip turned more textual, and I look forward to the crisis’ crescendo.