Serial Consumer celebrates and interrogates Evan’s relationship to franchised media and his addiction to purchasing its licensed products.

The subtitle to Finale (Part 1) is apparently Return to Kamino, which I suppose is a big spoiler but also what everyone assumed would happen at the end of Season One. The Batch had to eventually return from whence they came at some point to tie up loose-ends regarding Omega’s importance and the Empire’s scuttling of the Clone regiments. Unfortunately, Finale (Part 1) mostly underscores the relatively disappointing direction most of the larger ongoing stories have taken in the back half of The Bad Batch‘s inaugural season; none of that is really addressed at all.

My disappointment comes with the way in which most of the Imperial action with the Clones has taken place off-screen and sans drama. At this point it seems the answer to “What happened to the Clones?” boils down to: The Empire sent most of the Regs around the galaxy to serve out their lives in relative anonymity while keeping Commandos back to train their new TK Trooper legions. Hardly the dramatic answer I was hoping for or imagined when a show about post-Clone Wars Clone was announced … or even when the first half of this season touched on those stories so well.

As part of this story, Omega returns to the secret lab where she and the Batch were grown, but we still have no real answers about what makes her special.

For all the larger story problems I have, I’m pretty happy with the character work this time around.

It was nice to bring the Crosshair story to a head, especially with him confronting them in the training zone where the Batch grew as a team. It was dramatically satisfying and appropriately fraught. I believe Crosshair’s hurt and feelings of abandonment. He truly believes in the Empire, and his extended hand echoes the importance of moral choices in the Star Wars universe. An extended hand is a key motif in this franchise, and deployed well here. It never gets old.

Bringing Crosshair and Hunter head-to-head is the inter-family drama the show has so desperately lacked for the last half-dozen episodes. Crosshair revealing that he removed his inhibitor chip (When? It doesn’t matter.) and that his service to the Empire is due to his own belief in their strength is such a great turn for the character. Given the events of this episode, it feels like maybe Crosshair will be back with his family again long-term. I welcome that ongoing tension as the show transitions into Season 2.

What I’ve Bought

I was driving down I-70 back from Columbus, Ohio, when we passed a Target just outside of Dayton, Ohio. I’d seen that some Targets had started stocking the Deluxe Wrecker figure that day, so I checked the App and saw they were in stock (I was in the passenger seat, chill out). We couldn’t stop so I alerted my brother, who was an hour behind us. He had me put in an in-store pickup for the figure. About an hour later, he dropped in and picked up the Deluxe Wrecker. This is my first Black Series figure in what feels like ages despite a legion of pre-orders that seems to never arrive. It’s a great figure and I can’t wait to get the rest of them, although Hasbro has really been dragging its feet on announcing Omega and Echo. I don’t really understand why.

What I’d Like

Nothing especially new struck my fancy in this episode, which is a problem with The Bad Batch. Why isn’t this Star Wars product making me want to buy anything week to week?