‘The Bad Batch’ Season 3, Episode 5 Review: Crosshair and the Squad Have Some Issues to Sort Out
With Crosshair and Omega back with the rest of the squad, there was undoubtedly going to be some tension. The distrust and bad faith run deep between Hunter and Crosshair.
In the episode titled “The Return,” that mistrust comes to an affront as Crosshair and Hunter are forced to work things out if they want to move forward. The episode also features a return to a memorable location and a spicy alien monster that I highly enjoyed.
Spoilers below …
Episode 5 of season 3 addresses “the elephant in the room” right away. Even though Crosshair helped Omega get to safety, Hunter still doesn’t trust him. There’s a lot that’s happened since the two last saw each other on Kamino, and Crosshair isn’t the same person since then. Seeing Crosshair interact and butt heads with Hunter again was easily the highlight of this episode. It’s amazing seeing these two go back and forth, as Crosshair wants to earn back the trust of his leader, but Hunter is reluctant to trust him again. It always feels like the two are one step away from attacking one another, and that’s the best part.
To gain Hunter’s trust, Crosshair suggests returning to his old outpost. It’s the same cold stronghold where he killed his old commanding officer. This was one of my favorite locations and episodes from season 2, so returning to it was a delight. Seeing Crosshair memorialize his fallen comrades shows how far he’s come. It feels as though Crosshair’s journey from a delusional soldier to a man who now wants to make amends is finally nearing its satisfying conclusion.
As the squad retrieves data from Nala Se’s tablet, the group gets attacked by a Dune sandwo — uhh, I mean — snowworm. I can’t help but laugh at the timing of it all (I even saw Dune: Part Two right before this). The Bad Batch certainly loves including goofy — almost parody-like — monsters. Whether it be drawing inspiration from Godzilla (the Zillo Beast) or the million other different plant-like monsters, the various creatures help to keep it entertaining, and it’s the same here as well.
There’s still a lot more to go in the season. We still haven’t seen Asajj Ventress, Fennec Shand, and possibly some of the other clones like Rex. And now that Crosshair and Hunter’s beef is mostly squashed, I think it’s time to bring in one of those heavy hitters to help get the story into its next phase. But for episode 5, I enjoyed it for its heartfelt reconciliatory moments that finally helped tape the squad back together.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
