Star Wars

‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ season 2 episode 2 ‘The Ruins of War’ recap/review

A painfully bland episode is partially salvaged by a fantastic final scene.

January 5, 2023

The first episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch‘s second season concluded with a heist job spinning out of control and everyone falling a large distance. We know they’ll be okay, but it’s still scary.

For the second half of the Bad Batch‘s Season 2 premiere, we get to find out where everyone lands, both physically and metaphorically.

As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers along with some brief explorations of Star Wars lore. The order of events has also been streamlined a bit for the sake of clarity.

Living on the Edge

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

As expected, the re-entry thrusters on the container holding Omega, Tech, and Echo activate before it can hit the ground. After a hard landing on Serenno‘s surface, the container skids to a halt on the edge of the cliff. The trio manages to get out, but Tech is injured when the container shifts and drops a chest on his leg.

Meanwhile, Hunter and Wrecker land unharmed at the bottom of the lift from Dooku‘s throne room. With all of the palace‘s entry points covered, the duo is forced to repel down the side of the building into the ruined city below. When Captain Wilco finds Hunter’s grappling hook, he directs his soldiers to redirect their search and monitor all comm channels.

Later, Hunter sends a coded message to Tech & Co. to go radio silent.

As Tech, Echo, and Omega make their way through the woods, Omega notices that someone is following them. The group corners and confronts the man (Romar), who claims he isn’t a threat. He also tries to say that there’s nowhere to take shelter, but Tech obliterates that lie when he detects a nearby heat source…which also happens to be Romar’s home.

Realizing that he doesn’t have a lot of options at this point, the man leads the trio to safety.

Cannon Fodder

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

Captain Wilco’s squad intercepts Hunter’s coded transmission. Realizing there are even more infiltrators to find, he commands his troops to find and monitor all 50 cargo containers and the immediate areas around them.

Meanwhile, Hunter and Wrecker spot some old Separatist tanks (AATs) and decide to see if they’re still operational. They discover that none of them are just in time to be spotted and ambushed by Wilco & Co. Wrecker asks Hunter to extract one of the tanks’ batteries, which he attaches to one of the tanks’ cannons (after pulling it off the vehicle) and uses it to blast an incoming V-Wing out of the sky.

He then turns the powerful weapon on Wilco and his troopers, forcing them to retreat.

*Side Note: As awesome as this scene is, it makes the Bad Batch’s insistence on stunning enemy clone troopers even more frustrating. There’s no way Wrecker didn’t kill a good number of them with those blasts — especially the pilot of that doomed V-Wing

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

Elsewhere, Tech fills Romar in on who he and his team/family are. When Omega asks why Romar lives in such a remote location, he explains that the Imperial occupation didn’t leave him much choice.

Omega then asks if she and Echo can go retrieve one of the war chests now that Tech is relatively safe. When Echo explains that it’s still too dangerous, Omega vehemently insists that they can’t return to Ord Mantell empty-handed. Omega also offers to bring some of the loot back to Romar, but the old man refuses. As far as he’s concerned, those war chests are cursed — a horrible reminder of the way Dooku stole from his own people to fund a war that ended up destroying his home.

Romar then bids his guests farewell and heads down to his basement workshop. Omega continues pleading with Echo to go after the war chest, but he instead orders her to keep an eye on their host.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

After Omega heads down to the basement, Romar presents her with a kaleidoscope. She stares into it before asking if it’s treasure or potentially worth any credits. Romar responds that the kaleidoscope is simply a toy that’s meant to make the owner happy — something much more valuable than any war chest.

*Side Note: *eye roll*

When Omega heads back upstairs, she hears Echo and Tech arguing about whether or not it’s worth returning to the container to take some of the loot. After Echo leaves to search for patrols, Romar comes back up and asks Tech to help him recover some cultural/family files from a data core.

While the two speak, Omega begins devising a plan to go after the war chest herself.

