Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Decommissioned review S1 E6

Jeffrey Lyles June 7, 2021June 7, 2021 0 Comments Brigitte Kali Canales, Dee Bradley Baker, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Matthew Wood, Rhea Pearlman, Star Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Decommissioned was an OK episode that felt too formulaic for a series that’s only six episodes in.

Cid has the Batch track down a decommissioned tactical droid since they’re big sellers on the black market. Cracking the code to fighting against the Empire’s clones is a hot commodity.

Arrow launcher or not it seems weird to have Omega tag along on this mission instead of staying on the ship. Every episode she’s proving to be a liability instead of an asset when she joins the mission. The one time she stayed behind she ended up actually helping. Coincidence?

Omega’s precociousness felt especially extra this episode. I keep feeling like the writers want me to love Omega as much as they do. That’s not going to happen simply by giving her more screen time.

The Bad Batch encounter Trace and Rafa, the sisters Ahsoka partnered up with on the final season of Clone Wars. I liked Trace and Rafa, but I’m starting to worry that Bad Batch is cramming in too many random cameos from other shows.

Just six episodes in and we’ve already seen Saw Gerrera, Cut, Fennec Shand, Bib Fortuna and now Trace & Rafa. I’m a fan of showing the Star Wars universe is connected yet this feels like all these characters are being tossed in to make up for the Bad Batch’s lack of development.

That and the sense that the episodes are going to become too formulaic with the only suspense being which new-ish character the Squad will encounter.

Trace and Rafa are solid characters and engaging enough that they could be featured in an animated Star Wars anthology series. We’ve got enough characters in this Clone Wars/Rebels era time frame that a series alternating between characters could work better than randomly having them pop up in shows.

If only something was happening with Wrecker that could potentially cause some problems if the Bad Batch didn’t work to address it. It’s weird how the Batch keeps treating him like a dumb hammer whose only job is to smash things. Hunter really needs to do a check-in with his crew to get a gauge on their well being.

He remarks late in the episode that it was easier when they were just soldiers. This raises an interesting point about the Bad Batch being soldiers without a war and struggling to fit in with society in a way their Order 66 affected clone brothers didn’t have to face. What does PTSD look like for a clone when they haven’t been psychologically repurposed like the others?

One area I’m struggling with is how ineffective the Bad Batch have been in basic combat scenarios. Some of that is the Batch could be super commando clones in a cameo role while needing challenges in their own series. I wish the writers would address this by having the Batch note they’ve struggled without Crosshair.

It’s weird how the first episode positioned Crosshair as the Batch’s big bad, but he’s rarely been shown outside of one additional episode.

The shootout scenes against the prison droids was fun. These scenes are always the best showcase for Hunter, who’s a far more effective fighter than leader and friend. Rafa and Tech adjusting the tactical droid to reanimate battle and super battle droids was a cute touch.

Continuing the cliffhanger theme from last episode, Trace alerts her contact that they secured the tactical droid info and they were aided by some rogue clones.

And once again there’s little insight as to this mysterious source. I like a good mystery and with so many potential folks looking for a rogue group of clones it could be anyone.

Decommissioned got the job done although it started to fall into some slightly worrisome patterns.