The first part of The Bad Batch's two part finale aired last night and I, for one, was very pleased. It was written by series script editor Matt Michnovetz, in my opinion the true showrunner. The guy has a strangely low profile, despite having been a head writer on Clone Wars. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry yet he has a LinkedIn. Does he really feel like he needs to look for work that way? Maybe this is strategy--if everyone hates Bad Batch, maybe the idea is for Jennifer Corbett to take all the heat so Michnovetz can quietly carry on writing for future series. I don't know but his episodes have consistently been the best of The Bad Batch and last night's was no exception.
I really like that the show is actually focusing on the Batch (Dee Bradley Baker) as a group instead of being just The Omega (Michelle Ang) Show. Though do I like Omega and I felt she was well utilised in last night's episode. She credibly knew a secret way into the Kamino lab, having grown up assisting a prominent experimental scientist. And her idea about using the training droids was good but I also like that it went awry. She's not perfect.
The Star Wars movies typically feature a big battle sequence paired with a personal confrontation and last night's episode had something like that. There was the nice suspense and horror of the Kamino city being razed by Star Destroyers while the Batch are finally having a showdown with Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker).
This was great. Michnovetz took the inhibitor chip off the table and made Crosshair's loyalty to the Empire an actual point of view, a decision he came to. It's a little absurd that he was still committed to it after the troopers betrayed him but on the whole the tension worked. I really loved when he took out the group of troopers with one ricocheting shot. It comes at a moment of perfect dramatic tension and it fulfills a previously established character trait, the fact that we know Crosshair is a genetically engineered super-marksman. It was a perfect combination of surprise and building on what the audience already knows.
I'm really keen on seeing next week's episode. If Jennifer Corbett writes it, hopefully Michnovetz will edit the script enough so that it's still worthwhile.
The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.
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