The second season of The Bad Batch premiered on Disney+ on Wednesday with two episodes. They weren't bad, though maybe they'd have been more enjoyable if I hadn't seen Andor, from which it seems these new episodes are borrowing a couple plot elements. But they were written by Jennifer Corbett, one of the "developers" of The Bad Batch, and newcomer Gina Lucita Monreal.
We find Omega (Michelle Ang) has aged up a bit since we last saw her--I'm guessing she's 15 or 16 now. Which is good because hopefully the writers won't have to bend logic so much when she saves the day.
Like the famous second arc on Andor, this two parter follows our heroes staging a heist to acquire Imperial funds. The second episode even features a guy getting partially crushed by a cargo container of cash. The invitation to compare the show to Andor does it no favours as it mainly highlights the weaker character development and lower stakes action sequences in Bad Batch.
I do still like Omega, though, and if you can forget about Andor, the business of the heist is at least fairly logical. Omega and a couple of the Batch (Dee Bradley Baker) meet a native with an impressive voice--the actor is Hector Elizondo. I don't know him from anything (though I've evidently seen some movies in which he had bit parts) but he sure sounded like a celebrity.
He talks a little about how his culture was abused by Dooku, whose war chest the Batch is robbing. I wondered for a moment if he belonged to the same people Cassian Andor did and I realised it was impossible to tell from his generic clothes. If this show's going to make a big deal about cultural identity, they might want to think about creating some.
The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.
No comments:
Post a Comment