3x15 The Cavalry Has Arrived

[7.8/10] The crux of Star Wars is choices. Choices are at the heart of all good storytelling, but Star Wars in particular is founded on them. Luke chooses between the Darkside and the Light. Han chooses to return to the fight when he could take his money and run. Vader chooses to kill the Emperor rather than let his son follow in his mistakes. These are all monumental decisions, centered on character, that are a bigger part of what made the franchise so indelible beyond the space battles and special effects.

And my favorite part of Bad Batch’s series finale are the choices it chooses to center on. Crosshair wants to go in alone to spare his comrades, but Hunter and Wrecker choose to follow him anyway, because by god, they are still a team. Rampart chooses to nab the cloning research, no matter what harm it causes, because he wants it as a bargaining chip. Nala Se chooses to sacrifice her own life to destroy, because she won’t let her science be used for more evil.

Emerie Karr chooses to rescue those innocent children then continue being a handmaiden of the Empire. Omega chooses to forgo the easiest path of escape because she wants to help liberate her brothers. The imprisoned clone troopers could easily just leave themselves, but choose to fight alongside Echo and Omega to rescue the original Bad Batch.

And in the endgame, Hunter chooses to trust that, after years together, Omega knows what to do in a tough situation. Omega herself chooses to take her chance, knowing that she’s been prepared for this moment. Despite his shaky hand, Crosshair chooses to take the shot, and makes it when it counts. And Dr. Hemlock chooses to bank on the notion that loyalty is a weakness, rather than a strength, unwittingly sealing his doom.

Those are the choices that make “The Cavalry Has Arrived” a satisfying end to The Bad Batch. Clone Force 99 continues to function as a team despite their hardships and losses along the way. The children and clones are freed, with Emerie doing the right thing. Hemlock and Rampart are defeated, victims of their own hubris and greed. After seasons’ worth of worry, Hunter sees how much his surrogate daughter has grown and come into her own. Crosshair finds the mettle to rise to the occasion despite his traumas on Tantiss. And Omega herself aces her final exam, becoming a full-fledged member of the Bad Batch, able to face down anything, and remember the compassion and courage that held her steady through so many challenges.

Which is all to say I like where the show lands and how it lands there. It gets the core things right, crafting a sound ending and confrontation that reveals both who these characters are and how far they’ve come. That is not easy to do, and on that alone, The Bad Batch deserves its laurels.

Here’s where I struggle a bit: everything from about the midpoint of the finale to that final confrontation with Dr. Hemlock is kind of a mess.

What’s funny is that the first half of the episode is surprisingly well structured, clear, and propulsive despite having to juggle a lot. You have Omega and her mini-Bad Batch scheming to escape; Emerie and Echo following their trail; Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair working their way into the base; and Dr. Hemlock trying to fend off this attack he viewed as inevitable. The four-perspective structure gives you a sense of scope at the base, and allows the episode to keep the energy and tension up by moving from one plot to another.

There’s even a sense of escalation and chess match to the proceedings. Omega divides Hemlock’s attention by releasing the Zillo Beast. (Another nice bit of payoff!) Hemlock responds by unleashing his Shadow Operatives. There’s a sense of punch and counter punch to the various moves the parties make here. And the fact that the rest of the Bad Batch recognize Omega’s handiwork because she’s successfully following their playbook, is a nice way of showing how much the young clone internalized in her time with the crew.

Hell, I’d go so far as to say I downright love Omega’s rescue mission for the child prisoners. It’s one thing for her to be a full-fledged member of Clone Force 99. It’s quite another for her to successfully lead her own mission and organize a bunch of amateurs in a way that still lets them win the day. The biggest throughline across The Bad Batch has been Omega coming into her power, and this episode does a good job of dramatizing what she’s capable of even apart from her usual allies and resources.

