3x09 The Harbinger

[7.5/10] Let’s start with the good. Ventress is back! Since the 2-D Clone Wars show, she ahs been one of the coolest parts of the animated corner of the Star Wars universe, and so it’s nice to see her get a chance to step into this modern era of it.

She also makes a ton of sense as an erstwhile mentor for Omega and someone with a strange concordance with the Bad Batch. She knows better than anyone what it’s like to be manipulated by forces within the Empire, to be kept as someone’s side project, to have abilities you’re not quite sure what to do with. She also knows how being Force Sensitive marks you, makes you an object of interest, a tool to be used, by greater forces. The way she wants to both help Omega, and also protect her and keep ehr away from all of this, speaks to the difficult circumstances Ventress has been through and come out the other side. (And there’s some nice parallels to the main ideas of Ahsoka in that.)

And in her interactions with Hunter, Crosshair, and Wrecker, she carries on the theme from the 3D Clone Wars show -- that the war they all devoted themselves to was a tragedy, one where they were all used and spit out. The sense of knowing what that's like, of coming out uncertain of your loyalties and broadened in your perspective or right and wrong, good and evil, makes her of a piece with what Clone Force 99 experienced during and after the war, Crosshair especially.

Like Shand, she is a bit of a wildcard, someone who doesn’t fit neatly in the alignment chart. But she’s also someone who’s seen this all before, and is ready to impart her wisdom to the Bad Batch, and especially to their young ward. I like that idea a lot, especially when it comes to the costs of being force sensitive, not just the ability to lift rocks and calm angry beasts.

Admittedly, the calming angry beasts part is cool. The episode is a mixed bag visually. It is cool to see Ventress duck and doge through our heroes like the badass that she is, and swing around a lightsaber once more. (And, not for nothing, it’s cool to see her with hair not unlike Merrin’s in Fallen Order as a fellow sister.) But the herky jerky style gives the fight movements a certain janky, stop-motion vibe that detracts from the encounter.

That said, her and Omega’s rumble with the kraken is a winner. The design of the kraken is striking, with a multicolored carapace, alien beak, and swarming tentacles. And the fact that Ventress bests it not through brute strength or deft dodging, but rather through forging a Force-friendly connection with the creature, illustrates both her mastery of the Force, but also her lesson to Omega at the same time.

So as a vaunted return for Ventress and an event of “testing” Omega’s ability, “The Harbinger” succeeds. True to the title, she also works as someone whose warnings of what’s coming setup grave things to come in a way that intrigues and terrifies, with poor Omega in the sights of the jackals.

But there’s a few problems. The smallest of them is that this seems to contradict the Dark Disciple novels, in another case of the television wing of Star Wars overwriting its literary wing. Can you come up with some retcon or explanation for the discrepancy? Sure. Ventress even has a cheeky line about it. But yet again, after pretending that everything’s canon, the powers that be once again prove that there is an unspoken hierarchy. So enjoy those written tales for their own independent worth, but don’t expect them to be the tail wagging the dog of Lucasfilm’s film and T.V. offerings.

The medium problem is that most Star Wars fan could assuredly guess what “M-count” meant by this point, so having Ventress come down to confirm it doesn’t mean very much. Yes, there’s no reason for the Bad Batch to know that, but bringing in characters to solve mysteries the audience already knows the answer to, without any sense of foreboding or tragic irony, makes the plot mechanics feel perfunctory.

Last but not least, not everyone needs to be Force Sensitive! It happened in the Sequel Trilogy (sort of). It happened in Ashoka. Hell, it pretty much happened with Leia. Why can't some major characters just stay (relative) normies and revel in their achievements that way. That ship has already pretty well sailed with Omega at this point, but I don’t know, I wish we could get more characters in Star Wars who are special and cool without them secretly being revealed to be force-sensitive. It runs into the “All of Peter Parker’s friends end up with spider powers” problems that makes the universe feel smaller and cheaper.

Still, I like where this lands, with the idea that in the age of the Empire, force-sensitivity is less a blessing than a curse. The training scenes with Ventress and Omega are a little too generic, which is part of my problem. But I appreciate the reveal that they’re also part of a ruse, something to tell Omega that she isn’t a Jedi, and try to convince her, and the much more skeptical Bad Batch, to spare her what an answer in the other direction would mean. “Someone who is force-sensitive, but doesn’t realize, and goes untrained to avoid becoming a target” is a much more interesting story than the umpteenth “Rough-around-the-edges young learner is schooled in the ways of the Force” story.

All that aside, Omega still represents a certain light in this world. She’s willing to give Ventress a second chance, much as she was for Crosshair. She sees the good in Ventress despite her past, while Ventress tries to spare Omega from the bad that could lie in her future. It’s an interesting game of contrast and compare, and makes “The Harbinger” a good outing for The Bad Batch, even as I still lament some of its problems.

Once again, the animators taking Every. Single. Live-action. Producer. To. School.

Real blackout darkness without making the show difficult to watch. Every light source and shadow in this episode was premeditated. Even when characters were completely hidden by shadows, I could still see what was going on on a nine-year-old LCD. The entire episode took place on an island experiencing total overcast and yet everything still looked beautiful and colorful.

If a genie suddenly told me I had three wishes, my first wish might actually be that every human values and respects the ability to competently frame and light a scene!

As for the actual story... Asajj Ventress, Kraken Whisperer.

The way Ventress was so casually (re)introduced, and the way she relates to the Batchers was a real left-field play and I really liked it. And they finally said "Midi-chlorians" after being so cheeky for so long with M-count this, M-count that. Just say the word. It's not cursed or anything.

Another thing I really liked is how Crosshair gave Ventress his hand. Good Crosshair, you're LEARNING!

Omega's journey is about to get very heavy, and we are now at the half-way point for the final season. This whole series has been one bar higher than the animated Star Wars that came before, and this season has been so focused and devoid of any distractions. I'm so conflicted that this is the end, but I'm so pleased that this isn't the end for Filoni's animated Star Wars.

(I'm still holding my breath for a complete remaster of the original Clone Wars series using the current version of their animation engine.)