Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Season 3 Episode 12: Juggernaut
What is it ? : Hunter finishes scouting Pabu Island with Batcher, and reports back to a recovered Wrecker and Crosshair that the Empire has withdrawn from the island, but the Star Destroyer remains and is blocking communications.
As they discuss what to do next, Crosshair reveals that he might know a way of locating Tantiss, that he handed over prisoners to Rampart who sent them onwards so may know where Tantiss is, and he himself is being held in an Imperial Prison. Wrecker presses him on why he never mentioned this earlier, and Crosshair admits that he has no wish to return to Tantiss, and he clutches his hand nervously.
Phee Genoa enters the room through a hidden lift, revealing that the island has hidden caves and access tunnels they can use to leave, and when they mention the prison to her, she says she can help them as her ship can slip past patrols.
They leave aboard her vessel and as they approach the prison planet, they detect patrol ships, so Phee powers down her ship allowing it to plummet towards the planet, only powering it back on once they've passed all patrols.
The Batch scout the prison, and locate Rampart who is being transported aboard a Juggernaut Turbo Tank, so they sneak aboard it, killing the Stormtroopers manning it and freeing the other passengers, explaining their needs to Rampart. He agrees to help in exchange for his freedom, but grabs for a gun when the tank shakes, so they have to stun him.
The Empire realises the Tank has been taken, so lock off the bridge to stop it escaping, but they smash through the gates and destroy the other Juggernaut guarding the bridge. As they snake up routes on the side of a mountain they come under attack from LAAT/i's, destroying them, but having to fight off Stormtroopers who try to board the Juggernaut. Once the last is beaten, Phee picks them up from the path, just as the Juggernaut reaches the end and tumbles down into the ravines below.
In space Rampart says he doesn't have the co-ordinates for Tantiss but can get them, saying that they are now in this together.
Meanwhile, Omega arrives at Tantiss and Karr tests her, confirming her high M-Count totals, so Hemlock takes her into the Vault where she sees the other test subjects, and Hemlock tells her that cloning doesn't copy the high M-Counts, but mixing from different subjects shows signs of success. . . .
High Points : There's some good action in here, and the prison setting is darn spectacular at times, with some of the prettiest scenery the show has ever seen. The Juggernaut itself is awesome, making me wonder why these weren't used more often than AT-TE's or AT-AT's, as they are faster and seem more heavily armed. Although I guess they are reliant on roadways which can take a vehicle of their size and mass.
Low Points : So Crosshair just happens to have had the information they needed all along, rendering the past few episodes where they were seeking the location of Tantiss totally pointless after all.
But Phee Genoa annoyed me most, while she did get a couple of nice lines in about Tech and what he'd said about Crosshair, she's just magically too good. She just happens to know how to avoid Imperial Security, when the Batch apparently don't, she just happens to know where hidden caves are on Pabu, and where hidden tunnels allow her to rescue the Batch.
Why don't they just take a break and let her do everything, because apparently she'd find it effortless. Having her magically be able to solve these problems means that the problems might as well not be there, and is just lazy story writing.
So what do you really think ? : A reasonable episode, but it's basically more filler, just biding the time until we get to Tantiss and the story concludes. That said, while the episode does the same job as a bunch of previous episodes, providing another (superfluous) step towards locating Tantiss, it does do it in a pretty exciting way.
Final Words : Three episodes to go, and that doesn't seem a lot of time for them to wrap everything up. There's a bunch of storylines I'd like to see resolved before the end, and I have to say that Rebels was far clearer in building to it's finale than Bad Batch is, we got everyone together for one massive attack on the Empire. And I really can't see how we're going to get anywhere near to a satisfying conclusion which leaves no hanging threads to the storyline.
But we shall see. . .
Score : 8.5/10
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