The Bad Batch Spoiler Review: The Crossing

 This review contains spoilers for The Bad Batch episode “The Crossing”

Here at The Geeky Waffle, while we are fans of The Bad Batch, we are also in support of the Unwhitewash TBB movement.

This movement is from the Twitter user @unwhitewashtbb and is being led by “fans of color, disabled fans, neurodivergent fans, and Jewish fans.” It’s to bring awareness of the racial discrimination that is baked into the very fabric of this show. The Batch is designed to be “elite clones” and yet their skin tones are very white. All clones are designed after Temuera Morrison, who is a man of color. If the only clones that are perceived as white are considered “elite” and “the best” while regular clones who still appear as people of color are seen as “lesser,” these kinds of design choices have very real consequences on young audiences. @UnwhitewashTBB cites in their title card the hurtful implications this has on minority groups. The card, linked here, goes into great detail about how and why this is a problem. Go read it thoroughly.

It’s important that the creators hear the concerns of fans and work to rectify them. To be clear, whitewashing characters of color should never happen in the first place. It’s a choice that begins in the design phase, which makes it faulty and wrong from the start. We will continue to help hold the creators accountable so mistakes like this don’t happen if we get a season three as well as for future Star Wars projects.

Please follow @UnwhitewashTBB for more information.

Sometimes a piece of media comes along that affects you so deeply and personally that it changes your view of everything. It breaks your heart and makes you cry with joy. It’s understanding. It’s vindication. It’s the act that a franchise you love so much says they see you and you are whole, not broken, and human just like everyone else. “The Crossing” from The Bad Batch did that for me this week with Tech.

This isn’t going to be like my other reviews because I’m way too emotional to dive into individual parts of this like I normally do. This is honestly going to be a mess of thoughts because this episode left me with a mess of happy emotions that I’m still processing. Bear with me, because this will be all over the place.

Omega’s grief over Echo leaving was so well done this week. The episode never forgot that she was a kid who, from her point of view, is watching her family fall apart. Crosshair left and then Echo went with Rex. It’s heart-wrenching for her to see the Batch fight among themselves. There is real fear and pain in her eyes as it happens. Her family is changing and she doesn’t know how to process it. Hunter and Wrecker are doing the best they can, but honestly, Echo is the most emotionally rounded of the Batch member. With him gone, she’s trying to soldier on through it.

That’s the thing, though. Omega isn’t a soldier. She wasn’t trained like the rest of them to compartmentalize her feelings and move forward. This is actually a way that Omega has been helping all of the members of the Batch since day one. She’s been opening them up to being more vocal with their emotions and expressing themselves. I don’t think that Hunter or Wrecker from Clone Wars season seven would have recognized Omega’s struggles right away in “The Crossing.” Yes, they would have gotten there eventually, but not as fast as they did here.

I am glad we got an entire episode of Omega processing her grief over Echo’s departure. One of my biggest complaints about season one was the lack of time spent with the characters processing their emotions and what was actually happening around them. Letting Omega be the voice of that this season forces all of the other characters to slow down and go through it as well.

This brings me to my favorite character in the show which is Tech. I was thinking about the title of the episode. “The Crossing,” to me, is about the crossing of communication between Omega and Tech. It’s them crossing the bridge they built with each other this week to come to an understanding.

I always grew up never saying the right thing. I often misunderstood people’s emotions and feelings. I have said things before that were a compliment in my head only for an entire group to get mad at me. I still don’t know why they got mad, and it haunts me a decade later. Emotions can be really hard to understand. It’s difficult and so often I never knew what was wrong with me. Why did I say these things? Why wasn’t I connecting with others as easily? Why am I broken? Will I mess things up again? Am I worthy of being loved if I can’t be normal? Why can’t I be normal?

And then I get characters like Tech that make it okay. Actually, it was another show before Tech that I started to make these connections with myself. Going back a few years, it was Entrapta from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power that made me start questioning these things about myself. She also struggled with understanding people’s emotions. People didn’t understand her way of communicating. They would grow upset and frustrated with her, thinking she was selfish or harmful. But really, she had the biggest heart of all. She was communicating her own way, and she needed to learn how to connect. Others also had to learn to communicate with her too.

I then found out that Entrapta was purposely written to be autistic. Here she was a thriving leader and a princess of her realm and I got her. I understood her on a level I never got with a character before. It was a kind of validation and connection I never had with a piece of media. There are entire Entrapta scenes where I sat there and had these massive ‘holy shit’ realizations about myself. Like this scene below is a conversation that I’ve had with other people almost verbatim.

Star Wars then entered the fray of my feelings with Tech. He reminded me so much of Entrapta and myself. It was hard to hear people not understand him, to say that he was an asshole, to say that they want to hit him for being a jerk and annoying. Because those are attacks on me too. I heard those words about a character that I saw myself in so wholly and encompassing, and it hurt me too. Is that why people get mad at me for saying the wrong thing? Do people want to attack me when I misspeak? Is that why I feel alone so much? I’m the problem, aren’t I? Is that it?

“The Crossing” helped silence those horrible questions in me. It confirmed that Tech was definitely neurodivergent and probably written to be coded autistic. Which is just an insane piece of representation to get in this series. Because that’s me. I’m right there on the screen with a character that I always loved from the get-go. And this is where I learn the lessons of Tech and Entrapta. They have a family. They have friends. These characters also teach us how to communicate with each other.

Flat out, Tech was in the wrong in this episode. His words hurt Omega, and Hunter and Wrecker rightfully call him out on it. The entire plot of “The Crossing” is Tech realizing that his words and treatment of Omega are not okay. It’s not the best way to communicate with her and vice versa. So he sits down and explains that while he doesn’t always say the right things, he loves them all so very much. He has such intense love, but it’s trapped inside unable to be expressed normally. He loves Crosshair and Echo, thus respecting their choice to leave the Batch.

It’s his pauses in the conversation that gives it away. Tech always has something to say and Omega leaves him speechless twice. Two separate times, he doesn’t have a quick answer for her. She makes him sit and realize how he has affected her. It’s right there that Tech has a paradigm shift. He has to explain his mind in simple terms that he feels just as much as she does. It’s then she starts to really understand. Omega sees that he really does care deeply about everyone. I talk about that back in “Ruins of War” that Tech doesn’t always say the right thing, but he will go to extreme lengths for his family. Still in this episode, his way left Omega hurt and they must do their own crossing of communication to figure out a new way to talk to each other.

By the end of their gorgeous conversation, they reach that point of understanding. Tech knows he has to approach Omega differently. Omega knows that Tech gives a damn about all of them. It was an amazing, powerful scene that was all I ever could have asked for in this series.

Understanding is the key here. Taking the patience to communicate and find that understanding is the message. It’s a two-way street. People who are neurodivergent have to learn their words hold weight. But others have to understand it’s not always easy for neurodivergent people to communicate. It takes a lot of patience for it to happen which is what Omega and Tech found.

“The Crossing” was everything I wanted from Tech. It showed that he’s not perfect, but that doesn’t make him broken. He can learn and grow. Those in his life will still love him. He has people who will reach out and try for him as he will do for them. He responds to Omega with love in the end, and she reaches back with love too. It’s all that any of us could ever hope for which is to have someone to love and understand us in the end. For me, it silenced those hateful thoughts about myself, giving me hope that I’m okay too.

Just the way I am.