The long three-season road for Star War: The Bad Batch has come to an end in the series finale, "The Calvalry Has Arrived," a very typical episode capped by a tearjerking final scene.
We pick up with the Bad Batch infiltrating Mount Tantiss, and things play out generally the way I expected. Omega and the other children escape and unleash the Zillo Beast on the facility, which causes chaos. She eventually links up with Echo and Emerie, and the group proceeds to free all the Clones, Nala Se and Rampart.
One of my favorite moments was when Nala Se broke from the group to destroy her Cloning work and prevent the Empire from moving forward with project Necromancer. Rampart follows her and plans to use her work as a bargaining chip to secure himself a pardon and save the Emperor's prized project. A poetic scene plays out where Nala Se promises Rampart won't get his hands on the data. Reminding us of when he ordered the destruction of the Kaminoan city on season 1, Rampart kills one of the last remaining members of the species. But Nala Se take him and her work with her by activating a thermal detonator when she dies. It was honestly pretty satisfying.
The first rousing speech of the episode happens when Crosshair volunteers to go into the facility alone, as Wrecker appears to be severely wounded. Tech's name finally comes up and he proclaims that their old squad died when he did in season 2. But the three of them seem to have an unyielding will to save Omega, so they move in together anyway. They get their butts kicked fairly quick though, and get captured by Hemlock's assassin Clones.
It looks like this is the part where one of the Bad Batch would die, but it doesn't happen. They all escape from their capture after Wrecker breaks out of his torture chamber. Hemlock takes Omega and flees with Scorch, but Hunter and Crosshair catch up and somehow shoot down a ship with a rifle. They smoke Scorch and save Omega after Hemlock has her at gunpoint.
Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars series finale, Episode 315, "The Calvalry Has Arrived"
It all played out in a very predictable manner, and there were really no stakes, which was disappointing. The only loss was Nala Se, who has spent the last two seasons a prisoner anyway, as well Admiral Rampart and the cloning work. There were no connections between this show's clone plotline to The Mandalorian or the Star Wars sequel trilogy, so its loss was also pretty much a nonfactor.
Tarkin also shows up at the destroyed facility and confirms that nothing was salvageable, so again, the stakes were kind of nonexistent. I guess Crosshair lost an arm. Which doesn't really count in this world because you can replace it with a robot one.
Everyone returns to Pabu in the end and all is pretty much taken care of. Rex and his crew didn't show up at Tantiss, which is kind was disappointing. Emerie decides to help the Clones, Echo returns to Rex's crew and the Bad Batch stays on Pabu and live happily ever after.
They literally stay there for years, as a time jump shows an older Omega saying goodbye to Hunter when she decides to join the Rebellion. I wasn't expecting this scene to hit me so hard, but seeing a teenage Omega say goodbye to a middle-aged Hunter, who looked like old man Logan, was both compelling and emotional. It didn't make up for the rest of the shortcomings of the episode, and I don't like how Wrecker and Crosshair did not appear in the scene, but it was still pretty cool.
Episode Grade: C
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