Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 Looks To Payoff A Dangling Clone Wars Plot Thread
This article contains spoilers for "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" season 3, episode 14, "Flash Strike."
"Flash Strike," the penultimate episode of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch," features a thrilling infiltration of Mt. Tantiss. The Bad Batch finally located the Empire's top-secret facility at the very end of last week's episode, "Into the Breach," and is working to rescue Omega. For her part, Omega is trying to save all of the kids being experimented on by the Imperial scientists. Together, they're opposed by the full force of the Empire's might that Dr. Hemlock can bring to bear.
As Omega roams around Mt. Tantiss, however, she makes a startling discovery, giving her an idea for a plan to help her and the others escape. Elsewhere, the Bad Batch does their best to fight their way into the facility, while the former-Admiral Rampart does his best to sow division amongst the group, hoping he can get Crosshair to switch back to Team Empire.
The episode is essentially a thrilling action-adventure sequence and its title is apt. This is definitely the Bad Batch launching a desperate flash strike, knowing this could be their one and only chance to save Omega. Various twists, turns, and betrayals ensure (many of which have been hinted at since the first episode of the season), and it all builds to a fever pitch before leaving us to await next week's series finale.
But it also promises to close a dangling plot thread that's been left open for years.
The Zillo Beast
Back in the second season of "Clone Wars," we were introduced to a creature called the Zillo Beast. The Zillo Beast was, in its first appearance, very much a stand-in for Godzilla. At the time, the Old Republic was testing a new weapon on the planet Malastare that looked very much like a nuclear bomb. It was from a hole in the ground and this explosion that the Zillo Beast emerged, growing rapidly and unstoppable. Its hide repelled lightsabers and no weapon the Republic had could defeat it, but eventually, they were able to take it down. The episode that followed similarly featured a send-up of "King Kong," with the Zillo Beast being inadvertently unleashed on Coruscant and climbing the Senate Building as though it were the Empire State Building.
That episode ends with the Zillo Beast subdued, taken down by the combined might of the Republic and the Jedi. But secretly, Palpatine orders his science team to clone the creature and study it. He wants the fruits of its incredible physiology weaponized for himself and the Sith.
"Clone Wars" ultimately left that subplot hanging for "The Bad Batch" to pick up in the season 2 episode "Metamorphosis." In that case, though, the creature's appearance mostly amounted to a cameo, unlike its return in "Flash Strike."
Palpatine's plans and Hemlock's experiments
With Omega's discovery in this episode, we know for sure that Dr. Hemlock and the team at Mt. Tantiss are working on the science behind cloning and weaponizing the Zillo Beast. With its lack of vulnerabilities and lightsaber-resistant hide, it's no secret why Palpatine, a dark lord of the Sith, would want his science division doing everything it can to create military applications for the Zillo Beast. Based on its previous cameo in "The Bad Batch," it's also apparent that the Empire still isn't particularly good at keeping the creature contained.
With it being placed on the table for the finale of "The Bad Batch," it seems as though we might finally get some answers about how Palpatine intended to use the Zillo Beast (although, not having any evidence of its weaponization, it's a good bet that this series will show us the end of the road for research on the creature).
The finale
This episode, promising that Omega has a plan, seems to imply heavily that the Zillo Beast is going to figure into it somehow. The series' creatives wouldn't have been laying down those breadcrumbs throughout if they weren't planning on paying them off. And if they don't pay them off here, it's because these were only smaller breadcrumbs to head into an even bigger direction on whatever show they might have planned next.
I also think, ultimately, we're going to be in for a happy ending. There might be some losses taken — just like we lost Tech last season — but Dave Filoni's "Star Wars" shows tend to have a tone of optimism to their conclusions. "Star Wars Rebels" is a perfect example of that. Everyone seemed to assume that since we didn't see any of the series' heroes at the Battle of Yavin or Endor in "Return of the Jedi," they were all slated for death in the final season, but that wasn't the case. Similarly, we spent years convinced that Ahsoka Tano would die on "The Clone Wars" and see how that turned out. It's why I think Omega and the rest of the Bad Batch will fare okay in next week's series finale. Even if there is a big sacrifice, there's going to be some ray of hope for us watching at home to cling to.
I just don't know what that will be yet.
The series finale of "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" premieres next Wednesday on Disney+.