Hobbled Defense

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

Echo returns to Romar’s house just as Tech is done restoring the data core. After Romar notices that one of his long cables is missing, they realize that Omega has snuck out to loot the cargo container.

Echo heads out to find Omega with Tech hobbling behind. He reaches the container just a trio of clone troopers on speeder bikes arrive and begins firing. Echo is forced to take cover in the container, where Omega proudly shows him a bag of credits she found. Meanwhile, Tech catches up (on one leg) and manages to take out a clone trooper right before he can set up an E-Web blaster.

Elsewhere, Hunter and Wrecker make it back to the Maurader. Hunter radios into Tech, who provides him with his coordinates. As the Maurader races to the location (with V-Wings hot on their trail), Tech finds himself pinned down by the other two clones with minimal cover. Thankfully, one of them decides to order a cease-fire and attempts to take Tech on in hand-to-hand combat.

Predictably, this results in Tech winning and stunning the other clone. He then tries to climb over to the container, but collapses from exhaustion.

Changing Perspective

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As Omega and Echo climb the inside of the container, it begins to slip, causing Omega to drop her bag of credits. When she tries to retrieve it, Echo tells her that the credits aren’t important. Echo counters that they are important because she heard what he said about her being responsible for their current/meager existence.

*Side Note: Oof.

Echo insists that Omega has to “let it go,” which is not nearly as deep and metaphorical as the writers clearly thought it was. She abandons the treasure in time for her and Echo to leap from the slipping cargo container moments before it crashes from the mountainside.

Meanwhile, Romar shows up to help Tech get his friends to safety just as a gunship is approaching. Tech uses the E-Web to take out the gunship (along with two approaching speeder bikes) while Ramor uses some cable and one of the abandoned speeder bikes to pull Echo and Omega to safety.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

When the Maurader shows up, Romar decides to stay, but gives Omega the kaleidoscope. After the Bad Batch are all aboard their ship, Echo assures Omega that rescuing her from Kamino was the right decision. Otherwise, they may still be serving the Empire.

*Side Note: Eh?

The next day, Captain Wilco reports to Vice Admiral Rampart that his troops were able to recover 85% of Dooku’s war chest. He also reveals that the Bad Batch (aka Clone Force 99) was behind all the recent shenanigans. Rampart counters that the rogue clones perished on Kamino, but Wilco insists he saw them with his own eyes.

Upon hearing this, Rampart notes that a report stating that Clone Force 99 was still alive and active would get him in a heap of trouble with Tarkin. When Wilco refuses to change/falsify the report, Rampart shoots him.

The Verdict

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

I was pretty disappointed with this episode until the final scene. While it looked great and had some fantastic action sequences, it also felt like a composite rehash of Star Wars: The Bad Batch‘s core plotline:

Something goes wrong during a heist
The Bad Batch meet someone who used to be a Separatist and turns out to be a good person.

Omega feels like she isn’t doing enough, nearly gets herself killed, and learns a valuable lesson.

As predictable as the story beats were, the life lesson involving the kaleidoscope was really hard to watch — which is saying something considering how compressed it was.

But then you have that fantastic final minute.

We all knew Rampart was a douche, but what he did to Wilco was truly evil. It also gives us a much better reason for the clones potentially rebelling against the Empire (something heavily hinted at in the season two trailers) than a moral realization that can somehow override their inhibitor chips.

I love Howzer as much as anyone, but his turn back in season one (along with his squad) never sat well with me. The clones have seen both the Republic and the Empire do plenty of things that were morally questionable and didn’t have an issue following orders.

Now, however, we have an example of Imperial corruption so deep it might be too much even for them. Unethical orders from a united front are one thing. Unethical orders that go against the chain of command (and result in the unjust death of a captain) aren’t the type of thing the inhibitor chips were likely designed to counter.

Let’s hope that Star Wars: The Bad Batch continues to explore these sorts of storylines instead of hitting us with a string of heist plots for the rest of the season.

Next Episode: The Solitary Clone