Western Animation / Star Wars: The Bad Batch

"The Clone War may have ended, but a civil war is about to begin." ^note  Clockwise from center: Wrecker, Crosshair, Tech, Omega, Hunter, and Echo. Above them: Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious.

"The old ways are done. You can either adapt and survive, or die with the past. The decision is yours."

— Saw Gerrera

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an animated Star Wars series and a spin-off/sequel to Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Set shortly after the events of Revenge of the Sith, the eponymous team of clone commandos — a group of genetically defective soldiers whose traits made them deadly forces in combat — travel the galaxy shortly after the rise of the Empire, acting as mercenaries in an entirely new, and perhaps more deadly, universe after being branded as dangerous deserters by the Empire. The series focuses on the Batch trying to survive in a galaxy that is no longer at war under an Empire that wants them dead and their efforts to protect a mysterious young female clone named Omega.

The series debuted on Disney+ on May 4th, 2021 ("Star Wars Day"), kickstarting the first of a new batch of Star Wars programs to the service, alongside the successful live-action series, The Mandalorian. The first two seasons each have 16 episodes, while the third season has 15 episodes. A third and final season began streaming on February 21st, 2024.

Dee Bradley Baker reprises his role as the lead characters—the squad's leader Hunter, the easily excitable but powerful and destructive Wrecker, the no-nonsense sniper Crosshair, the highly intelligent Tech, and their newest recruit, the cybernetically rebuilt ex-501st ARC Trooper Echo. Michelle Ang also stars as Omega, a mysterious female clone who joins the group. Other major recurring cast members include Rhea Perlman as Cid, the Bad Batch’s criminal underworld benefactor; Noshir Dalal, Jimmi Simpson, and Keisha Castle-Hughes as Imperials Admiral Rampart, Doctor Royce Hemlock, and Doctor Emerie Karr, respectively; and franchise veteran Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious.

Watch the sizzle reel here, and the full trailer of Season 1 here. Season 2 began streaming in January 2023, you can see the trailer here. Season 3 began streaming in February 2024, you can see the trailer here.

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Tropes in this batch include:

• Alliterative Title: The series is called The Bad Batch, much like the squad's debut episode in The Clone Wars.
• Ambiguous Gender: Averted with Omega, as despite some confusion over whether she is trans or cis due to being described as a pure genetic replication of Jango, like Boba, Tech scanned Omega and determined her to be biologically female upon their first meeting.
• Arc Welding: As the series goes on, it continues several plot threads that went unresolved by the end of The Clone Wars and even begins planting seeds for the New Republic and Sequel Trilogy eras. The opening of Season 3 outright shows a progress check Palpatine makes on his cloning project, which is confirmed to be one and the same with Project Necromancer, an objective previously mentioned in The Mandalorian.
• Arc Words: "Good soldiers follow orders."
• Art Evolution: Tarkin is starting to look a lot more like how he was depicted in Rebels, obviously getting older.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: Downplayed compared to Rebels, but for its setting between The Clone Wars and Rebels, the character designs seem to appropriately be a mixture of the two shows' art styles. Most of the characters shown have slim torsos and long limbs reminiscent of Rebels' character designs, while still having the detailed facial features found in The Clone Wars. That said, the models are similar if not the same as season 7 of The Clone Wars, which appeared to have an Art Shift anyway.
• Artistic License – Biology: Possibly played straight with Omega, but possibly averted. Although she's apparently an unaltered clone of Jango Fett, she has a very different appearance, including being a girl. Biological development can end up wildly different, even with the same DNA, beginning in the womb.
• Badass Crew: The titular "Bad Batch." While Clones have been shown to be one of the best fighting forces in the Galaxy, The Bad Batch of just five makes an entire army of clones look incompetent.
• Beard of Sorrow: With the war over, many clone troopers begin growing out beards and facial hair, a stark contrast from their clean-shaven faces during the war. It’s a sign of the decay of the clones' standing given how the Empire doesn’t care enough about them anymore to enforce the old dress code, since they’re getting ready to give the clones the boot. Rampart also sports one as well by the time he’s rescued by his former enemies in Season 3.
