2x11 Metamorphosis

[7.6/10] It’s nice to see the Zillo Beast back! More and more of season 2 feels like a sequel to The Clone Wars (more so than even Rebels did). The exact results of Palpatine’s instructions to have the Zillo Beast cloned were one of the loose ends from the prior series, so it’s nice to see some answers here. The Emperor did, in fact, manage to clone the Beast with the help of Kaminoan technology and other amoral mad scientists. Given the size of the operation and the number of ships, it looks like they succeeded in cloning it more than once, and there’s a secret project to try to use its blaster-resistant skin for armor plating. Very cool to get some payoff to something that started back in 2010.

(As an aside, I could have sworn we’ve seen the Zillo Beast brought back before “Metamorphosis”, but it turns out I was just remembering an episode of Lego Star Wars All Stars! A lot of the non-canon T.V. series are fun, but they can jumble your memory of what happened in the main timeline. The same thing happened when I was sure that Andor and K2-S0 had crossed over into one of the animated shows, and was again, accidentally recalling one of the Lego series.)

This episode had a very Alien vibe, with our heroes trapped in an enclosed space with a lurking monster, with a lot of gradual escalation in tension and a spooky atmosphere. The atmosphere was actually my favorite part of this one. I’d half-guessed it might be the Zillo Beast after a bit, so its appearance wasn’t a big shock. But the director, writer, and composer all do a good job presenting an air of eeriness about the derelict imperial transport where the beast ate everyone. The show captures the horror vibes of the encounter, and follows the JAWS principle of heightening the anticipation, and the terror, by only showing you glimpses of the creature and signs of the damage it can do long before you see the full thing in action.

The ensuing confrontation loses a little steam once the beast breaks out of the ship. Longtime fans have seen the creature rampage on skyscrapers before, and it seems comparatively easy for the Imperials to recapture it this time. (Though maybe the coning process made it mildly more docile? Who knows.) But there’s still plenty of good fireworks in the efforts to escape both the beast’s maw and the Empire attacking.

I’m most intrigued by the developments for the bigger story arcs wending their way through the series. For one thing, it’s nice to see the tension between Cid and the Bad Batch escalate after she didn’t help rescue them. Between that and the warning from the shady racing guy, I’ll bet she comes through in the clutch for the team in a big moment to prove that there’s some loyalty there, but it provides good reason for conflict between Clone Force 99 and their own shady benefactor, so I dig it.

On a broader scale, we get some new wrinkles in the cloning conspiracy and a new antagonist. I’m a fan of Jimmi Simpson, so it’s nice to see him aboard as Dr. Hemlock, the malevolent scientist who seems to be behind the secret cloning projects.. The fact that these projects exist leads to plenty of intriguing questions like what exactly they’re doing beyond the markless Clone Troopers we met in “Clone Conspiracy” and the Zillo beast. (The tall, glowy-helmeted troopers suggest something further.) The desire to hide the cloning project to exert greater control over it is interesting and on brand, and even (sigh) sets up Palpatine trying to clone himself. And the fact that the former Kaminoan Prime Minister tells Dr. Hemlock that the way to get Nala Se to cooperate is by using Omega sets up a future confrontation between the Empire and the Bad Batch, which I appreciate.

All-in-all, this one does a nice job of picking up one of the loose threads from The Clone Wars in a nicely scary sort of way, while also successfully introducing some new characters and machinations that will no doubt be a major part of our protagonists’ future.