The Bad Batch stops on Pantora for supplies, and catch the attention of a bounty hunter.
Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Our first time seeing Fennec do actual wrong and her level of care for Omega's wellbeing conspicuously exceeds that of someone ensuring their bounty is delivered undamaged. Highlights include telling Omega to "Tuck and roll" when most villains would have simply dropped her without warning. Then again, she displays no such scruples when tossing a man to his death in order to steal his speeder.
- Bait-and-Switch: When the dock master is cornered by Fennec, she appears to be going in for the kill. Though angry about losing her target, she instead pays him for his services as promised.
- Bread and Circuses: Implied in the world-building of the episode: by providing parades honoring the Clone Troopers and by making it easy for people to exchange their currency for Imperial credits, the Galactic Empire is slowly and steadily establishing its authority throughout the settled worlds.
- Call-Forward: The Bad Batch gets pursued by Fennec Shand, an infamous bounty hunter with a major role in post-Galactic Civil War shows The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, taking place over twenty years after The Bad Batch.
- The Con: After the shopkeeper mistakes Echo for a droid, Hunter claims he's "military-grade" and "sells" him for 3,000 credits after some haggling. Echo then escapes after he hears about Omega being in trouble.
- Continuity Nod:
- Voorpaks steal a clone trooper doll from Omega. In canon, they were officially introduced and prominently featured in Star Wars Resistance as Buggles, Torra's pet.
- Clink is an LE-series droid, a droid series introduced in the background of Resistance.
- Echo complains about being sold for 2000 credits, which happens to be the exact price of the down payment Obi-Wan and Luke give Han Solo for his services in A New Hope.
- Once again, a major villain from the franchise recognizable to fans shows up to cause trouble for the main heroes without properly identifying themselves, and managing to cause the leads more trouble than they're used to. Darth Vader himself accomplished this feat in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
- The doll Omega picks up in the antique shop looks like a clone trooper version of the Stormtrooper doll owned by Jyn Erso in the opening scene of Rogue One.
- Cop Killer: Fennec blasts a police officer pursuing her, causing his speeder to crash into his partner's and sending them both careening into a nearby building in a fiery explosion.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Downplayed twice in the episode.
- The Bad Batch are effectively a five man army when it comes to legions of droids, but they have next to no experience with living, thinking opponents. As such, Fennec is able to get the better of Hunter and Wrecker with quick thinking, despite both being physically stronger than she is.
- The Batch have also spent their whole lives being soldiers or training to be soldiers, so they have next to no experience functioning in civilian society, as demonstrated by Hunter's attempt to sell a high-end military explosive to a random vendor in a Pantoran market.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Fennec takes out Wrecker within a few seconds of him picking a fight with her. She exploits his berserker tendencies and uses them to redirect him into a wall, using his own momentum to knock him out cold.
- Cuteness Proximity: Omega gets distracted by some cute Buggles, then one grabs her clone trooper doll and she chases it out into the city, getting lost.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Fans of The Mandalorian know who Fennec Shand is, while the Bad Batch have no idea and resolve to figure it out.
- Similarly, the episode shows Imperial credits being established (and Imperial outposts offering free currency exchanges to the new galactic standard). As established in The Mandalorian, the collapse of the Empire and rise of the New Republic will devalue the currency to practically nothing.
- Greed: The reason behind the dock master's motives. With the Batch being wanted, they are forced to bribe him so he doesn't scan their ship. He later contacts anyone interested in the Batch's location anyway for a price, which Fennec picks up on.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: The driver of the transport hovercraft is oblivious to his cargo being dumped by Omega thanks to his headphones drowning it out.
- Hero Stole My Bike: When Omega is hanging from a platform, Hunter steals a civilian's speeder bike while he's busy talking to a vendor to rescue her.
- Hidden Villain: Someone hired Fennec to specifically bring Omega in. We still have no idea who it is by episode's end.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Wrecker is quickly subdued by Fennec when she uses his berserker tendencies against him by redirecting him face-first into a wall and knocking him out.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Wrecker, as usual, this time against Fennec Shand. It backfires spectacularly.
- Oh, Crap!: While at first Omega thinks Fennec is helping her, she quickly comes to realize she's stuck in the middle of a Mexican Standoff between her and Hunter.
- Papa Wolf: The entirety of the Bad Batch become this when Omega goes missing, with Hunter chasing her down, Wrecker going out in search of her, Tech hacking into the city's security, and Echo dropping what he's doing to come help.
- Pet the Dog: The dock master fails to keep the Bad Batch grounded as agreed, but Fennec still pays him with the understanding that he is to inform her if they return. She's also quite friendly towards Omega and even saves her life on a couple of occasions, though it's pretty clear this is a front to get her where she needs to be.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- A ruthless bounty hunter Fennec may be, but killing her civilian contact for not preventing her quarry from escaping would have gained her nothing. Despite expecting her to harm him, the contact ends up receiving a smaller payment and a request to let her know if he encounters her target again.
- While willing to harm and kill along the way to her goals, Fennec works to keep Omega from coming to harm. She doesn't get paid for bringing in a corpse.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Deserters on the run don't have the benefit of Easy Logistics. The Bad Batch is running out of both food and fuel and no longer have the Republic to provide for them, so they need to acquire everything on their own.
- Hunter tries to sell some high-end explosives to a vendor on Pantora, only to be told in no uncertain terms that what he is selling is worthless to a legitimate trader and he needs to find a black market.
- While Fennec Shand manages to dive to safety as her speeder crashes, when she gets back up she's both winded and limping.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The protocol droid in the series sounds and acts very similar to a female version of C-3PO.
- Technobabble:Tech: The signature key should be embedded below the rear parallax inverters.
Wrecker: (grumbles) Just tell me what to rip out. - Tempting Fate: Hunter says that their supply run will be "in and out, quickly". So, naturally, Omega goes off on her own and complicates things.
- Trojan Prisoner: Hunter sells Echo under the pretense of him being a military droid, allowing them to scam the dealer out of some credits while Echo can simply leave whenever he wants. Echo insists that Hunter at least haggle, as he feels 2,000 credits is too low.
- Unflinching Landing: Fennec doesn't think for a second about the shuttle she was just driving exploding to the ground mere feet in front of her, eyes laser-focused on her quarry as they fly past.
- The Unreveal: It's not shown who Fennec's client is.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Omega has a bounty on her head, and while it's unknown who the client is, the previous episode suggests it may have been the Kaminoans.
- Weak, but Skilled: Fennec isn't as physically powerful as Hunter or Wrecker, but makes up for it in skill, headbutting the former while wearing her helmet and getting the latter to knock himself out by redirecting his charge into a wall.
- The Worf Effect: Hunter and Wrecker have been established in previous episodes to be very capable one-on-one fighters. Their encounter with Fennec, a bounty hunter who fights quite differently from the Separatist forces they have been fighting until now, leaves Hunter struggling significantly to rescue Omega and stay alive, while Wrecker is very easily knocked out.
- You Have Failed Me: Subverted. The dock master is very clearly pissing himself when Fennec approaches him after the botched kidnapping and expects to be bumped off, but Fennec simply pays him and tells him to continue keeping an eye out. It helps that he did pretty much everything he was paid to do; the failure to overpower the Bad Batch and capture Omega rests solely with Fennec, and his panicked explanation that he couldn't stop them is entirely reasonable after she spooked them.
