Another episode of The Bad Batch is out, and it’s everything we could’ve hoped for. Per usual, there
will be spoilers for the episode in this video, so if you haven’t seen the episode yet,
go do so. That’s an order, trooper. Well guys, Gregor’s back, and it looks like
the plot of The Bad Batch is finally starting to come together. Today’s episode gave us
more insight into the situation on Kamino, more character development for the
Bad Batch, and most importantly, more clones who seem to have lost their way - or
found it, rather. We’re finally getting a good look at what our boy Rex has been doing behind
the scenes this whole time, and in this video, we’re gonna give you our thoughts on what
he’s planning and what’s coming next. First things first, because we know people
will ask - yes, that was indeed Scorch in that one fight sequence. It’s good to see
some old clone characters being brought back, even in passing. Scorch wasn’t the only clone
commando to feature in this episode, of course. Gregor played a major role in last night’s
story, and he may well have a role to play in the rest of the series, too. This was
hardly a surprise; we’ve known that Gregor hooked up with Rex after the end of the
Clone Wars since *Star Wars Rebels*. Still, it’s good to see him back - even if his voice
is annoying now. Can’t have everything, I guess. Gregor’s appearance in last night’s episode
sheds some new light on the actions of another of *The Bad Batch*’s familiar characters.
Captain Rex has been a bit of a secretive figure in the show thus far; he’s bumped
shoulders with the Bad Batch a few times, but mostly he’s been off doing his own thing,
which he’s been careful to keep under wraps. It doesn’t take much extrapolation to figure out that
his pet project has been making a network of clone deserters, and this most recent episode pretty
much confirms that. However, we’ve got reason to believe that Rex’s deserter network is a lot more
extensive than we originally would’ve guessed. As we’ve told you guys from the beginning, the
clones haven’t had their personalities completely overridden by the inhibitor chips, and as the
case of Captain Howzer proves, clones deserting the Empire is a much bigger possibility than you
might have previously thought. As it turns out, clones didn’t even need their inhibitor
chips removed to see that the Empire wasn’t the Republic they were trained to
protect, though that certainly helped. They still had mostly-free agency, and plenty of
clones used that agency to desert the Empire. It started with Rex and the Bad Batch,
and we’ve since seen Howzer and Gregor, two clones who likely hadn’t had
their chips removed yet, join them. More clones, surely, are soon to come.
The likelihood would have increased as it became clear that the Empire was
replacing the Grand Army of the Republic. Provided that the last clones weren’t gonna
be rounded up and euthanized before they learn secondhand, far more troopers
would surely have ended up with doubts about the Empire once it became
clear that the Empire had doubts about them. We know that Captain Rex has been making the
rounds with known clone deserters already. He stopped in to check on Cut Lawquane, he
linked up with the Bad Batch, and, of course, he was monitoring Gregor as well. We know that
Commander Wolffe is going to join the crew soon, if he hasn’t already, as Rex, Wolffe, and
Gregor were all together in *Rebels*. But they surely aren’t the only ones. Rex has been
far too busy to just end up with two recruits, and if the Ryloth incident was any indication,
there were far more clones out there *to* recruit than just those two clones as well.
We don’t know how big Rex’s network is yet, but it’s a fair bet that it will end up
being sizable, at least by the season finale. The big unknown is what exactly Rex
is planning. From what we’ve seen, he’s got quite the network of contacts, at the
very least. He was tuned in enough to pick up Gregor’s beacon, after all, and he had the likes
of the Martez Sisters on his contact list too. Even if his network of deserters isn’t all that
big, he’s got some serious logistics going on. What he’s building might even be the start
of the network a certain orange-skinned, head-tailed former Jedi will use to build up the
Rebel Alliance a decade and a half down the line. Perhaps Rex was the first Fulcrum, so to speak
- or perhaps he’s got something else going on. Now, in a few of our previous videos about *The
Bad Batch*, we discussed the possibility of a Kaminoan clone rebellion, like in Legends.
Clearly, the writers of the series have been building up to something like that. This
most recent episode continues that trend, showing a worsening of relations
between the Empire and Kamino and the Kaminoans’ steady realization
that they were going to have to act sooner rather than later. Whatever their plans
were, the Kaminoans are looking to escalate them. Of course, this episode also showed us that,
whatever the Kaminoans planned on doing, they’re not going to be able to take the Empire by
surprise with it. Dialogue between Admiral Rampart and Crosshair suggested that the Empire might
have plans to sterilize Kamino, much like we know they’ll sterilize Geonosis when the Death
Star is moved from that system. Furthermore, the Kaminoans’ activities were discovered by the
Empire in this past episode. Rampart now knows that the Kaminoans were trying to evacuate their
scientists, and he and his men appear to have put a stop to it. They’ve also either imprisoned or
executed Lama Su, the Kaminoan Prime Minister, meaning that the likelihood of the Kaminoans
making an impactful effort to rebel is doubtful. But we might end up seeing a clone
rebellion anyway - just not from Kamino. It’s pretty clear from the writing, at least,
that there’s some sort of clone resistance coming. The primary message of *The Bad Batch* has
been that good soldiers think for themselves, and don’t blindly follow orders that they know
to be wrong. We’ve seen this in everything from the Bad Batch’s desertion to the prevalence of
clone deserters to Omega’s constant disobedience of Hunter’s orders. There’s no question
about it - there will be a clone uprising, and we believe Captain Rex
will be leading the charge. There’s no telling yet what form this uprising
will take. Maybe the clones will take after Howzer and put on a brief strike before the new
stormtroopers come to put them down. Maybe we’ll see more cases like Cut Lawquane’s, where clones
cut and run, leaving the Empire behind. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to see the clones turn
off the frakking stun settings on their blasters and burn a few well-deserved new holes
in some Imperial officers. I mean, seriously - the Bad Batch *knows* that they’re
not fighting regs anymore, and yet they’re still sticking with the stun guns at every turn. Surely
they know that the cure for fascism is a nice warm blaster bolt? In seriousness, though, it’d be
really nice if the clones pulled a sort of reverse Order 66 on the Imperials, and see how they like
a little treason. Only time will tell, of course. However, no matter what form
the coming clone uprising takes, we should keep in mind that it’s gonna fail. It
doesn’t matter how big Rex’s network gets - over a decade and a half later, he’s still gonna
end up on an AT-TE in the middle of nowhere, with just Gregor and Wolffe to keep him company,
and the Empire still Empire-ing in the background. Whatever’s coming, it’s probably not going
to change the course of galactic history, at least immediately. It’ll probably
be more like a last stand for the good old Grand Army of the Republic, an
honorable but fruitless endeavour. Well, that’s a bit of a depressing note to
end on. Look on the bright side, though: we’re probably gonna see more familiar faces
from The Clone Wars in the next few episodes. But what do you think? What’s your theory
about how this season’s gonna end? There are only two episodes left after this, and
we’ll see you when the next one comes out. In the meantime, feel free to post
your thoughts in the comments below.
