3x01 Confined

[8.0/10] So we’ve just given up any pretense that The Bad Batch is a kids show, then? I’m not complaining. As a crusty old grown-up who saw The Phantom Menace in theaters, I am 100% here for the animated wing of Star Wars not letting the expectations of the animated medium limit the show from going big and going bold. But it’s striking how much “Confined” plays like an adult prestige drama more than an adventure for kids.

Granted, there’s still some elements there to make it accessible. The dialogue largely announces the themes -- of whether to trust others and stay loyal to friends, or remain suspicious of those outside your fold and act with selfish disregard for other lives. Omega nurturing and eventually freeing a wounded animal who’s being mistreated by the comically evil-named Dr. Hemlock is a sharp way to give younger viewers an intuitive way to connect with the situation and that moral. This season premiere isn’t devoid of onramps for watchers who didn’t graduate to this point from The Clone Wars.

(On a personal note, I very recently lost my beloved pet after an extended illness, so watching Omega try to get “Batcher” the lucra hound to eat despite his reluctance, to heal the animal’s wounds when it’s injured, and to set it free rather than let it be eliminated hit me extra hard, especially when Batcher whimpered and purred. I can't exactly give The Bad Batch credit for the emotional impact there, but suffice it to say, it drove home the story’s point with extra force for yours truly.)

But what struck me about “Confined” is how quiet, meditative, and artsy it is, in a way that appeals to older viewers but which I could easily see confounding or outright boring younger ones. There’s a lot of time spent here with the likes of Omega, Crosshair, and Nala Se gazing wistfully out barred windows or looking down in abject resignation or staring mournfully into the middle distance. We see scads of shots of dripping faucets, wringing hands, vials of blood collected and deposited. This is an episode more interested in conveying a mood and a feeling than it is in advancing the plot or delivering Star Wars’ expected action and excitement.

And I don’t know, I kind of love it. The animated wing of Star Wars has toyed with this sort of thing for a while, but this may be the most committed expression of it. There is so much that is unspoken and understated about what’s going on here. Nala Se’s fraught protection, Crosshair’s subtle caring despite disillusionment, Omega’s idealistic resilience amid horrible circumstances, all breathe life into the drab, dehumanizing setting of Hemlock’s lab. There are so many little touches here to make you feel the oppressiveness of that space, so many quiet moments to let the experience of them wash over the viewer, so many artistically-composed visuals to evoke that sensibility.

I can't say that I didn’t know The Bad Batch had this in it, because we’ve seen this sort of thing in pieces from Filoni and company’s corner of the franchise. But I’ve never seen it given free reign like this, and it’s really cool.

Of course, there is still plot-relevant stuff happening. We get strong hints that the goal of Hemlock’s program is to be able to create a clone with the same “M-count” (read: midichlorians) as the donor. We see Emerie Karr do her job and believe in the project, but slowly start to develop a certain attachment to Omega, and vice versa. We see Crosshair plead detachment and selfishness, but work to protect her in his own way. And we see Omega’s blood taken by one caretaker and discarded by another, seen as some kind of key to the process. Fans of the Sequel Trilogy can intuit where this is all leading, but as with The Clone Wars series, knowing the end only adds to the sense of tragedy and ominousness as to what’s going on here.

And I like the themes. What differentiates Omega and Hemlock is more than power. Hemlock uses people. When some troopers crashland outside the borders of the compound, he writes them off, leaves them for dead and useless to him. He is mercenary, craven, and only sees people for their use to him. He’s willing to use Nala Se’s attachment to Omega to manipulate her, and Omega’s attachment to Crosshair to do the same with threats and insinuations.

But despite everything, and the passage of time in captivity that's conveyed in drips and vials, Omega hasn’t lost her devotion or her optimism. She aims to rescue Crosshair. She aims to bring Emerie into the fold. She aims to save an innocent lucra hound, her figurative mirror image behind bars. Her willingness to protect others, to try to save them, even at great personal cost, is what makes her different, worthy, in a way Hemlock probably can't even understand.

This is all a little heavy for the younger set. I wouldn’t even blame a teenager for turning this off and decrying it as boring or stodgy. But for me at least, this is striking and, if not beautiful, then certainly poignant in what it conveys and how it conveys it. This may not be as exciting or fun as creature chases on the beach, like we got in last season’s premiere, but it’s that much more potent and piercing for its willingness to give us this mature change of pace.