• Big Bad Ensemble: While both serve the Empire, Admiral Rampart and Prime Minister Lama Su are the primary antagonists of the first season whose conflicting agendas are the source of Clone Force 99's problems. Rampart is in charge of replacing the Clone Army with human recruits and sends Crosshair after Clone Force 99 when they go rogue, while Lama Su sends bounty hunters after Omega, in order to harvest her DNA and ensure the Clone Army's continued use in the Empire. Rampart eventually wins out and becomes the sole Big Bad in "War-Mantle" after cancelling Kamino's cloning contracts and disposing of Lama Su. When his role in the destruction of Kamino’s civilization is exposed, however, he’s tossed aside by Palpatine halfway through Season 2, and the role of Big Bad is usurped by Dr. Royce Hemlock.
• Black Site: Tantiss base is the Empire's highly classified research facility for the Advanced Science Division. Only the Emperor is privy to all the research that goes on there. It's so secret that the base coordinates remain concealed even if people learn of its existence. Ships headed there must dock at Imperial Station 003 to intercept the base coordinates. For extra safety, science vessels are heavily guarded and can only receive base coordinates after launch. To get the coordinates or to attempt to get there willingly will end with you getting killed.
• Blatant Lies: When trying to get the Havoc Marauder out of impound in the second episode, a clone trooper discovers Echo trying to get the boot off the landing gear. The trooper asks for his identification, to which Echo replies that he's a maintenance tech. Most organics in general don't have scomp links for arms, and by this point the clones affected by the inhibitor chips have removed all identifying marks from their armor.
• Book Ends:
  • Season 1 ending at Tipoca City is this on three levels: the Clones were first met there in Attack of the Clones, "Clone Cadets" (chronologically the first The Clone Wars episode about Clones) is set there, and Episode 1 of this series takes place almost entirely there too. In all cases, this ties into the End of an Era as the Empire destroys Tipoca City to end the production of clones.
  • The training area acts as this as well: it features in both Clone Cadets and the first episode of The Bad Batch, and is one of the final locations visited in Tipoca City before its destruction.
• Broad Strokes: The Clone Wars opener to the series premiere is the Battle of Kaller from the first couple issues of Star Wars: Kanan, except retconned to include the Bad Batch. The Bad Batch also end up helping Caleb escape Order 66, a major deviation from the comic. It should be stressed however that beyond that, the story isn't significantly contradicted.
• Brought Down to Badass: In their debut in The Clone Wars, the Bad Batch were an unstoppable crew capable of taking down a droid army all by themselves. Here they struggle significantly more because they're not dealing with droids, they're dealing with a wide variety of living beings like mercenaries and slavers. They're still badass, but they run into problems they can't solve quite as easily as when they were dealing with the incredibly predictable droid armies of the Separatists.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Gungi, one of the Younglings from the "Gathering" arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars appears in Season 2, having survived the attack on the Jedi Temple.
  • Commander Cody appears in the Season 2 episode "The Solitary Clone" marking the first time Cody has ever been seen post-Order 66 since 2005, outside of a log written by him in the Legends game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.
• Butt-Monkey: Wrecker serves as this. In the first episode alone he's shot twice, once from during a training session and secondly from a defected Crosshair. In every episode since the first, Wrecker has constantly been hitting his head. So much so, that in Episode 6, his inhibitor chip activates temporarily. He is able to resist it that time, but in the next episode, it fully activates, and he nearly kills Omega before being subdued and undergoing surgery to remove the chip. The rest do likewise out of caution.
• Call-Back:
  • As established in The Clone Wars, the Kaminoans are in favor of War for Fun and Profit, seeing as the longer the war goes, the more clones the Republic will have to buy from them. Now that the war is over, the Empire has begun transitioning to recruits as a cheaper alternative and the Kaminoans are desperate to both find a way to keep their clones relevant and prove that clones are superior to recruits.
  • In the first episode, the Bad Batch and many other clones watch Palpatine's speech of reorganizing the Republic into the Empire from Revenge of the Sith.
  • One of the foes the Batch faces are Zygerrians, who were key antagonists during the Zygerria arc in Season 4 of The Clone Wars.
  • Palpatine, in the tradition of The Clone Wars, still hides his eyes behind his hood, at least for a little bit but when you can see them under the hood the sight is a bit unsettling.
  • ES-04 uses a BT X-42 heavy flame projector similar to how Ki-Adi-Mundi's squad employed them on Geonosis in Season 2 of The Clone Wars.
  • Hunter mentions to Cid that they are already free, mirroring what General Tadin said to Saw Gerrera, in "The Soft War".
• Call-Forward:
  • The Elite Troopers have armor almost like that of Death Troopers, complete with a green visor. Death Troopers would appear again in Rebels.
