Star Wars: The Bad Batch kicks off its final season with a bang
Star Wars: The Bad Batch review, Episode 303, "Shadows of Tantiss"
Things get hairy in this episode as Emperor Palpatine himself makes another appearance. He comes to check on Hemlock's progress on project Necromancer, which we can say almost certainly involves cloning the Emperor himself. The Star Wars Legends books covered this topic extensively but Disney's new Star Wars canon skipped over that part, although it could help explain how Palpatine inexplicably returned in Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. But with Hemlock trying to Clone midi-chlorian samples and the Emperor stating that this work is "imperative to the future of the Empire," it certainly looks like a contingency plan in the case of Palpatine's death.
And this episode showed us that Omega may be the key to Project Necromancer's success. Since Omega's arrival at Mount Tantis, Nala Se has destroyed all of her blood samples because she evidently knows that Omega has a high midi-chlorian count. With Nala Se sensing impending doom, she instructs Omega to escape the facility, but she was unable to destroy a blood sample collected by Emerie before she flees. That means Omega's blood could end up being responsible for Emperor Palpatine's return in the sequels. Pretty heavy stuff.
Omega and Crosshair bust out, commandeer a shuttle and eventually make it off-world by the end of the episode. I have to say, Omega's unrelenting optimism paired with Crosshair's sarcastic gloom was nothing short of fantastic and I'm looking forward to more.
Overall, this episode kept things moving at a solid pace; a proper Bad Batch reunion will likely happen in Episode 4. It also left me excited to see Hunter and Wrecker's reaction to seeing Crosshair again, after all the horrible stuff he did in the past. Since Omega wouldn't have been able to escape without him, they may have mixed feelings. Also, the Project Necromancer plot is finally moving forward a bit, but I need at least one more big reveal by the end of the season to be satisfied. If the big reveal ends up being "Omega is the reason Palpatine returned," I'll be a bit disappointed because that's clearly the tree they've been barking up for a while. As far as this episode though, it was also very solid.