Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Decommissioned”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Bad Batch embark on another mission for their new friend/crime boss Cid. Their task is to infiltrate a droid decommissioning facility in order to obtain the head of a tactical droid before it can be wiped clean. There’s a whole lot of valuable data these droids possess, which is why Cid is eager to have it.

Unfortunately, she isn’t the only one who wants that tactical droid. While mid-heist, the clones run into the Martez sisters. Rafa and Trace are after the prize as well, although perhaps for more noble reasons. After a long series of narrow escapes, they have to work together to get out alive — and the clones give the info to Rafa.

Our Take:

The sixth episode of Disney’s Bad Batch series starts off pretty well, building on the events of last week with an exciting challenge that’s sure to be a thrill ride. However, the plot quickly gets derailed when the Martez sisters’ join the scene, and an episode with a lot of potential turns into a pretty mediocre series of events.

I was excited about the idea of clones having to retrieve a tactical droid. They’re always been some of the creepiest machines due to their ability to learn and improve with new data, so I was hoping for a big tactical droid/clone standoff. Instead, we get a handful of forgettable security police droids for the Bad Batch to gun down as they exchange bland verbal banter with Rafa and Trace.

Introducing these two Clone Wars characters into the Bad Batch felt a little weird. Having bigger names like Tarkin show up made sense but it seems less likely that the Martez’s would just happen to be the rival gang after the tactical droid, especially since we know they aren’t that great at sneaking around and stealing stuff if their arc in the Clone Wars was anything to go by. I didn’t mind seeing them again, but I probably would’ve rather seen some cool new characters rather than a pair that never really stood out to me in their episodes with Ahsoka.

Speaking of Ahsoka, it looks like we may get a more in-depth look into who Rafa and Trace are working for next week, as Hunter makes the decision to give the data to them because of their so-called noble cause of using the information to fight back against the new Empire. Their contact probably isn’t Ahsoka herself at this point, but perhaps someone like Bail Organa could perhaps be helping orchestrate this act of resistance against Palpatine’s new dictatorship.

Decommissioned had some interesting things going for it. Omega learning more about how to use her weapon was fun, and the tactical droid mission overall was a good idea. But the conflict always felt very surface level without any real danger or intrigue, and the dialogue was kind of cringeworthy at times. (Some might find that Echo joke to be so bad it’s good, but I contend that it was just bad.) Most of all, though, this episode was just boring, which is maybe the worst thing an episode can be. Hopefully things pick up next week with the arrival of the rebels.