  • The second trailer provides our first good look at Echo's new helmet... and it's virtually identical to the proto-Death Trooper helmet, but with Bad Batch symbolism and lacking a green visor.
  • Fennec Shand makes an appearance as an antagonist in episode 4.
  • DT-Series Sentry Droids are shown attacking the squad.
  • A LE-series droid is shown.
  • Wrecked Venator-class Star Destroyers are seen, scattered across a junk planet, apparently ready to face scrapping.
  • Saw Gerrera is shown with a pretty nasty scar over his forehead, like the one he would bear in Rebels and Rogue One.
  • Caleb Dume and Depa Bilaba appear in the first episode right as Order 66 is issued, as depicted via Broad Strokes in the Star Wars: Kanan series, setting the stage for his journey (and initial hatred of clones) in Star Wars Rebels.
  • A young Hera Syndulla and Chopper appear in two episodes.
  • Gregor appears in one of the episodes (also counts as a Call-Back, as he debuted in an episode of The Clone Wars Season 5).
  • The Gregor episode also features music from the Death Star adventure in A New Hope, as well as "CT" codes being replaced with "TK" codes from that film. They both refer to a time 20 years from then where the Clone Troopers have all but vanished, reflecting the Clone Troopers are being retired by the Empire.
  • In the last scene of the season 1 finale, the Imperial scientist, Scalder, is wearing the exact same outfit as Dr. Pershing.
  • The first episodes of Season 3 reveal the Advanced Science Division is working on Project Necromancer, which was mentioned towards the end of the third season of The Mandalorian. Other hints all but state it's Palpatine's cloning project that we see some of the fruits of in The Rise of Skywalker.
• Chain of Deals: Hemlock is engaged in one in the second season.
  1. He's torturing Crosshair for information on the Bad Batch.
  2. He needs the Bad Batch so he can get Omega.
  3. He needs Omega so he can put pressure on Nala Se.
  4. He needs Nala Se so he can carry out his cloning research for the Empire.
• Changing of the Guard: Season 1 shows the gradual replacement of Clone Troopers by natural-born Stormtroopers in the Imperial Army. This causes problems in the third-to-last episode as the Bad Batch's old Clone credentials no longer work as the Empire has switched to Stormtrooper ones. By Season 3, Commander Wolffe and his men are one of the last clone trooper battalions serving under the Empire's banner.
• Continuity Nod: Tarkin appears in the first episode, inspecting whether or not to continue using clones. His ranking indicates he's been promoted to a Moff, as he was already by this point in the series.
• Cool Ship: The Havoc Marauder returns as the squad's primary ship and after the first episode main living area.
• Costume Evolution:
  • Echo has gotten a new suit of armor to better match his teammates.
  • Subtle, but it can also be seen that clone trooper armor is being transitioned out for stormtrooper armor.
• Covers Always Lie: The initial announcement for Season 2 included a promotional image of the six members of Clone Force 99 standing together. Omega still has her head pendant, which she removed in S1 E2, and Crosshair doesn't have the scar on his head that he obtained in S1 E8.
• Darker and Edgier: Given that it is a sequel series to The Clone Wars set after Order 66, this trope was bound to apply. Numerous examples include:
  • Omega being constantly endangered in life-or-death situations.
  • Innocent civilians being brutally executed.
  • Slavery.
  • Dismemberment.
  • The aftermath of Order 66 on the clones and them serving the Empire.
  • Ex-Soldiers forced to work as mercenaries for the criminal underworld.
  • The clone troopers slowly being replaced by enlisted stormtroopers despite all of their sacrifices in the Clone Wars.
  • Betrayal.
  • Intentional destruction of all cities on a planet with limited allowance for the residents to evacuate, if at all.
• Day of the Jackboot: The series chronicles the early days of the Galactic Empire, starting with the execution of Order 66 in the first episode. Several episodes deal with the Empire flexing its muscles and exerting control over planets across the galaxy, from former Separatist worlds like Raxus, to neutral worlds like Saleucami and Onderon, to former Republic worlds like Ryloth.
• Diner Brawl: A variation. The Bad Batch get into a fight with other clones in a commissary after Omega gets angry at the clones slandering the Batch and throws her food at them. Hunter almost calms things down, but Wrecker tosses his food next, after that all hell breaks loose.
