Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 3 Episode 2: Paths Unknown
What is it ? : The Durand crime family puts one of it's members to death, before Hunter and Wrecker enter with a Pyke the family has been wanting for some time. In exchange Roland Durand gives them information on where Doctor Hemlock is based.
They contact Rex and Echo who are on another mission and will join them in a couple of cycles, but Hunter doesn't want to wait because they've kept Omega waiting for them for long enough.
The land on a Jungle world, and locate the laboratory, but it has been destroyed in an orbital bombardment, but they encounter two clones who are apparently teenagers. They were left here, abandoned by the other clones after Hemlock was experimenting on them. They warn that the jungle is dangerous with Slither Vines, taking them back to their camp where another teenage clone awaits.
Hunter tells them he needs to get access to the destroyed base, and one of the clones tells him there is a functional console within if they can provide power. Two of the Clones refuse to enter the base as it's too dangerous, but the third accompanies them back to the Havok Marauder to get Gonky, and then on into the base. They find the console and access the data, but come under attack from much larger Vines than they've seen before.
Meanwhile the other two clones decide that Hunter, Wrecker and their friend won't survive, so decide to steal the Havok Marauder to escape this world. The clone with Hunter and Wrecker calls for help, and as they scramble out of the base, the Marauder arrives and they winch up into it, but the Slither Vines entangle the ship.
They drop a Thermal Detonator into the vine creature below, but it barely makes a difference, so they drop an entire case of explosives and set them off, killing the creature and letting them escape.
In space they discover the data points them towards a sector but not exactly where Hemlock relocated to, so they promise to drop off the young clones on Pabu with good people where they can decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives. . . .
High Points : This episode got off to a good start, with Hunter and Wrecker alone on the Havok Marauder, it suddenly seeming very big and empty with just the two of them aboard. It's emotional, with Hunter desperately wanting to rescue Omega, and becoming irrational about it, and Wrecker totally understanding but keeping him grounded and his mind focused on it as a mission.
But it becomes an all too familiar episode of Bad Batch after that, them fighting some monster of the week in a jungle, we've seen this all too often.
Low Points : The brilliance of the first episode is behind us now, and we're back into monster of the week episodes. While it does take the storyline forward an ever so tiny amount, with them now knowing the sector they'll be looking it, we encounter some kids for the Bad Batch to rescue, fight a big monster which is mainly immune to their weapons, it's nothing we haven't seen numerous times before.
So what do you really think ? : It's absolutely fine, but such a massive drop off in story between episodes, I guess we'll get something more interesting in the next episode when we're back to Omega and Crosshair.
Final Words : The second of the first three episodes release together, and it really feels like its treading water, Hunter and Wrecker don't make any real progress in this episode at all, we don't get them processing the loss of Tech, they don't get any real information on Omega's location, they don't find out anything towards the mystery of the project that Hemlock is working on, unless the teenage clones play a really major part later on, you can probably skip this episode and not lose anything from the narrative of this season.
Well made, with some witty lines, but very disappointing after episode 1.
Score : 8/10
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