Review: ‘The Bad Batch’ Episode 12 – ‘The Outpost’ Is a Moral Reckoning
Kevin Kiner’s dark synth tones are back and so is our boy, Crosshair. Fans waiting patiently for Crosshair to see the fault in his misguided loyalty to the Empire, may finally rest easy. We’re introduced to another new Imperial villain in Lieutenant Nolan, as well as a new clone character, Mayday. Both will play central roles in tipping Crosshair’s morality scales in this episode.
Now that the Defense Recruitment Bill has passed in the Senate, the clones are officially being phased out and Crosshair finds himself on increasingly shaky ground. Bleak, but still action-packed, this episode will delight fans of season 2 episode 3 The Solitary Clone.
Buckle up, folks. This one is a bumpy ride.
Spoilers ahead…
We begin the episode on Coruscant at the Imperial Inspectorate HQ, formerly Republic Center for Military Operations, and witness through Crosshair’s perspective a troop of clones being forcibly retired. In the background, stormtroopers flow in. Enter Lieutenant Nolan and our “mission of the week.” Nolan, Crosshair, and a troop of stormtroopers are being sent to an Imperial depot on Barton-4 to guard, as Nolan puts it, “high value cargo” until it is shipped off world. We’ll come back to this high value cargo later.
The Bad Batch writers continue to offer no subtlety with the Imperial villains in the show. Nolan is hilariously devoid of compassion, totally incompetent, and slave to the Kafka-esque rules of the Imperial military, chastising Crosshair for not being “in uniform” with only his helmet off. When we arrive on Barton-4, Nolan’s toxic behavior is only amplified when he meets the calm, take-no-crap attitude of Commander Mayday. We learn that Mayday’s men have been stationed on Barton-4 for nearly a year guarding the depot from raiders and losing almost all of their men in the process. The design team did an excellent job here of displaying the difference between the stormtroopers shiny, unblemished uniforms against Mayday and his men’s uniforms, which are beaten, dirty, patched up, and modified for warmth.
Let’s talk about Barton-4 for a minute. This austere, snow-swept planet is the perfect metaphor for Crosshair’s mental state. Cold, lonely and barely fit for human habitation. As the men face dangerous attacks from both raiders and environment, so too, will Crosshair be forced to reconcile this last desperate attack on his humanity. Above, we see the not so creatively named, ice vulture, circling overhead. Mayday remarks, “Vicious creatures, but you have to admire them. They find a way to survive.” A symbol for whatever salvageable compassion Crosshair has left, threatening to sweep in on the destruction of his Imperial identity at last.
Shortly after their arrival, the depot is under attack from local raiders. There’s an odd moment here as Crosshair scans the area looking for the raiders through his infrared lens attachment, a bomb goes off within his field of vision and seems to briefly blind him. Upset and disoriented, he throws off his helmet and struggles to regain his vision and composure before shooting one of the raiders. I know this can be explained by the bright flash from the bomb through the infrared lens, but I have to imagine Crosshair has seen explosions through his infrared lens before. Even ones he wasn’t expecting. It seems like they intentionally wanted to call our attention to this reaction. Is this symptomatic of a more serious mental health condition, such as PTSD?
We find out that the wounded raider escaped through a hidden tunnel in the mountain. The question of what exactly the troops here are protecting gets harder to ignore.
Back at the depot, Mayday solemnly adds the helmets of his last two men, Hexx and Veetch, to the grim collection already gathered on a stack of crates. This grim memorial is reminiscent of Ahsoka and Rex’s clone trooper graveyard in the season 7 finale of The Clone Wars.
Lieutenant Nolan orders Crosshair and Mayday to retrieve the stolen crates alone. They enter the hidden tunnel, and Crosshair steps on a landmine. Mayday quickly goes to work calmly disarming the landmine, and uses this opportunity to get to know Crosshair, asking him about his squad. Contrary to Crosshair’s previous policy on interacting with “Regs” in The Clone Wars and season 1 of The Bad Batch, he engages with Mayday. All that’s left, the two are becoming to rely on one another.
After Crosshair and Mayday’s attack on the raider camp smashes the crates and reveals their contents, Mayday receives a blow more wounding than any blaster fire. The “high value cargo” which his entire squad has sacrificed their lives for is stormtrooper armor. That’s it. Just gear. Even Crosshair finds it difficult to ignore this shocking contempt for human life on behalf of the Empire.
The previous attack on the raider camp causes an avalanche and Crosshair and Mayday barely survive. Or, in other words, the newfound revelation of the Empire’s cruelty towards the clones in the face of unwavering loyalty leads to a massive mental shift for Crosshair. His former identity now firmly buried under tons of compacted snow. The ice vulture nears.
When Crosshair and Mayday make a labored return to the depot, they are met with malice and apathy. Lieutenant Nolan refuses to retrieve a medic to save Mayday’s life, and Crosshair watches him die on the platform. The straw has officially broken the camel’s back. Crosshair calls to Lieutenant Nolan and shoots him point blank, killing both Nolan and his own Imperial loyalty. Crosshair fans rejoice.
The episode ends with Crosshair being cared to by none other than Dr. Emerie Karr, assistant to Dr. Hemlock, now stationed on Mount Tantiss. We don’t know if Crosshair is on Mount Tantiss or if he soon will be, but if Emerie is around, Dr. Hemlock is not far behind. It seems likely that Dr. Hemlock found out about Crosshair from Lama Su and swooped in to recover Crosshair from the grips of Imperial justice for his own designs. Will Crosshair assist the team at Mount Tantiss in recovering Omega to use as leverage against Nala Se? I believe Crosshair’s moral scales have been irrevocably tipped in the right direction. My hope now is that the rest of The Bad Batch can get to Crosshair before Dr. Hemlock decides he’s useless.
While we wait, check out our review of last week’s episode.
When she isn't watching her friends and family's eyes glaze over at the mention of The Clone Wars, she's at the park with her dog, Melvin, or on the couch with a book in one hand and a drink in the other. Physically, she lives in Ohio; spiritually, she lives in Naboo.