• Disability Immunity: The genetic aberrations of the Bad Batch have the side effect of rendering the obedience chips useless, though Crosshair's works at reduced effectiveness and is later amplified on Tarkin's orders to fully cement his Face–Heel Turn. Wrecker's also starts to kick in after one-too-many head impacts, though only briefly. Echo's extensive cybernetic modifications at the hands of the Techno Union have likewise given him independence.
  • Gregor is implied to have suffered some slight brain damage when we last saw him, leading to his attempted escape from Project War-Mantle.
• Doomed by Canon: Rex attempts to put together a resistance network to rescue clones about to face punishment for refusing to follow orders. By the time of Rebels, Rex is out of the fight, as are Wolffe and Gregor, meaning his efforts will not be successful in the long run, and any named regs won’t necessarily make it out alive. His network takes a severe beating with almost all of his troops wiped out in the mid-Season 3 two-parter.
• Double-Meaning Title: On the one hand, Clone Force 99 can be called "The Bad Batch" because their genetic modifications made them turn out "bad" (i.e. dysfunctional) compared to the other clones; on the other hand, those modifications made them turn out "bad" (i.e. badass as hell) compared to the other clones. They basically reside at the intersection of Crazy Street and Awesome Avenue.
• Downer Beginning: The show begins In the Style of The Clone Wars, complete with a heroic narration from Tom Kane about the heroic deeds that our heroes will do alongside the Jedi, which they then act out as they save the day to two Jedi and an endangered squad. Then Order 66 happens and the majority of the Clones turn on the Jedi, Depa Billaba is killed in front of Caleb Dume, who narrowly escapes and is almost killed by Crosshair, left to an uncertain fate to Hunter, who was only trying to help him. The bright logo for The Clone Wars appears and then is burned away to reveal the metallic, darker logo for The Bad Batch, indicating the days of that kind of heroism are over as a Republic transforms into an Empire. Tom Kane's narration also disappears after the first episode, another subtle indication that this series will not be as heroic as the opening initially makes it out to be.
• Dub Name Change: The European Spanish dub inexplicably changes Ventress's name to "Scarlet". This is especially weird since her name was left unchanged in the dub of The Clone Wars.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: When a pawn shop owner on Pantora mistakes Echo for a droid and offers to buy him for 2000 credits, Hunter, after conversing with a disgusted Echo, asks to up it to 4000. They meet in the middle at 3000.
• Driving Question: It is stated there are only 5 modified clones. Who is the fifth? It's not Echo because he was a Reg before the Separatists captured him. It was thought to be Omega but it turns out she contains pure, unenhanced genetic material of Jango Fett, so it isn't her either.
  • By the end of season 2 the likely candidate for the fifth modified clone is Emerie Karr, another female Jango Fett clone who claims she is Omega's sister; but likely had advanced aging to grow quickly to adulthood like the rest of the Bad Batch. Its possible considering her role as a scientist she had intellectual enhancements as well, similar to Tech's.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Taun We gets unceremoniously Killed Offscreen by Fennec Shand.
• End of an Era: While Order 66 is definitely one for the Jedi and is depicted in this show, we get to see an equivalent for the Clones at the end of the series: the destruction of Tipoca City, their beloved home that the Clones fought for in the previous series. Helps that by the time we properly return to it, the city has been practically evacuated in anticipation of this.
• Evil Will Fail: A central theme in the series is how the Empire went from efficient Clone Troopers to incompetent Stormtroopers. Though the Clone Troopers are the best soldiers in the galaxy, able to quell down any rebellion or insurgency, many truly believe in the ideals of the Republic and thus start questioning the Empire's unethical methods such as executing civilians and falsifying reports. In response, the Empire begins replacing Clone Troopers with human-recruited Stormtroopers, who are taught to always follow the orders of their superiors without question rather than be efficient fighters. The end result is a bloated army of bullies and sycophants unable to handle the future Rebel Alliance, which manage to topple the Empire despite being smaller than the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
• Evolving Title Screen: The title of the first episode suddenly appears after the show's title before just as quickly transitioning to the episode, versus the episode titles in the final arc of The Clone Wars slowly appearing before fading to the episode, reflecting that as The Bad Batch is essentially just one huge Lower-Deck Episode and their whole world suddenly changes without any idea why, whereas The Clone Wars's finale was cinematic and grand in scale since Ahsoka and Rex know most of why it happened and have much larger roles in the overall Star Wars saga than the squad.
