*Warning: the following article contains spoilers for episode eleven of Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 2*
After a riveting opening sequence sets the stage for something far more interesting than the rest of what’s to come, episode eleven of Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 2 becomes yet another aimless side quest as Clone Force 99 (Dee Bradley Baker) goes to recover cargo from a stranded ship on Mount Tantiss from Cid (Rhea Perlman). It seems the Bad Batch has had enough of Cid, especially with how she stranded them in the previous two episodes and let them fend for themselves. They almost permanently lost the Marauder for crying out loud!
Read: ‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 2’ Episode Ten Review: “Retrieval”
Why are we doing this again? You’ve done it! We don’t need to have the Bad Batch do missions for Cid anymore, though it looks like this will finally be over. The show sets up a story and practically doesn’t pay it off, preferring for audiences to spend time with Clone Force 99 during events that hold no emotional weight and don’t add much depth to what we know about the characters. Now if it were entertaining, like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I wouldn’t complain. But it isn’t.
This time around: the Batch has to subdue a Zillo Beast who starts to grow as it absorbs electricity. While this could’ve been a fun Kaiju-centered episode in Star Wars, there isn’t anything interesting exploited with the premise. The Kaiju spectacle was already done (well) in The Book of Boba Fett (sue me, I liked it when it went ultra-campy, which is what Robert Rodriguez is known for, but not so much when it treaded in boring flashbacks), but it could’ve taken an interesting turn in animated form.
Unfortunately, the central action setpiece is neither impressive nor impactful. The Empire has taken away the Zillo Beast in the most anticlimactic moment of the season yet, so they can examine it and use it for reasons that have not been specified. It’s used in some way for cloning, but it hasn’t thoroughly been explained yet. Will it? I doubt it since The Bad Batch keeps presenting interesting stuff and cuts to the less interesting stuff, leaving us hanging for weeks (!!!) on end for what we actively want to see.
Case in point: the opening scene is amazing. It presents audiences with a more menacing threat, Doctor Ryce Hemlock (Jimmi Simpson), who has captured Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) for the Empire’s latest cloning efforts. She refuses to work with him, but the show cuts to the Bad Batch going after the crashed ship. After that, it’s a bore, even after it cuts back to Dr. Hemlock to bookend the episode.
I truly apologize for saying the same thing repeatedly. This show has not been good. Every week, I go in with an open mind thinking, “this is it!” only for it….not to be it. I wouldn’t mind it at all if the filler was at least entertaining, but it’s not. It’s lethargically paced, poorly choreographed, and instantly forgettable. It especially sucks because the same team makes it from The Clone Wars. Who knows, now that they’ve planted the seed that they don’t want to work for Cid anymore, will the show finally break free from the shackles of weekly sidequests? Please…
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The eleventh episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 2 is available to stream on Disney+.
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