Full Series The Bad Batch 1.14 - War-Mantle - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

As they say this is where the fun begins

 

I have a good feeling about this

 

Whose orders? Hopefully not Cid's. Wonder if this is a Crosshair episode.

 

Well if you have to put up with an episode like last week to get to this one, you'll take it.

That was excellent and we are set up now for a big finale!

Now for the spoilery stuff:

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- Where was Rex? He looked like he was in a spot of bother.
- GREGOR!!! And he is already looking a little crazy.
- Hunter doing hunter things, that was good fun but then...he got caught! I did not expect that and that has really raised the stakes.
- Kamino war is inevitable now, this will be fun!
- Clearly, there are more and more 'defective' clones and I suspect that Rex has been hunting them down and they will probably be the cavalry that rescues Hunter
- I loved that Omega couldn't fly for long, shows she is fallible which is good
- Hunter v Crosshair, I really wonder what will happen next week, I suspect Crosshair might help Hunter or die trying or something else, I don't know whatsoever
- And the clones have already been put out to pasture
- My gosh...did they kill him at the end??? Did they?????

 

That was a fantastic episode!

 

Not much of a reviewer, so I'll just state that this episode was an absolute blast!

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Words cannot describe the glee when I recognized a certain Imperial commando's paintjob. I could not stop hearing 'Vode An' play in my head. Rule 39, Scorch, get some bacta after tanking those stun blasts!

 

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Being blown up probably tends to do that to a person.

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I really liked how that last scene was executed. Perfectly ambiguous.

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Sure looked like it.

 

Now that was more like it, excellent episode

 

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Okay, Lama Su may have deserved it but geez, Rampart is truly evil here. No deluded officer who thinks the Empire is good and noble. Just another power-hungry sociopath who treats those beneath him as property. I mean, the way he talks about Nala Se and Lama Su sounds like something you hear out of a slavery auction. Keep the scientist because they may have use for us... kill the politician because they don't have use.

Which is bitter cruel irony considering that the Kaminoans treat the clones as property. Now you understand why many clones hate being treated as property, hmmm?

 

Nice to see actual clone commandos.
Finally, Delta Squad is back, although only Scorch. Boss, Fixer and Sev are nowhere to be found. I hope we see them more. It's been 10 years since we last saw them in TCW. Vode An intensifies.

Scorch almost single handedly owning them was really nice. If only his brothers were with him.
Although I was triggered that clone commandos were using DC-15A that for some reason sounded like DC-17m. All clone commandos use DC-17m, not just Wrecker.
Gregor is already in his quirky insane Rebels personality.
Felt like John Williams' OT music was really out of place. Reminded me of Rebels, that used John Williams too much as well.
Proto stormtrooper armor is ugly as hell.
Hunter-Omega was as usual:
-No, this mission is too dangerous.
-BUT HUNTAAAAAAAAAAAAH, THEY ARE OUR FRIEEEEEEEEENDS, WE'VE GOT TO HELP EMM!
-Ughh.... I don't like it... But ok...
But at least there were some consequences to any of that.
OK episode overall, I guess.

 

Was that really

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Scorch who showed up for that mini shootout? Or just a similarly painted commando. Kinda strange that out of all of Delta Squad they chose the jokester of the group to make a cameo. Personally, I would have used Fixer, he seems like he'd fit the 'evil' commando role quite well.

 

Yeah it was definitely him
Maybe other Deltas were somewhere else in the facility, or in some another facility, similar to this.
Let's be real, if Deltas were together, CF99 wouldn't stand a chance

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Spoiler: Hell yeah!

So that's why they put up this article today on starwars.com for the Bad Batch's captive leader. This episode was straight-up fire. Getting some more of those anthology vibes. Got thrown into a random prison break on a random planet. The said prisoner turned out to be Gregor and it is very TCW to leave a blank about how Gregor got from point A to B. Sounding no less like his Rebels' incarnation. I thought he was going to turn out to be Howzer for a moment with the slick hair.

Then it's off to Kamino for a small B-Plot where things are happening very quickly. Seems like Lama Su would have done better to leave sooner and abandon the essential personnel because damn karma you're scary. Rampart treated him coldly as he did the Clones. Looked like the Troopers took the flame throwers in there for extra crispy good measure. I wonder if Rampart is going to just have the whole facility torched. Or, if he is taking over for now and this is how an uprising starts. It is dubious if Nala Se got caught or could be a traitor since she worked with the former chancellor now emperor directly in a few TCW episodes. Thinking it's the latter. I wonder if this is fall out from the troopers throwing down their blasters in "Rescue on Ryloth". Also, makes for darker questions about Omega's reason for existence.