• Exact Words: When Tarkin asks Nala Se how many defective clones there are, she responds with five. Tarkin assumes the five to be the Bad Batch, but as Tech notes, Echo is a regular clone turned Cyborg. The fifth defective clone is, in fact, Omega, though even that seems to have been debunked, as Omega is now said to be an unaltered Jango clone.
• Expy Coexistence: The Bad Batch themselves were created as George Lucas and Dave Filoni's take on Delta Squad, the four lead characters from the Star Wars: Republic Commando video game. At least one-fourth of the Deltas appear in this series, with Scorch getting a brief cameo where he fights against Tech, Hunter, and Echo, while also having an appearance in Season 2.
• Fighting from the Inside: As the series goes on, more clones begin defecting from the Empire, as evidenced by the prisoner transport bringing them to Hemlock on Wayland. The chips may be wearing down or the clones are becoming resistant to their effects.
• Fighting the Lancer: Explicitly enforced by Tarkin, who takes Crosshair off the team, intensifies his inhibitor chip, and sets him against his team. That said, Tarkin likely chose him because of Crosshair's emerging friction with Hunter ever since Order 66 was given out.
• First-Episode Twist: Crosshair is brainwashed by Order 66 and turned against the Bad Batch.
• For the Evulz: This show establishes that the Empire dove headfirst into being a crapsack galaxy from the jump. Within weeks of Order 66, Imperial Officers are going full bigot against the clones and replacing them with mediocre natural born humans, ordering massacres of civilian refugees, bombarding civilian populations into dust... It's no wonder the clone trooper Obi-Wan met on Daiyu is a wreck.
• Foreshadowing: The Kaminoans claim to have five modified clones left. One might think the fifth is Echo, but he started out as an ordinary trooper and was later modified by the Separatists. The real number five is Omega. But, "Bounty Lost" reveals Omega isn't enhanced, so the fifth clone may still be out there.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "Aftermath", when the Bad Batch's private barracks are shown, Crosshair has decorated his bunk with three paper (flimsi?) shooting targets, each with perfect shots in the head and chest. As this piece of concept art shows, on the paper target in the middle, he wrote his first initial in blaster shots in the Aurebesh alphabet.
• Fugitive Arc: The story involves the titular team being forced on the run when the Empire decides that their more rebellious tendencies are a liability and wants them terminated.
• Give Her a Normal Life: Subverted; Hunter attempts to do this with Omega in episode 2 by leaving her with Cut and his family, but it doesn't stick and Omega comes running back.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: If any clone still has their armor customization, chances are they're still good guys. The ones with standard white and grey are loyal to the Empire.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Order 66 and the control chips are courtesy of Emperor Palpatine, which will still affect the clones if not properly dealt with. Palpatine himself finally debuts in the flesh in Season 2’s “Truth and Consequences”, wherein he shows how many leagues ahead of everyone in the setting he is when he salvages Rampart’s defense bill to replace the clones while removing Rampart himself, The Heavy of the series to date, from the picture in one fell swoop.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Cut Lawquane manages to walk past roughly a dozen clone troopers without being recognized, wearing only a hat as a disguise. One trooper becomes suspicious after getting a good look at him, but is called away to help contain Force 99's firefight. Hunter and Wrecker also somehow manage to escape notice despite having even flimsier disguises.
• Hero of Another Story: The show opens with the Bad Batch fighting alongside Caleb, and though he loses complete trust in all clones when Grey and the others kill Depa, Hunter helps Caleb escape, which will lead into the rest of Star Wars: Kanan and eventually Star Wars Rebels.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Tech shoots the line connecting him to the broken skycar weighing down the skycar the rest of the squad was in, plummeting to his (believed) death but allowing his brothers to escape to safety.
• Hired Guns: As of Episode 5 ("Rampage"), the Bad Batch become mercenaries for Cid by taking on dangerous missions to get paid.
• Interquel: The series takes place between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The first episode reveals that the show starts where The Clone Wars ended, Order 66. It remains to be seen where the final season ends on the timeline.
• Kid Sidekick: Omega becomes this after the Bad Batch realize she is not only a clone, but one from their very own batch.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • In the Sizzle reel, Tarkin comments to the Bad Batch that "That was quite an impressive display", as if complimenting the trailer for showing off how good the show looks.
  • The show's logo initially opens with The Clone Wars' logo before it burns away to become that of The Bad Batch, referencing how the former show (and by extension its titular conflict) is over, giving way to a darker new era.
