2x03 The Solitary Clone

[8.0/10] “The Solitary Clone” plays like a throwback to the days of The Clone Wars series. I used to accuse TCW of “video game plotting.” On a regular basis, some combination of Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ashoka would fight some goons, then probably some bigger goons, then a few genuinely challenging enemies, before going toe-to-toe with the final boss of the episode. As much as I enjoyed the show, I got tired of that formula in its early seasons.

In a sense “The Solitary Clone” is just that. When infiltrating a planet to rescue a kidnapped superior, Crosshair and none other than the long missing Commander Cody lead the mission. They mow down a series of nigh-useless B1 battle droids, before having to contend with some mildly more challenging droidekas, then they have a legitimately harrowing fight with a few droid commandos of the sort that gave Ahsoka fits at the beginning of The Clone Wars, before taking out a strategy droid and facing down their target’s captor.

The action is exciting, with losses (albeit of barely-named “regs”) that show the costs of the assault, and some genuinely clever tactics at play. In particular, Crosshair’s use of reflective pucks, and the ensuing struggle within a spiral staircase, is some of the most claustrophobic, well-directed action The Bad Batch has offered this season. But the general shape of the way the battle escalates would be familiar to anyone who’s been watching Commander Cody since he appeared in The Clone Wars pilot movie.

But I take that to be the point here. Because even though the rhythms are the same, the context is very different, and I think The Bad Batch wants its viewers, especially the longtime fans, to contemplate that. Watching clone troopers fight through a bunch of battle droids on a Separatist planet where they’ve taken an opposing leader hostage is meat and potatoes, rah-rah stuff. But now the situation is different.

The government the soldiers are fighting for isn’t the Republic; it’s the Empire. The Separatists aren’t aggressors attacking our heroes; they’re an independent system that just wants to remain independent and avoid being gobbled up by the Empire. Many of the faces are the same. The overall progression of the fight is the same. But everything here feels off, to where who to root for, versus who the perspective characters are, isn’t as clear as it once was.

That's a feature, not a bug. Cody is doing what he’s always done. He listens to the orders of his generals. He battles his way through wave after wave of battle droids. He reaches the enemy target and gets them at a disadvantage.

Yet, that's where things are different. Governor Tawni Ames is a reasonable person. Her motives to protect her people from Imperial overreach are sympathetic. She is not a warmonger. In fact, she joined Mina Bonteri, a Separatist Senator, and a group of Republic Senators, in proposing a peace accord that was rejected by Palpatine. Bonteri was part of an episode called “Heroes on Both Sides”, crossing paths with the heroes of The Clone Wars and teaching Ahsoka in particular that the war wasn’t as cut and dry as “good vs. evil”, but that there were well-intentioned Separatists who had their own fair points and legitimate grievances to bear.

Now, Cody gets the same lesson. He recognizes her as someone else who lived through the horrors of that war, and persuades her to let the hostage go without a fight lest their actions this day result in more bloody conflict. In effect, he recognizes that despite his orders, Governor Ames is not a bad guy. He wants a peaceful, diplomatic solution to this, and manages to achieve it by laying down his arms and promising her that if she works with him on this, this can all stop without anyone else having to die for it. With the word of a fellow traveler as a bond, she agrees.

And Crosshair kills her.

You know it’s coming, and it still hurts a little. We know from last season’s finale that Crosshair is a true believer, not even needing the control ship to continue the path that he was set on during the Clone Wars. He has his orders. He follows them. It’s not his to question why. The Empire is the inheritor of the Republic, and thus the institution he owes fealty to. That's it. That's all it ever was. He does what’s asked of him.

But Cody can’t. There’s a grim tone that spills over Dessex as the Empire descends on the once-independent world. The skittering residents seem even more concerned as the stormtroopers show up to take their world by force and make an example out of them. Cody can’t abide it. He can’t abide the Imperial general breaking the promise Cody made to Governor Ames. He can’t abide Crosshair’s cold willingness to execute those orders, and the Governor, without a second thought. He is the latest trooper to cross paths with Crosshair and decide to go AWOL.

The reasons are clear. He tells Crosshair that there’s a difference between clones and droids, and it rings true, despite the comparisons Star Wars animation has drawn between the two over the years. Clones do make real choices, and they have to live with them. Cody still thought he was fighting for the good guys. But the game has changed, and after such a craven display, the familiar becomes foreign, and what you used to do unquestioningly suddenly becomes a moral compromise you can no longer stand. Cody’s the same, but the world’s different, and he has to act on that difference.

So true to the title, Crosshair is once again left alone. Even the other regs won’t sit with him. Anyone he has a bond with, even a passing acquaintance with, seems to have taken a different path. The world is the same to him, and maybe it is. Maybe we were just as wrong for rooting for one side over the other rather than recognizing the abiding message of The Clone Wars and, to some extent, the whole Prequel Trilogy. To the extent there’s anything but, this was a senseless war, and it didn’t matter whom you were cheering for, because the same forces were pulling the strings on both sides, they served to benefit from it, and everyone else, even those fighting for the right reasons, were sullied by it.

That's a hard lesson, especially for what is ostensibly an all-ages program. But it seems to be increasingly the purview of The Bad Batch. This series carries on the legacy of the show that spawned it, through the eyes of one of the heroes turned villains, ordered to kill the heroes turned villains, and finds himself ostracized and isolated for it.