Now for the main course. Rex seemed to be in some crap. I would welcome him appearing again before the end of the season but he was already too busy to extract Gregor himself. It's interesting that immediately after the scene where Rex hails The Bad Batch, we skip to the Kamino scene where there is some mobilizing going on. It's not clear if Crosshair pointing out they are, "ahead of schedule" refers to training recruits to replace clones as seen later in the episode, a trap that's been set for The Bad Batch on that beautiful ever green highland planet, or that's what Rex is currently dealing with. Maybe there will be a C-Plot where Echo is going to have to choose between going back for Hunter or saving Rex from whatever mess he's in.

This entire episode has great pacing. The mystery of what the facility in the mountain was as much fun as the balls the to wall action of the extraction. It's fairly character-driven like earlier in the season. Everyone had their chance to shine. Hunter finally grew a pair again and told Omega, "No" multiple times to stay on the ship. Don't worry, she gets to fly and gets to show off her thinking later in the episode. Wrecker's kicked-back demeanor instead of wanting to just go blow stuff up when he's acting as babysitter shows how he's matured by bouncing off of her. Giving Omega a babysitter shows how Hunter has learned not to leave her on her own.

Echo has no chill as ever and he wasn't taking anymore of Hunter's crap. Echo arguably took charge of the mission objective even if Hunter was making the decisions in battle. The callback to his rescue on Skako Minor driving him to try his heart out to help Gregor was perfect. He has definitely become the lancer. Echo's convo with Gregor about deserting is priceless. It was great to be reminded even if Echo has left his old life behind. He still cares about Rex. If a C-plot doesn't happen I am expecting Echo to lead the team in Hunter's place. It'll probably Omega though.

Tech has some great moments of banter bouncing off Gregor who is spontaneous and off the wall. Now Tech screwed up big time. Gregor warned him and he didn't listen which caused the alarm to get set off. It was all downhill from there. Indirectly he could also take the blame for the escape route failing and causing Hunter to get left behind. I wonder if the rest of the arc will play off that. I thought Tech did get emotional and even desperate toward the end when he kept trying to come back. Even as he's doing the kind of flying that would make an Ace Combat protagonist blush. I would love for Gregor to join the Bad Batch team in season two instead of just going with Rex. He has great chemistry with them.

The squad's leader starts the episode still in a Heroic Safe Mode. That's how all his decisions are made until he gets curious enough about the facility it overrides that caution which drives him into the mission. This time we got a proper debate between eating and doing what's right with everyone throwing in their two cents. And this time it's Echo and Omega double-teaming Hunter. It's like getting grilled by Rafa and Trace all over again but there is a deeper tug between protecting the squad and the desire to do the right thing.

Hunter doesn't hate the Regs. Both Hunter and Tech seem to take a dim view of their replacements. It felt like seeing the regs getting replaced may have finally gotten through to him. The standard procedure for this trope is for stronger heroes like Hunter to protect friends, loved ones, allies to near-suicidal extremes. It's going to be interesting to see how things play out with Crosshair. Crosshair stop taking off your helmet! Your head is disgusting. He comes in at the end and it's impossible to read what's going on there. Is he going to help Hunter? Or is Hunter just bait? Crosshair himself could be someone else's Batman Gambit. And isn't "I'll make it back another way." about the same line Gregor said to D-Squad in "Missing in Action" on TCW?

Oh boy, Omega screaming to go back. The next episode's gonna be a little rough when it comes to a team divided. Yes! Finally, the squad has been broken up and separated.

I know folks are going to complain this was toned down both with the stun settings and at the end. There are going to be complaints this is going a direction too similar to the Rebels season one finale. There are also folks who are going to call BS on Hunter surviving the fall. I don't care. This episode was fantastic.

Also, the Commando with the yellow makings might be Scorch but I thought he was rubbing it in Gregor's face he's wearing the yellow Commando armor. Gregor was Decommissioned.

 

9/10

Excellent episode that really moved the story forward! Also the animation, especially in the forest, looked absolutely beautiful! Some of the shots looked almost as good as live action to me.