  • Tech rather casually reveals that Omega is a Bad Batch clone, when the others act in surprise he says what half the audience was probably thinking.
    Tech: I mean, wasn't it obvious?
• Living MacGuffin: In the second season, Hemlock hunts Omega so he can get leverage on Nala Se.
• Lower-Deck Episode: The show serves as a Lower Deck Series, showcasing Order 66 and the rise of the Empire from the point of view of a few ordinary grunts.
• Myth Arc: The driving arc of the series is the phasing out of clones by the Empire after the end of the Clone Wars and what will become of them now that the Empire has no use for them. A second arc begins quietly brewing in the background, one with ramifications for decades to come - the mysterious Project Necromancer, aka Palpatine's cloning project.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Keith Kellogg confirms some of the sound effects are taken straight from Star Wars: Republic Commando, which he had also worked on.invoked
  • "Reunion" takes it even further by having the scene of Hunter regaining consciousness after being shot by Cad Bane being presented in the same manner as when 'Boss' is revived in Republic Commando, right down to the sound effects.
  • "War Mantle" tops it off by featuring Scorch fighting against the Batch. If one listens close, it almost sounds like they reused the original recording of Raphael Sbarge grunting in pain for the character when he gets stunned. When Scorch has some lines of dialogue in the second season though, he's voiced by Dee Bradley Baker though.
  • When discussing why Echo wasn't affected by Order 66, Tech says it's probably because he is "More machine than man", which is how Obi-Wan describes Vader in Return of the Jedi.
  • One for the now-Legends comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons which reveals Jango Fett's mother and sister are blonde, explaining Omega's unique hair color.
  • One of the regulars at Cid's Parlor is an Ithorian male named Bolo. He wears an armless and legless light-blue one-pice jumpsuit, dressing exactly like the Kenner toy company's 1978 "Hammerhead" action figure.
• Neural Implanting: A major continuing plot point is the clones' "inhibitor chip", which suppresses the individuality of the clones and makes them more inclined to follow orders. It is triggered in the first episode when Palpatine initiates Order 66, compelling the clones to turn on and kill the Jedi.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • As it turns out, Wat Tambor's experimentation on Echo back in The Clone Wars deactivated his chip and allowed him to resist Order 66.
  • Palpatine, Rampart, and the Empire's desire to replace the Clone Troopers with regular human recruits would be this in the long run, as the Imperial Stormtroopers are far less competent than their predecessors in quelling rebellions and resistance. However, this would also inspire Brendol Hux to train Stormtroopers to fight like Clones, given that the Empire's current Stromtroopers don't have a consistent training regiment.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The cloning science of the Kaminoans was a closely guarded secret, thus the Empire needs their assistance in order to reproduce their efforts.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • The series premise is this for the clones and the galaxy as a whole having to deal with the sudden rise of the Empire. The Jedi have been wiped out, Palpatine rules as a tyrannical fascist, and clones are quickly given the boot by the Empire. The Batch themselves quickly defect from the new totalitarian state and are forced to go on the run as mercenaries.
  • The Season 2 finale has this again, big-time. The series has mostly revolved around the crew doing mercenary work for Cid, and though their relationship with her deteriorated over the course of the season, they had no choice but to return to her for medical treatment after a mission that saw the death of Tech, no less. The moment they get there, they're immediately betrayed by Cid to Doctor Hemlock. Ord Mantell, the home base of much of the series, is no longer safe and Cid can no longer be trusted, and the crew is forced to flee once again.
• One Degree of Separation:
  • The Bad Batch worked with Caleb at the Battle of Kaller and helped him escape Order 66, and he would later go on to work with their fellow brother and friend, Rex.
  • Likewise, the Bad Batch helps Hera rescue her parents Cham and Eleni, so one day, she'll also work with Caleb and Rex (and even fall in love with the former).
  • Fennec Shand ends up saving Omega's life, and thirty years later, Fennec's life would be saved by Boba Fett, Omega's genetic brother.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Like the Bad Batch, Omega is an enhanced Jango clone. What her enhancements are is currently unknown.
• Palette Swap: According to the model sheet for the voorpaks, their models are taken straight from Star Wars Resistance, but obviously with the textures altered.
• Pet the Dog: Nala Se of all people helping the rest of Bad Batch and Omega escape Kamino, and later goes out of her way to try to ensure her safety given Lama Su’s designs for her.
