The Bad Batch Spoiler Recap: Bounty Lost

Well, we’ve reached the back half of the season, and it doesn’t look like the Bad Batch is giving us a second to breathe. After all the plot lines converged last week, we picked up right where we left off with a breathtaking mid-season premiere.

(Does it count as a mid-season premiere if we never had a hiatus? I don’t know, don’t take this from me)

The episode opens with the Batch making a hasty retreat from Bracca, with Crosshair right on their tails. They make the jump to hyperspace, leaving their fallen brother behind, and I cannot help but wonder if we’re going to go another several weeks before seeing him again.

Meanwhile, Omega is in the custody of Cad Bane, who calls the Kaminoans to let them know he has their asset. They set the rendez-vous point on an old facility of theirs and that’s where Bane heads, with Omega and a still broken Todo in tow.

The banter between Todo and Omega is extremely cute as she lures him into a false sense of security, and it was a moment of much needed levity before we got a one-two punch of revelations that upped the ante for the rest of the season going forward.

First, there was the conversation between the Kaminoans. Once Prime Minister Lama Su gets Cad Bane’s update, Nala Se volunteers to be the one to go retrieve Omega. He sends Taun We instead, citing Nala Se’s attachment to Omega as a detriment. He does however tell her that once the child is back, he wants her genetic material extracted and then the asset terminated.

Harsh.

But then came the other reveal. The one that put to rest theories that have swirled since the premiere. Why exactly do the Kaminoans want Omega so badly? Tech has the answer, because of course he does!

Omega, it turns out, is not a Palpatine clone. She is not an amalgamation of the Bad Batch’s DNA. She is a pure genetic replication of the original donor. As in, she is a pure, unaltered Jango Fett clone, just like Boba is. 

Side note: did we know that Boba’s original name was Alpha? Did I just forget that? Though while I’m on that note, if Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last, how did the Kaminoans know she would be the last clone? Was she the last one made before the genetic material became unstable? Are there just a bunch of pure genetic replicas of Jango running around the galaxy?

Speaking of Omega, by the time they arrive on Bora Vio, she has managed to charm her way out of her cell by offering to repair Todo, has powered him down, and is once more in possession of her communicator. She escapes the ship and runs into the facility trying to contact the Batch. She does manage to get through, but doesn’t know where she is, and so doesn’t know how to direct them. An attempt to create a power surge slows her down enough for Cad Bane to catch up, but he isn’t the only bounty hunter on the abandoned facility.

Because Fennec Shand is here too. And she’s killed Taun We.

Following some vague hints about her working for the right price,, Fennec proposes a trade - she will give Bane the credits she took from Taun We in exchange for Omega. Bane agrees, but naturally neither bounty hunter trusts the other. Everything goes to hell when Todo snatches the credit case from Fennec and a gunfight ensues, causing just enough chaos for Omega to escape.

She makes it as far as a defunct cloning chamber, filled with jars of pickled Kaminoans - and not Pickled Snokes, as I feared - where Fennec finally catches up with her. 

This is the second time in the episode where Fennec suggests that Omega is better off with her. While the first time might have been read as the banter of a bounty hunter, it reads differently here. There is something more to her concern than just luring Omega into a false sense of security. Fennec knows something the rest of us don’t. 

Omega, however, decides she’s had enough of being dragged around and knocks a clone tank over onto Fennec, before stealing a flight pod in a bid to get off the facility. The bad news is the pod is too old to fly for long. The good news is that she managed to boost her signal enough for the Batch to find her and rescue her. To their credit, they decide to no longer keep her in the dark and tell her the truth about what the Kaminoans want. Omega worries about what this means for her future, but Hunter assures her that she’s never going back to Kamino. 

Famous last words.

So who was Fennec working for after all? Theories circulated that she wasn’t working for the Kaminoans. Others circulated that she was. In the end, both proved correct, as it turned out she’d been hired by Nala Se specifically. Whether she wanted her back and safe or relayed to a secondary location is unclear, but the one thing that is obvious is how much Nala Se cares about her young charge. When Fennec volunteers to pursue the Batch and bring in Omega, Nala Se declines, saying that Omega will be fine as long as she’s far from Lama Su. Something is very rotten in the state of Tipoca City.

Unlike the last time Fennec appeared on The Bad Batch, it doesn’t look like she’s going to be coming back. At least not this season. But I am interested to see how this storyline might play into the next time we’re guaranteed to see her, in The Book of Boba Fett at the end of this year. Will Omega make an appearance? I hope so, I love their dynamic, and wouldn’t it throw Boba for a loop to learn he has a little sister?

This was by far my favourite episode of the season. It pushed Omega further as a character and gave her journey some much needed stakes. Until now, she was the stakes for the rest of the group, but now she has a personal investment in her own future beyond survival. It also deeped the larger story surrounding the cloners and their “contingency plan”, whatever that is. Whether it has anything to do with Palpatine’s contingency, however, remains to be seen. 

I am also deeply relieved that the Bad Batch already has Omega back. I worried that the next few episodes would be them chasing her around the galaxy, in a race against the clock, and against other bounty hunters, in a contrived attempt to draw out her captivity as long as possible. But now that they have her back, and now they know why keeping her safe is so important, perhaps it opens up the avenue for them to slow down a little. Omega is the cause they fight for, and the side they’ve picked. I hope the show now finds a way to tie this into the struggle of the galaxy at large. If I’m being honest, for the first time all season, I have hope that they will.

What did you think? Is this the last we’re seeing of Fennec Shand? Are you glad the Batch got Omega back so quickly? Is Cad Bane down but not out? Join us for Bad Bitches on the Bad Batch, our biweekly livestream to dive in! And for more Star Wars discussion, don’t forget to subscribe to “Space Waffles”, our Star Wars focused podcast!

The Bad Batch is streaming now on Disney+ with new episodes every Friday.