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- Nice to see Gregor again, but does he still have his Order 66 chip? Or did it malfunction because of the explosion?
- Nice to see Rex again as well. Wonder what he's up to. Maybe rescuing Wolf and they'll show up to help rescue Hunter in the next episode?
- Don't like the clones being decommissioned so quickly though. It goes against established canon that clones served for years post-ROTS and it doesn't make sense in-universe as well. Hopefully they're not planning to kill them all or something similar. But Lucasfilm probably doesn't want its "good" clone troopers being confused with the "evil" stormtroopers. Hence the (ugly) armor change as well. Also the BB will now be okay with killing the stormtroopers, cause they're not "brothers" anymore.
- Interesting to see what's happening to the Kaminoans and the implication that their PM was executed off camera. But they wanted to leave? Where? And how many? I always assumed its a whole planet of Kaminoans with billions of them living in underwater cities, similar to Mon Cala...
- Great to see all those clone commandos being used as instructors. And the Easter egg with Scorch was awesome. Really hope its him, as long as he doesn't die.
- And I love seeing all the Republic-era vehicles painted in Imperial grey! They look beautiful
- Nice teaser with Crosshair at the end...

 

I don’t think it goes against established canon not yet. Now clones just are outnumbered 20 to 1

 

I hope the reason they left it mysterious what happened to Lama Su is because he managed to wriggle out of it and not because they are toning the series down and don't want to show violence like I fear.

Anyway apart from that this was a decent episode Hunter getting captured was a surprise and the secret base inside a mountain was a cool idea. I hope that Commando was Scorch.

Gregor returning was nice even though him surviving his death in TCW was stupid, but thanks to Rebels there is a big gap to fill in so he kind of needed to appear.

Nice to see Echo get more character development, if Hunter dies I hope he becomes the new leader.

So is next week's episode going to be the finale then or just the penultimate? I'm confused.....

 

I disagree, I love it.

Scorch was also the only commando not wearing pure white armour. Makes him seem more important, I wonder if we’ll see him next episode then. There must be a reason why they made him stand out.

 

My guess is Delta Squad will eventually side with Kamino against the Empire. I wonder if Sev is missing, or they will ignore the RC game.

 

They can perfectly ignore them not like they are canon anyway

 

There is only one Republic Commando videogame, and it fits with canon seamlessly.

 

God damn, what an episode! My head's a whirlwind right after watching it so I'll just dive straight in;

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So first and foremost, Echo finally got back to actually voicing his own opinions instead of just going along with everything! Loved the way he gave Hunter that look while they were deciding whether to help the "reg" or run missions for Cid. And again at the base entrance when Echo told Hunter how him and CF99 already risked their rears on a hunch to rescue him. Wonder if he'll end up being the squad leader now?

And speaking of leaders; GREGOR! Our beloved half-crazy commando is back, with a better haircut and an ugly-white armor. I'm kinda on the fence about the writers not revealing how he made it out of the fuel depot, but I suppose it would have taken out of the episode's pacing if he sat down for storytelling. His voice was a tad bit different then it was in "Missing in Action", but then again, it's been a good decade since that episode aired. And if we're bringing up commandos... if that wasn't fricking SCORCH who was tanking stun blasts left and right and chasing the BB then I'll eat my foot!

And then at the end we have the escape from the military base, and Hunter, unfortunately, being left behind... frankly I was expecting this to happen, especially when the ship flew off the first time while both Hunter and Echo were fighting on the ledge, but I thought that both of them would suffer this fate. Glad to see that was not the case. I'm definitely curious about what Crosshair had going around in his head at the end.

As for the other parts of the episode, I very much love that regular Clone Commandos were back in their full glory, though it seems that Delta Squad has been possibly separated. Or maybe Boss and Fixer are just in different parts of the base. Also I honestly doubt that Lama Su was killed off like that. We already heard civilians being executed and burned in EP3 while the Camera looked away, and the closing door in that scene would have given the writers a perfect opportunity for some fried Kaminonians. Until we see the dead body, I'm assuming that Lama Su is just locked up somewhere.

 

They are irrelevant to this series, Scorch just a 'maybe' Easter Egg to keep the fanatics happy.

The game and Delta Squad's missions are not canon but Delta Squad are.

 

Things are heating up! Excellent episode.
I did not expect them to do that this soon but I can't wait for what's next.