• Prequel: The show is chronologically set before Rebels and The Mandalorian since Fennec Shand, Saw Gerrera, and Captain Rex appear in the official trailer. The first episode itself further confirms this by having the Bad Batch meet Depa Billaba and her padawan Caleb Dume, aka Kanan Jarrus.
• Quality over Quantity: A recurring debate between the Kaminoans and Imperial officers like Tarkin and Rampart, whether to continue breeding clone troopers for the Imperial Army versus recruiting natural born humans to take their place. Clone troopers may be better soldiers, but the Empire can recruit legions of replacements at a fraction of the cost (which is ironic considering this is exactly the outlook taken by the Separatists' droid army, who the Clones just finished fighting against), and they’d be more readily available to deploy. Even the Bad Batch finds out that while they may be elite clones, even they will get worn down by large numbers
• Recurring Element:
  • Omega is the Audience Surrogate Kid Sidekick who serves as the team's little sibling or adoptive child as well as their Morality Pet, just like Ahsoka, Ezra, and Grogu.
  • Continuing from The Clone Wars, the Kaminoans are trying to keep the clone industry relevant to the Empire because of War for Fun and Profit, one of the recurring plot themes in the previous show.
  • Once the war hits its peak, one of the heroes conflicts with the others over their beliefs over who is right (which is partially not their fault due to brainwashing/propaganda) and ends up having a Face–Heel Turn, culminating with them joining the bad guys over staying with their comrades. Though personally praised by their superiors, seen as a promising soldier, and being promoted to a leadership position over their own squad, they come to realize from the Empire/First Order's lack of comradeship and humanity to civilians and their own people that Being Evil Sucks and that there is no love here. Are we talking about Tam or Crosshair?
  • People joining the Imperial military not because they were strong believers in the cause (at least initially), but because it was the only way to escape poverty. Just ask ES-01, Tam, Rucklin, and Agent Tierny.
• Retcon: A Broad Strokes of the first couple of issues of the Star Wars: Kanan comic happen in the first episode, with the Bad Batch being retconned in and being involved in Caleb's escape.
• Saved by Canon:
  • Recurring characters including Bail Organa, Rex, Gregor, Wolffe, Saw Gerrera, and Tarkin will all survive the events of the series as they appear in projects set up until the Battle of Yavin, a good twenty or so years away from the start of this series.
  • Fennec Shand will survive the events of the series, due to her appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, which take place chronologically after this series.
  • Cad Bane made his live action debut in The Book of Boba Fett, a series chronologically set decades after this series, in the interim between Seasons 1 and 2, so, like Fennec, he won't be killed off.
• Sequel Logo in Ruins:
  • Compared to the metallic, shiny The Clone Wars logo, the logo of The Bad Batch is rusted and stripped of its color, as if to reflect the rough and bleak state the galaxy is in under the rule of the Galactic Empire, as well as the greyer and rougher nature of the titular team, while the Clone Wars reflected the Republic's decadent (if fragile) prime, and glory of the Jedi and Clone Army fighting valiantly.
  • At the beginning of the first episode, the logo of The Clone Wars (the red variation used for the final arc) is burnt away, revealing The Bad Batch logo underneath. This highlights how The Bad Batch can be viewed as a direct sequel to The Clone Wars given it frequently highlights the changes in the Clone Army.
• Sequel Series: To The Clone Wars, the show opens concurrent to the former's final arc before continuing to follow the Clone Troopers, in particular the eponymous team, under the nascent Empire.
• Series Continuity Error: Tarkin is shown in one episode with the rank pins of a Grand Moff, a rank that he won't earn (and indeed, won't exist) until the events of Tarkin five years later.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • The first episode begins with one last action sequence featuring B1 battle droids with their usual comedic shenanigans, backed up with the Narrator introducing the scene as he always has. It's only after the Bad Batch wipes them out that Order 66 is initiated, and then things get a whole lot darker from there. In the following episodes, they have the logo simply appearing alongside a music cue followed by the episode title, the style used by the more serious live-action shows like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, and no Narrator recap.
  • Cid's two regulars are absent from her bar in the Season 2 finale, a prelude to her betrayal of the gang and how Ord Mantell will be revealed to no longer be a safe haven for the crew.
• Shout-Out: The spelling of Cid's name (with a C, rather than an S) is one to Final Fantasy, where each game has a character named Cid (or is called as an initialism of the name Cidolfus in two different games).
