Bad Batch Declassified: 5 Highlights from “Cut and Run”
The Bad Batch // MAY 10, 2021
In the second episode, Clone Force 99 learns what it’s really like to be on the other side of the new Imperial law.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is here, chronicling the adventures of the elite squad Clone Force 99 following the end of the Clone War. In Bad Batch Declassified, we’ll explore our favorite moments from each episode of the series, available only on Disney+. Armor up and join us for the ride.
Spoiler warning: This article discusses details and plot points from the Star Wars: The Bad Batch episode, “Cut and Run.”
Cut Lawquane? That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
In “Cut and Run,” Lawquane — the military deserter and Republic fugitive who once helped Captain Rex confront his own individuality — is back. As one of the few clones who wasn’t forced to conform to Order 66 through an implanted inhibitor chip, Cut and his family represent the past and the potential future for the newly renegade Clone Force 99. After years of flouting the rules, the Bad Batch and their newest refugee Omega must find their way in a changing galaxy and decide if the child is better off with the elite soldiers or elsewhere. Here are five highlights from the episode, now streaming on Disney+.
1. “That…would be dirt.”
Omega reacts to Saleucami like Rey seeing Ahch-To for the first time. After spending her entire life on the aquatic world of Kamino, the Outer Rim has much to offer from a variety of natural wonders to the peace that can only come from being largely untouched by the trauma of the Clone Wars. And as Omega explores the terrain, so different from the world she knew, she greets it with a mix of curiosity and pure, unadulterated joy.
2. Cut Lawquane lives.
His hair may be a little scruffier, but his face remains the same. First introduced in the Season 2 episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, “The Deserter,” revisiting the former clone soldier and his family is a fitting callback that helps to connect the two series more closely. Bonus: We get to see his wife, Suu, and their two children, now a little more grown up than before.
3. Attack of the nexu.
It’s sweet to see Omega learning how to just be a kid for once, instead of whatever function she was created to perform for the Kaminoan scientists. But along the way she’s bound to make some mistakes. Wandering outside the fenced yard and alerting a wild nexu to a potential kill could have been one of her first and her last — if not for the watchful eye and elite skills of Hunter and the rest of her personal security detail in Clone Force 99.
4. The birth of the chain code.
It’s a term fans of The Mandalorian know well, but with events unfolding at the dawn of the Empire, The Bad Batch holds a unique place in Star Wars lore. The series not only discusses chain codes in more detail, it gives fans a glimpse at the abrupt change settling over the galaxy as the means of tracking individual citizens is put into use.
5. Omega’s goodbye.
We’re not crying, you’re crying!
Associate Editor Kristin Baver is the author of the book Skywalker: A Family At War, host of This Week! In Star Wars, and an all-around sci-fi nerd who always has just one more question in an inexhaustible list of curiosities. Sometimes she blurts out “It’s a trap!” even when it’s not. Follow her on Twitter @KristinBaver.
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