But once the kiddies are on a transport with Dr. Karr, and our heroes are fighting the Shadow Operatives, everything turns to mush. “The Cavalry Has Arrived” runs into the same problem that a lot of clone-based stories run into -- by definition, a lot of these people look alike. So when you shoot everything in low light and put everyone in similar armor, who’s fighting whom and why it matters gets muddled pretty quickly.

The show tries its best. The Shadow Operatives have cool designs, even if they get samey quickly. I wish we got confirmation that the one operative is a specific clone of Crosshair, but whatever. They all have different fancy weapons and pose vaguely distinct threats, cutting the image of purge troopers from the Fallen Order games.

But the truth is that even high class goons are just goons. At the end of the day, the bad guy is Hemlock, and he’s never been a physically imposing figure. So slogging through fifteen minutes of undifferentiated firefights and fisticuffs with the bad guys doesn’t evoke much beyond a yawn from me, especially when it’s hard to follow the action.

There’s some catharsis in the notion that the sort of regs who looked down at Clone Force 99 in the beginning of the series are now willing to fight to save their lives. And our heroes’ steadfastness despite Hemlock’s “conditioning”, and Omega’s faith in her brothers, are both admirable. But little in the sturm und drang of the finish is especially compelling until that big confrontation with Hemlock on the bridge.

Ironically, I’ve always preferred it more when Bad Batch goes small than when it goes big. I can't deny the technically impressiveness of what the creative team pulls off her. You definitely get the sense of utter chaos and streaking combat throughout the facility. But I don’t know, I never really felt like the Bad Batch was in danger, and it was hard to muster up a lot of care when they were squaring off against the supposedly unstoppable Shadow Operatives.

Still, if you can strip that way, you have a lot of strong choices, from the creative team and from the characters. That reckoning on the bridge is the culmination of three character arcs, and one villain’s demise, all rolled into a single big scene, which is impressive. The way the good guys don’t just snuff out “Project Necromancer”, but reach a sort of fulfillment and self-actualization out of taking down the last remnant that saw them as science experiments, not people, is stirring.

The ending isn’t bad either. Though basic, there’s something to the idea that after fighting for so long, the Bad Batch and their fellow clones have earned that so precious of freedoms -- the freedom to choose. The central problem Clone Force 99 started with is what the lives of these good soldiers amount to when they don’t have any more orders to follow. The sense of being used up and spit out by the Empire pervades the series. So there is something just as stirring about Hunter reassuring Omega that they can stop running; they have the freedom to go and do and be whatever they want. And the closing tableau, of warriors at rest, is a lovely closing image.

Well, almost closing image. The gestures we get toward the future are nice enough. Tarkin reapportioning the funding to Hemlock’s project to the Death Star makes sense. Omega growing up and joining the Rebellion, in effect, choosing to fight, adds up. And while we don’t know the fate of his brethren, if anyone’s earned a rest, it’s Hunter. We haven't seen much in the way of clones getting happy retirements in the Star Wars universe, so I’m happy to see ol’ Space Dad get his.

I don’t know quite what to say about THe Bad Batch as a whole other than that it was the most consistently high quality show in the Star wars animated canon. The floor on this one was high, and you can tell that this creative team, who have largely sprung forth from The Clone Wars and Rebels, knows this sandbox like the back of their hands. The art, the thematics, the character growth, the politics, the canon connections, the little moments of joy and pain, were all well done on a week-to-week basis.

And yet, despite that technical excellence, I’d be lying if I said that the series had wormed its way into my heart like some of the other animated series have. The best I can guess is that there’s a sort of sameyness to the show, and a flatter tone, which can make it harder to distinguish sometimes. Still, watching Omega grow while maintaining her righteousness and care for her fellow clones, watching Hunter become a good parent and caretaker despite never having one of his own, and especially watching Crosshair goes from Imperial true believer, to traumatized used up defector, to reformed hero, were all worth the price of admission. Despite any ups and downs, like Hunter, The Bad Batch has earned a little rest.