Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 3 Episode 3: Shadows of Tantiss
What is it ? : In the Mount Tantiss facility, Omega begins another day, but Nala Se is met by Hemlock who tells her that they have a visitor arriving soon, so Emerie Karr will take over her duties for the day. Realising that means she won't be able to destroy Omega's sample, Nala Se takes advantage of a distraction to tell Omega to take her datapad from the lab, and to escape, as the test will cause problems.
The Visitor arrives on a shuttle, and it is Palpatine, and they head down into the Vault where Hemlock reports that the M Counts are still low, but they will make progress, and Palpatine tells him that is the most important part.
Omega goes to Nala Se's lab, where Karr is testing the samples and tells her to take the rest of the day off, and as she leaves Omega grabs the datapad. She goes to Crosshairs cell, and tells him to summon the guards, which he does reluctantly by ordering them to release him. While they're distracted Omega uses the datapad to open the cell door, and Crosshair grabs the guards rifle and guns down the guards, giving the other guards weapon to Omega.
The two squabble, as Omega admits that she has no plan and is just improvising, they overhear two guards mentioning that Palpatine is visiting, and Crosshair scolds Omega that today is not a day for improvising. They realise that all shuttles will be locked down while Palpatine is visiting, but Omega remembers being told about the crashed shuttle in the jungle, which might have working communications for them to contact Hunter. So they head to the animal cages through which they can exit the mountain. When they get there Omega opens the cage for the animal she freed and the tunnel to the outside, but Karr enters having been checking up on Omega, and she gets stunned after asking them to return to their cells.
The two slip outside past ray shields, as Palpatine leaves and Hemlock is informed the two are missing, so orders a security shutdown of the base. Going to the animal labs he discovers the unconscious Carr, who on awakening tells him what has happened, so he orders the release of the other hounds, and the arrest of Nala Se.
Karr returns to the lab where she discovers that Omega's sample has tested positive.
Outside Omega notices Crosshairs hand trembling, but he assures her that he is okay, and they head to the crashed shuttle. They try to activate the communications system, but are attacked by the hounds as they work, but the animal Omega freed comes to their aid, and they continu. The communications system cannot be fixed, but the energy from the shuttle is detected by patrols around Tantiss and they send a shuttle and troopers to capture the pair, but they have turned the tables making it into an ambush.
Crosshair shoots at the Clone Commando leading but misses due to the tremble in his hand, but he provides enough of a distraction for Omega to slip aboard the shuttle and take out it's pilot. She then turns the shuttles weapons on the troopers, and Crosshair and the Hound both board the vessel and they race for space to hyperspace jump away.
The base launches interceptors with orders to destroy them, but Karr informs Hemlock of the results of the tests, and he orders the interceptors back as Omega is too valuable as the test shows that her blood allows clones with full M Count values. He comments that he has the full resources of the Empire at his command, and that they'll recapture her soon enough.
As the interceptors turn back, the shuttle reaches space and they make the hyperspace jump away.
High Points : Another great episode, not as dark as the first of the season, but one which really puts Crosshair and Omega together in a fantastic way. Crosshair is softening towards the young girl, and we're getting a weakness in him we've never seen, perhaps some progressive illness he's either got as an older Clone, or something they've introduced at Tantiss.
I particularly enjoyed the banter between then during the start of their escape, where Omega admits to making it up as she goes along, and then they discover Palpatine is present, so Crosshair points out today is definitely the day you don't want to be making it all up as you go along. It's a funny moment, and one you can't disagree with Crosshair about.
Low Points : This is a great episode, so there's nothing in particular I would like to point out as a problem. But I was a little disappointed by Nala Se's arrest. When accused of helping Omega and Crosshair escape, she quite rightly points out that she has been with Hemlock all day, so couldn't have helped them. But I thought she should have also pointed out that Karr has been around all day, is present at the site of their escape, and was very conveniently stunned rather than killed by Crosshair, which makes her look extremely suspect.
So what do you really think ? : I really enjoyed this one, although is hammers home how pointless the previous episode is. Not only did Hunter and Wrecker only discover the sector where Omega had been taken, but now she's escaped without their help, so that information is completely pointless.
Final Words : While they've not said, I think everyone has pretty much decided that the M Count that Hemlock talks about is a Midiclorian Count, and that they are trying to clone Palpatine, to lead into Rise of Skywalker. This seems pretty darn early in the timeline for this to be happening. I have to admit I kind of wanted the camera to turn round to reveal cloning tanks containing Anakin clones. As Palpatine had wanted Anakin as his apprentice, but ends up with the crippled version of him instead, so it's entirely possible he'd want a freshly cloned version instead.
It's obviously far too early in the timeline for this to link back to the original Thrawn trilogy and Mount Tantiss to be the site of a Clone based on Luke's lost hand (as at this point he's still an infant). But we've got around 23+ years until The Mandarian series, where they still seem to be working on getting the M count cloning working right, and we've still got the origins of Snoke to discover, so I'll find it incredibly clumsy storytelling if it's revealed this is a Palpatine cloning effort.
Score : 9.25/10
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