Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 3 Episode 8: Bad Territory
What is it ? : The Batch are contacted by Phee Genoa who has been looking into information on the bounties being offered by the Empire for M-Count targets, she has located a bounty hunter the batch are familiar with who might have information, Fennec Shand.
Leaving Omega in safety on Pabu with Crosshair, Hunter asks her to try to convince Crosshair to get treatment for his hand, as ignoring the problem won't make it go away.
Hunter and Wrecker travel to Suria Space Station and locate Shand who is in the middle of making a deal, but recognises the two. After hearing them out, she agrees to give them the information, in exchange for helping her finish a bounty she's been having problems with alone.
Meanwhile, Omega has AZI treat Crosshairs hand, only to find out that physically there's nothing wrong, and that the shaking is down to whatever he went through during experimentation. So Omega convinces him to meditate with her, using techniques she learnt from Grungi on Kashyyyk, when he questions where she learnt them, she tells him he missed a lot, and he agrees and begins meditating.
Shand, Wrecker and Hunter travel in Shand's ship to Veelo, where she is trying to catch another hunter who got greedy and robbed their client. The land and hire a boat to travel through the swamps, with Hunter providing directions, but he locates some mines in their path. He and Wrecker enter the water to disarm the mines, but come under attack by large Alligator creatures. They fights them off after finishing disarming the mines, and then race away.
Finding the targets dwelling in the swamp, Hunter and Wrecker enter it and fight the target, and insect like alien, but it flees into some tunnels beneath. They let Shand know and she leaves their boat, only for their target to try to steal it, but Shand actually disabled the boat and was waiting for them, she fights him, and he gets stunned.
Returning to their ship, and onwards to Suria where the Havok Marauder is waiting, Shand tells them she'll get the information and contact them once she's delivered the bounty, and the two reluctantly agree.
As she flies away from the station, she speaks to a character through comms, and agrees to sell them the information on the Batch. . . .
High Points : While in many ways an extremely routine episode of the series, with Wrecker and Hunter fighting Alligator creatures in a swamp, like so many other monsters they've fought through the series. There are a couple of interesting sections, as we learn more about Crosshairs condition, and the target of Shand's bounty is an interesting alien, although the fight takes place at night, so we don't get to see much of it.
Low Points : Firstly I have to say that Hunter is a terrible liar. Shand asks him why he's looking for the information on the M-Count targets, and how Omega is. And instead of just claiming that Omega is an M-Count target, so they want to track one of them to try to find her, therefore obscuring the fact that she has returned to them, and painting them as potential bounties to be collected. He basically just tells her that he's not telling.
And once again the episode is pretty pointless, we don't move anywhere with the main plot.
I've also got to question the common sense of the target of Shand's bounty. He stole from a target, but ends up living in a mud hut in the middle of a hostile swamp. Doesn't seem like his new found riches helped him out at all.
So what do you really think ? : The episode is absolutely fine, but did manage to annoy me at the end by being pretty obvious. We know from her appearances in Book of Boba Fett that Fennec Shand isn't a heartless character and is going to end up being pretty heroic. So we know she can't be a bad guy really, so her communication where she's selling the Batch out is a fake out. I'm guessing she's contacting Asajj Ventress, who we've seen in the trailers, is likely an M-Count target, so is looking for the same information the Batch is.
Final Words : So we tick past the half way mark of the season, and we've been in a holding pattern for the last few episodes, as no progress is likely until the end of the season.
Also no sign that Tech is alive, although Phee made a nice comment on him, which is only right as she and him were becoming close, and she would miss him. I still suspect they're going to bring him back, but after half a season, I'm starting to have doubts, so well done to the writers to keep some mystery going.
Score : 8.5/10
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