Star Wars: The Bad Batch Brings Back An Old Favorite In A Morally Complex Episode

There will be spoilers for "The Bad Batch" Season 2 Episode 3 – "The Solitary Clone"

The latest episode of "The Bad Batch" focuses on Crosshair (Dee Bradley Baker), one of the former members of Clone Force 99. He turned on his brothers and joined up with the Empire. In this episode, the planet Desix is being subjugated by the Empire, Crosshair is assigned to Commander Cody's regiment, and they work together to infiltrate Desix and save the Imperial Governor assigned to the sector.

Here, the show continues to explore the different aspects of the Empire's rise and shows us Desix, a planet that was a Separatist stronghold that maintained its droid army. With the Empire coming in hot, ready to take over and occupy the planet, this episode of "The Bad Batch" feels very much like "The Clone Wars" with a much more sinister bent to it.

As Commander Cody and Crosshair infiltrate the base, they have to make increasingly difficult choices, the likes of which they never had to during the Clone Wars. At the end of the day, Crosshair and the Empire renege on a truce with the locals of Desix and it causes a crisis of conscience for Commander Cody.

This episode works as an excellent, philosophical follow-up to the premiere. As we watched the Bad Batch in the last episodes struggle with how they should operate on the fringes of society, this episode shows us two clones struggling with that on the other side. Both feel themselves to be the titular solitary clone. The first is Commander Cody, who is willing to bend the rules in the name of honor, peace, and comity. The second is Crosshair, who finds that following orders under the strict dictates of the Empire is preferable for him. He is there to follow orders, not question them — and that's what drives him.

Later in the episode, Cody tells Crosshair the difference between the droids of the Separatist Army and the clones is that the clones actually have to live with the consequences of their choices. Will Crosshair's straight and narrow dogma rub off on Commander Cody? Or will it be the other way around?

It's revealed at the end of the episode that Commander Cody has gone AWOL, showing us he doesn't hew to Crosshair's philosophy — but where he ends up is anyone's guess. Is he going the way of Finn and simply leaving for his own reasons? Or will he be joining the nascent rebellion? All of that remains to be seen.

There are some deep cuts in this new episode of "The Bad Batch" that definitely enrich this episode.

For those who don't instantly recognize Commander Cody, his first appearance was in "Revenge of the Sith" as the Clone Commander who worked closely with Obi-Wan Kenobi. During Order 66, Cody is the one who shot down Kenobi and his Varactyl on Utapau after the destruction of General Grievous. Cody searched for Kenobi's body but came up with nothing. We haven't seen anything from him post-Clone Wars and this episode answers the questions about his fate.

Cody has his first — and last — meeting with Crosshair on Coruscant and they stand behind a massive, beautifully lit memorial. This is the First Battle Memorial, first seen in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," in the episodes where Ahsoka Tano is hunted as a traitor in the fifth season. The memorial was erected on Coruscant to honor those clones who died in the first battle of Geonosis. A poignant reminder of what the Clones were bred for and what they were fighting for.

As we go back to the roots of the Clone Wars, since Desix is still essentially a Separatist world, it's fun to see a Tactical Droid working with them, as these have been largely decommissioned, thanks to Darth Vader's shutdown order on Mustafar, as seen in "Revenge of the Sith." For those interested, the Tactical Droid is voiced by Shelby Young, who is one of the primary voices of Princess Leia in the LEGO projects and on "Star Wars: Forces of Destiny."

The governor of Desix, Tawni Ames, is also an interesting vocal performance and choice. She's voiced by Tasia Valenza, who provided the voice of Shaak Ti in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." Shaak Ti was stationed on Kamino and oversaw various aspects of the Clone Army and its integration with the Jedi.

The last exciting Easter egg comes in the final moments of the episode. Admiral Rampart assigns Crosshair to report to CC-1226. This is a Clone from the Legends book "The Essential Guide to Warfare" and a fan-favorite story written by Jason Fry about a Clone who took down a Super Battle Droid single-handedly during the first battle of Geonosis.

The philosophical issues raised in this episode of "The Bad Batch" are really quite fascinating, but far more challenging than I would expect on a so-called "kids' show." This is the kid equivalent of "Andor," exploring the philosophy of taking sides, fighting fascism, and knowing when to turn on the people in charge of you because they're doing wrong. It's poignant and well-stated. The final decision, when the Imperial Governor orders Tawni Ames executed and Cody can't act is a cold moral quandary. It's shocking and heartbreaking to see Crosshair make the choice for them, and it makes us wonder if Crosshair is actually too far gone to be saved.

This episode is gorgeous to look at, the music from Kevin Kiner and crew is breathtaking, and the action is incredible. It makes one wish we were still getting episodes of "The Clone Wars," but this is effectively an episode just like that, just without the Jedi. This show is quite good at being more adult than it's billed for and if you're a "Star Wars" fan who isn't watching it because of that, I would say you're really missing out. It's deep and has the same ideas and ideals behind it that made "Andor" appointment viewing.

New episodes of "The Bad Batch" air on Wednesdays on Disney+.