“The Bad Batch” Season 2, Episode 11 Review: “Metaphormosis”
With five episodes left in the season, “The Bad Batch” heard fan pleas and FINALLY gave an episode full of excitement and suspense.
The episode opens on Mount Tantiss, the mysterious Imperial headquarters teased at the end of season one and derived from Timothy Zahn’s “Thrawn” legends trilogy. Imperial doctors are trying to persuade Kaminoan doctor Nala Se to help them with another mysterious cloning project.
Aboard the Marauder, the Batch and Cid argue her abandonment in the last two episodes, but they agree to pillage a ship for her for money. When they arrive, they find the ship in shambles with all of the power off. While Tech works on it, Hunter, Wrecker and Omega discover a Kaminoan cloning center onboard.
Fans of “The Clone Wars” will remember the Zillo Beast, and fans of “The Bad Batch” will enjoy how the monster attacks the Batch, escapes and grows bigger with the more electricity it consumes. Easter eggs!
While the Batch goes to protect the villagers, the Empire comes in and removes them so they swear to secrecy. An Imperial ship downs the Zillo Beast and keeps it in captivity.
Tech scrambles some data off of the ship and reveals that the Empire was going to try to use the impenetrable skin of the Zillo Beat to make armor for the new stormtroopers, and Hunter tells him to send the data to Echo and Rex (cameos, please!).
The episode ends with the disgraced and imprisoned Kaminoan prime minister Lama Su’s arrival at Mount Tantiss, where he reveals to the Empire that they need to find Omega in order to really reach Nala Se.
This episode was just awesome in so many ways.
After so many mediocre episodes of the Batch going on silly, goofy little adventures, the show FINALLY gave fans another conspiracy-esque type of mission.
The “Star Wars” universe is so large, yet it can be tied back together again. After watching this episode, I went back to “The Clone Wars” and re-watched “The Zillo Beast” and “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back” from season two, just to catch myself up on the lore.
The end of the latter episode shocked me. When the Republic transports the dead original Zillo Beast off of Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine pulls the doctor aside and gives her orders to clone the beast.
It’s insane that the directors of the show would remember a loophole from season two of a show that has expanded so largely over the years in two episodes that weren’t really central to the plot, which makes this episode of “The Bad Batch” so great.
This episode also felt like the first four episodes of season six, where Fives discovers the chips in the clones’ brains and is ultimately killed because of it. Tech knows that there’s something like that going on, and with what Omega knows about Kaminoan cloning, makes the right decision and passes the information on.
Ending the episode by reinforcing Omega’s importance to the story is so crucial, especially since it’s felt like this season has moved largely away from it due to… everything else going on. If the Empire finds a way to use Omega to get information out of Nala Se, the galaxy at large will have to pay a serious price.
Rating: 4.5/5
*Fun Easter Egg after the fact of the review: One of the clone commandos who appears next to the doctor on Mount Tantiss is Scorch from the video game “Star Wars: Republic Commando!”*
Adrianna Gallucci is a first-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact her, please email amg7989@psu.edu.
