Last week’s doubleheader of Star Wars: The Bad Batch concluded with a pair of massive moments for the series:
- Emperor Palpatine successfully tricked everyone (including the Bad Batch) into helping him get senate approval to develop a new Imperial military comprised of natural-born stormtroopers. He also threw Vice Admiral Rampart under the bus, which was pretty great.
- Echo decided to leave the Bad Batch to assist Rex with his mission to find and help more of their fellow disaffected clones.
This week, Clone Force 99 goes on their first mission without Echo. Yes, it’s a filler episode, but it also provides a vital character moment that’s been a long time coming.
As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers along with some brief explorations of Star Wars lore.
Ship Storm
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
The episode opens with the Bad Batch landing on a planet to carry out a task for Cid. The team’s mission is to get inside a mine she purchased (which is a decent trek from the landing site) and harvest a mineral called ipsium, which is both extremely valuable and volatile. As Omega and Wrecker take up lookout positions, Hunter warns them of poachers that might be in the area.
After Hunter and Tech traverse into the mine, they find that its ipsium deposits are nearly tapped out — save for one that’s in a very hard-to-reach spot. Hunter radios for Omega to meet them and help with the extraction, leaving Wrecker on patrol by himself. She’s able to reach the deposit and drill into it, extracting and storing the volatile mineral in a vial with ease.
When the trio exits the mine, they hear someone (who looks a lot like Hondo Ohnaka) stealing the Maurader.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
This catastrophic turn of events causes the Bad Batch to begin fighting with each other. When Hunter and Tech chastize Wrecker for failing to watch their ship, he counters that the landing site was impossible to see from the mine, thus making it impossible for him to do his job.
As if things weren’t bad enough, a nearby storm changes directions and begins heading towards them.
Tech checks his scanners and sees that there’s a spaceport approximately 40 kilometers from their current location. Without any other options, the group decides to head there for shelter and to possibly locate another ship. Along the way, Omega tries to hail Echo, but is unsuccessful. Hunter explains that he’s too far away. Tech follows up by claiming that their former teammate has also disabled his communication device — an act likely done because he was on a dangerous mission.
As you might imagine, this exacerbates Omega’s hurt/anxiety about Echo leaving the team.
Explosive Resolution
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
Later, the group is nearly taken out by a galloping herd of unidentified creatures. They also drop the ipsium, but Wrecker is able to keep the stampede from rupturing it. That harrowing experience is immediately followed by the fast-moving storm catching up to them, which forces the Bad Batch into a nearby mine entrance. This time when one of them (Tech) drops the ipsium, it does explode, trapping them behind a cave-in.
As the team begins to fight again, Hunter tells them that they need to focus on digging their way out. Omega tries to track the Marauder remotely, but is unable to do so. Tech informs her that the thief likely disabled the ship’s transponder. He also expresses his belief that they likely won’t be able to recover it, which will require them to find another ship. Upon hearing this, Omega becomes distraught, insisting that they can’t give up because the Marauder is their home…and that they can’t lose it like they lost Echo.
*Side Note: Oof.
If you thought Tech’s response to the Marauder being lost was bad, his response about the team being able to adapt and survive without Echo is even worse. It’s also enough to make Omega express anger towards a member of her team/family for the first time. She tosses her equipment to Tech and walks away to be alone.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
As Omega heads further into the cave, she happens to find a large deposit of ipsium (sigh). Meanwhile, Hunter and Wrecker tell Tech to go make amends with Omega. He’s confused about why she’s upset (or why he needs to amend for anything) since he simply told her the truth, but does so anyway.
Upon finding her, the pair discuss how the ipsium could help them blow a hole in the cave to escape. Omega is also uncharacteristically cold to Tech, who gets to work helping her extract the mineral and place it into a set of vials. Things appear to be going well until she slips and falls into a dark chasm. Without hesitating, Tech jumps after her, leading both of them to splash down inside an underground aqueduct.
Meanwhile, Hunter becomes concerned that he hasn’t heard back from Tech or Omega in a while. He heads into the cave and eventually makes contact with the pair, who’ve discovered a small opening to the outside near where they landed. He tells Hunter and Wrecker to collect their gear and meet them at the bottom of the chasm.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
While waiting for their teammates, Omega finally asks Tech how he can be so sanguine in the face of catastrophe — whether it’s the loss of their home/ship or the loss of a teammate. She even goes so far as to say that it seems like he doesn’t care. Tech responds that while he may process change and challenges differently, it doesn’t mean he feels any less pain than she does.
*Side Note: We’ll get into it more after the recap, but this moment right here is where the episode won me over.
Seeing the Light
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
After Hunter and Wrecker arrive, the group is able to detonate their way out of the mine. They also end up surprisingly close to the spaceport they were looking for. They arrive and find it completely abandoned, but it does have a long-range transmitter Tech is able to use to call Cid.
Unfortunately, Cid doesn’t seem too keen on helping the Bad Batch. She relents after Omega points out how much they’ve helped her get out of jams, but says it will take a few days to find a way to extract them.
Cid then cuts the transmission off, leaving the team to do what they’ve always had to do since the Clone Wars ended — adapt and survive.
The Verdict
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)
If you read my Bad Batch reviews regularly (HI MOM!), then you likely predicted that I would hate “The Crossing.”
From a narrative standpoint, it was the very definition of a filler episode. Instead of playing off the momentum of Echo’s departure and Palpatine’s victory from last week, the series stuck us inside a cave with barely any action to speak of.
But then we got to the moment between Omega and Tech in the aqueduct, which was a thing of beauty.
Tech has always seemed unusually stoic throughout the series — so much so that he often has less personality than many of the droids the group encounters. Through his conversation with Omega, however, we learn that he feels things just as deeply as the rest of them. The way he processes those feelings might seem odd, but his lack of outward expression doesn’t negate what’s going on inside his head and heart.
That moment took the Bad Batch’s most outwardly emotional and closed-off team members and helped them understand each other. It also made sure we understood some things about Tech that aren’t obvious on the surface. It’s why he can seem careless and flippant about Omega’s feelings one minute and go diving after her without regard for his own safety the next.
Yes, the episode was a slog at times. The beautiful animation and oddly perfect incidental music weren’t enough to keep that from being the case. Thankfully, the moment between Tech and Omega at least made sure that “The Crossing” had a marked impact on the series. It won’t be an episode many of us will watch again, but it should change the dynamics of the team moving forward.
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