• Small Role, Big Impact: Mokko, the Arc Villain of two mid-Season 2 episodes, seems like just a petty Villain of the Week and goes down rather comically. However, the system of extorting the people under his command is given considerable gravitas, and the Batch helping Mokko's workers overthrow his tyranny galvanizes them, and is pretty much the last straw they needed to be convinced to cut ties with Cid, as they realize she's their Mokko. These events later have dire ramifications for the season finale leading to Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
• So Last Season: Kamino struggles to keep the clone project relevant as the newly formed Galactic Empire calls for more conscripted recruits.
• Stacked Characters Poster: The poster has all major characters stacked up in a column.
• Team Title: The name of course refers to the special squad of Clone Troopers.
• That Man Is Dead: A governmental example. The Empire justifies screwing over Kamino and backing out of the contract because their contract was with the Republic, which doesn't exist any more.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After Order 66 kicks in, all the clones get collectively more short-tempered, impersonal and stand-offish, even outside of combat. Crosshair likewise becomes almost single-minded in following his orders, unlike the rest of the batch who retain their independence.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: In a variant of Species Loyalty, the team usually uses stun blasts when fighting Imperial Clone Troopers.
• Transplant: Echo started as a recurring character in The Clone Wars before joining the team in the "Bad Batch" arc.
• Trailers Always Spoil: While Crosshair returning to his squad was to be expected following his Heel–Face Turn, the trailer for the third season has a few Freeze-Frame Bonus scenes where you can see him in his clone armor with Hunter and Wrecker. The trailer also gives away how Omega and Crosshair escape from Mount Tantiss by stealing an Imperial Rho-class shuttle.
• Truth in Television:
  • Omega has blonde hair, implied to be genetic. In the live action movies, Jango and the other male clones are portrayed by Maori actor Temuera Morrison. It is actually possible for Pacific Islanders to have naturally blonde hair, although this is very rare. Also, Morrison has Irish and Scottish ancestry as well and his sister Taini Morrison was blonde.
  • Fennec looks the same as she will about thirty years later in The Mandalorian, which isn't unbelievable considering Ming-Na Wen also doesn't look like she's aged since about 1995, the debut of her Star-Making Role in ER.
• Underground Railroad: Rex will have been telling the truth in Rebels; he didn't join the Rebellion. Instead, he's working with other free clones (Gregor, Echo, etc.) to rescue clones as they begin to defect from the Empire.
• Villain World: This series takes place at the birth of the Galactic Empire's rule over the entire Galaxy.
• Voodoo Shark: In-universe example. The Batch's confusion regarding Order 66 receives an answer when they are told the reg troopers have been ordered to wipe out the Jedi Order in response to the Order committing treason. Crosshair under the influence of his inhibitor chip says that explains everything, while an incredulous Hunter replies it doesn't even begin to explain things.
• Wham Episode:
  • The Season 2 mid-season event consisting of "The Clone Conspiracy" and "Truth and Consequences": Admiral Rampart is used by Palpatine as a scapegoat for the Empire’s genocide of Kamino, but Palpatine uses the incident to push Rampart’s defense bill through the Senate, finally signing the legislation that officially begins the process of replacing clones with stormtroopers. With the fate of all clones now gravely threatened, Echo leaves the Bad Batch to join Rex’s underground network to aid their brothers, devastating Omega.
  • The Season 2 finale Plan 99: Tech sacrifices himself to allow the rest of the squad to escape Eriadu. They flee back to Ord Mantell, only for Cid to sell them out to Dr. Hemlock. This resulted in the capture of Omega, who was taken to Hemlock's lab (a location still unknown to the squad), where she discovered not only Crosshair but another female clone of Jango Fett, Emerie Karr.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian:
  • As soon as he and the others find out the group Tarkin wants to kill has civilians (and kids) mixed in, Hunter decides to let Saw's group go.
  • In Episode 3, ES-01, one of the enlisted troopers under Crosshair's command, is shown to be unwilling to kill the same group of captured civilians, suggesting they instead arrest them and bring them in for questioning. Crosshair promptly executes him for disobeying his orders, showing just how far gone he is. The other Elite Squad Troopers get the message and proceed to murder the civilians.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: On a large and non-lethal scale, Palpatine and the rest of the Galactic Empire make arrangements to phase out the Clone Troopers following the end of the Clone Wars. They intend to replace them with regular human recruits who would eventually become the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps.

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"Good soldiers follow orders..."